Obama, Iraq and social enterprise education

Lobbying for social enterprise education overseas is one aspect of our work at P-CED. In our proposal for a new faculty at Kharkiv National University we'd called on US government for support, weighing the cost against the war in Iraq:

'It is proposed that the United States of America be actively engaged in supporting this project, financially and any other way possible. Ukraine has clearly demonstrated common will for democracy. Ukraine has also unilaterally taken the first critical step to fulfill this program, thus clearly demonstrating initiative and commitment to participation required in the original Marshall Plan sixty years ago. The US side is presumably attempting to foster democracy in another country, which never expressed much interest and shows little real interest now. That of course is Iraq, where recent estimates indicate a cost of $1.5 billion per week.   

That same amount of money, spread over five years instead of one week, would more than cover the investment cost of the initial components of this project, and allow a reserve fund for creating new projects as Ukraine's intelligentsia invents them in the Center for Social Enterprise. It is proposed that Ukraine and the US provide equal portions of this amount. Ukraine is certainly able to provide that level of funding, given that projects are designed with the same fiscal discipline employed in the traditional business sector. That means they pay for themselves, one way or another

Project funding should be placed as a social-benefit fund under oversight of an independent board of directors, particularly including representatives from grassroots level Ukraine citizens action groups, networks, and human rights leaders.'

The following year with a proposal for a science education centre where Russia had once developed the H bomb, we said:

'Each core element of the national interest requires strong commitment to scientific research and education. Through scientific discovery, scientists enlist the forces of the natural world to solve many of the uniquely human problems: feeding and providing energy to a growing population, improving human health and security, taking responsibility for protecting the environment and the global ecosystem. Scientific discoveries inspire and enrich any country, teaching about the mysteries of life and the nature of the world. Ukraine's future demands investment in people, institutions and ideas. Science is an essential part of that investment, an endless and sustainable resource with extraordinary dividends. Science is also an endless resource: in advancing the frontier: knowledge of the physical and living world constantly expands. The unfolding secrets of nature provide new knowledge to address crucial challenges, often in unpredictable ways. Moreover, science fuels technology  the engine of economic growth that creates jobs, builds new industries, and improves the standard of living.

Ukrainian science should become an integrated, yet distinct, part of world science, preserving national priorities, resources and ways of their realization. Thus the most important direction of science in Ukraine as the most developed former Soviet republic is fundamental science. It is essential to the future of Ukraine to invest in fundamental research. The return on investments in fundamental science can be enormous, both through the knowledge generated and through the education of a world-class scientific and technical workforce. Discoveries in mathematics, physics, and biology and other fundamental sciences in Ukraine can seed and drive important advances in engineering, medicine, and technology, especially in view of recent political changes. In general, the level of fundamental science can be considered as one gauge of characteristics of democracy and internal social reforms, and first steps of Ukraine in this direction are promising. A primary task now is restoration of prestige to Ukrainian fundamental science as a whole, which can among other reforms in general promote Ukraine advancement into the family of developed countries.'

It would enter the US circuit via a lesser known senator Obama, serving on the Council for Foreign Relations who we wrote to in February 2008, reiterating the message about Iraq and investing in social enterprise.

'Thank you for your time and attention to this. I and others will look forward to hearing from you. I hope we continue to realize ever more fully that outside the box and inside the box have only a box in the way. We outside the box know quite a bit of what’s going on, many times in exquisite detail, perhaps in ways that those inside the box can’t quite as easily access if at all. We are grossly underfunded in favor of missiles, bombs, and ordnance, which is about 100% backwards. Now, with even the US Pentagon stating that they’ve learned their lesson in Iraq and realize (so says top US general in Iraq ten days or so ago) that winning hearts and minds is the best option, I and others shall continue to think positive and look for aid budgets and funding spigots to be opened much more for people and NGOs in silos, foxholes and trenches, insisting on better than ordnance, and who understand things and how to fix them. We can do that. We can even do it cost-effectively and with far better efficiency than the ordnance route. Welcome to our brave new world. Except it’s not so new: learn to love and respect each other first, especially the weakest, most defenseless, most voiceless among us, then figure out the rest. There aren’t other more important things to do first. This message has been around for at least two thousand years. How difficult is it for us to understand?'

By the time Obama became president elect, the US had been struck by the economic crisis and Obama declared his plans fpr a social entrepreneurship agency and a social innovation fund "paid for by ending the war in Iraq and eliminating corporate tax loopholes".

http://www.senscot.net/print_art.php?viewid=7863

Approval for isotope development and production was reported by PrimeZone news network:

"KENNEWICK, Wash., Dec 27, 2007 (PrimeNewswire via COMTEX) -- Advanced Medical Isotope Corporation of Kennewick, Wash. (AMIC) (Pink Sheets:ADMD) anticipates imminent formal approval from the United States Industrial Coalition Inc. for a Global Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP) project. This project is to develop and commercialize the innovative Alternative Method for Producing Medical Isotopes (AMP-MI) technology. During the two-year project, a neutron machine technology for the production of select medical isotopes will be designed, tested, demonstrated, and expected to be brought to commercial production. This innovative isotope production method is based on the AMP-MI technology currently under development at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology in Ukraine for producing a high neutron flux combined with an advanced target design.

The overall results of the proposed AMP-MI technology development effort will be isotope production that is much more controlled and simplified, is less costly, …"