Fellows Space

At Commonwealth Club’s book signing event in Santa Clara Convention Center, the former Senator and Vice President Candidate John Edwards talked to a roomful enthusiastic crowd about his new book Home, and how our homes shape the ways of our lives and unite us as a nation.

The last day of our trip to the east coast, we were strolling around Annapolis - the capital city of Maryland. At the Café Normandy on Main Street, I picked up a local newspaper - Bay Weekly. The following lines caught my attention:

Penetration of ICT in Rural Communities

If we build cool and cheap devices would rural communities use them? Would US$100 laptop make a difference in their lives? Can we increase the usage of computers in rural societies from nearly zero to over 50% in the coming 10 years? These are some of the questions being pondered by the world leaders and technologists.

Like most people, I want to have a good life. I like to dress myself up beautifully and elegantly, I enjoy healthy food and fine dining, I am fascinated to make my home look like an art gallery, and I love to travel around the world to see places and learn different cultures.

These days, nobody writes letters anymore. With Internet and telecommunication technologies, we have emails, IMs, and better yet, my folks in China are mostly writing SMS on mobile phones.

My dad in China, unaffected by whatever the technology, still wants to write letters to me. I would send him the pre-printed address labels so he doesn’t have to struggle to write my address in English on the envelope. Each time, I would remind him: “remember to put your own address on the upper left corner and put my address on the lower right corner of the envelope. This is the American way.”

Last week, there were many criticisms about Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and other technology companies’ submission to the Chinese government’s request to censor the information on the Internet. It has become a public concern that these companies are doing business there at the peril of human rights.

Alertnet: Hundreds feared dead in Philippine mudslide

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who had expressed concern on whether I have friends/family affected in the disaster area. Thankfully, there are none. I live on the southern part of Mindanao island in the Philippines and Leyte island is located somewhere in the middle. (map image below)

In TiE Women's Leadership Forum, Rayona Sharpnak, founder and president of Institute for Women's Leadership, brought together three panelists from industry to share with a roomful of women their successful stories as female leaders, and discuss the topics that are mostly of concern by women in their career.