Gender Equality in the Era of 'Human Augmentation': Technology Transfer for Conservation, Quality Education & Gender Equality; Case Studies from the Global South

 

A side event to the 7th Multi-stakeholder Forum on Science, Technology, and Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals (STI Forum), to be held on 5-6 May 2022 by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs - Sustainable Development.

Gihan S. Soliman 

International Curricula Educators Association

Gender Equality in the Era of 'Human Augmentation': Technology Transfer for Conservation, Quality Education & Gender Equality; Case Studies from the Global South

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Technology has surely enhanced human performance to an unprecedented level. Technology may also have its downside in that it intensifies inequality among people, genders, species, and nations. The 'Human Augmentation: The Dawn of a New Paradigm' is a recent publication by the UK Ministry of Defence designed to set the foundations for more detailed research and development of Human Augmentation. Human Augmentation [1], also known as, the Human Enhancement or Human 2.0 is not in fact a new concept. What’s new, and indeed considered a paradigm shift, is that the publication accepts Human Augmentation as a form of evolutionary advancement in the Darwinian sense (as seen in the illustration). A concept that I presented back nine years ago in a form of an Open Letter to the IUCN World Congress 2014 proposing that ‘We Are NOT just another species’ [2] and that the correction of the human taxonomic identity is way overdue; that we are rather a highly-complex kingdom of life, so to speak, comprising a biological, physical, and socioeconomic entanglement that I called the Homocybernetica [3]. The issue with the Human Augmentation perspective, though, is that it reduces the evolutionary advancement in the human organisation to a matter of ‘size’ with an implication that enhancement is guaranteed. It also represents human beings as mere users of technology and subject to its modification, disregarding the fundamental distinction as the ‘innovator’ or the maker of technology and thus overlooking the role of communication and socio-economics, as well as justice and equality in this evolution. Such disregard is alarming because technology is generally mediated by a socio-economic system deeply rooted in inequality and competition and might, if not appropriately addressed, continue to intensify injustice among people, genders and species - and that is a recipe for failure in the long run. The more viable route is to focus on the unity of kind, the role of communication, and the mobilisation of energy into our organisation through social and eco-friendly innovation not necessarily as a moral choice but simply for survival. We need to remember that the first form of technology was ‘making a fire’ and the first form of mass technology was organic agriculture and that augmentation does not necessarily make us better, more adaptive, or more efficient as the expression and illustration imply. Two study cases from Mexico (De la Chinampas) and Bolivia (PROINPA) showed alternative technology integrated successfully into the community with other non-invasive forms of technology to enhance production, social solidarity, and resilience while preserving the environment and species.

Reference List:

[1] Human Augmentation – The Dawn of a New Paradigm. 2021.A think-piece designed to set the foundation for more detailed research and development on human augmentation. Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom.

[2] G. Soliman. 2014.We are not Just another Species;An Open Letter to the IUCNWorld Park Congress 2014,Australia. International-Curricula Educators Association.Available at http://www.icea-global.org/Publications.html. Accessed on 03/05/22.

[3] G. Soliman. 2019.‘Cybernetic Recombination, on the Biology of Technology, Revisiting Linnaeus Kingdom Minerals’ in G.Soliman. 2022.The Cybernetic Animal & the Shortfall in Taxonomy.The Cybernetic Society.Available at https://cybsoc.org/?p=2206&fbclid=IwAR15hpQCu2bpGaaYULVsjjeDy3oklBA6YbZ6zksEOmi5QGXnTlNLuSuFlWA.Accessed on 03/05/22.

Science Across Egypt© - CIRCULARITY & COMPLEXITY

Since 2008 I have been working on linking science education to the community in Egypt. Many people worked on that but my programmes had two areas of distinction that have been expressed in  several articles; initiatives, books and project designs, that I produced over several years of activism.

First: Complexity

1.1. The complexity of integrated management.

1.2. The complexity of science integration: Where natural sciences meet with social sciences through the cross-curricular activities in relation to the surrounding environment.

Although I designed and own the copyrights and prototypes of my projects, they all depend on integrated management and science integration. This means that a programme cannot run totally by me or any single person. Any programme whether Science Across Egypt© ,  IPNAMME© , Sinai Sustainability Cyberneitcs Center© , Egypt's Got Talents©  and most recently the Sustainability Cybernetics Journal©  must be managed by a homogenous team of leaders from different disciplines, to produce a unique integrative task.

For example, the basic implementation team of Science Across Egypt© was:

*   Me - as an educational consultant, and Dr Ahmed Abdel Azeem. Others who contributed to the programme;
Ahmed Gheith, Scientific illustrator; Dr Mohamed Abdel Motaleb,  Nile University; Jonty Lycock, Red Sea Research; Miss Shyamaa & Israa Mahmoud and Mrs Iman Kamal, Qawmia American School Agouza and others.

* The basic implementation team of Sinai Sustainability Cybernetics Center© was me, Maged Al-Saied and Dr Waleed Sadek;

*  The basic team for  Egypt's got Talents© was me and my dear friend and great artist Khaled Hamed;

*   The basic team for implementation of the IPNAMME© project is huge and will be announced soon.

Second: Circularity

2.1. Circularity of on-going self-reform and progress.

Circularity of the on-going self-reform, based on a proposed causal circular relationship between quality education and sustainable development/protection of the environment. All the projects, in terms of mission, are meant to produce an autonomy of reform in the educational system (building a second-order cybernetic model of education for sustainable development) .

2.2. Circularity of finance:

In terms of finance, the Science Across Egypt - as an award-winning project, did not depend on extra spending on education from parents, schools, the government or any external fund - which why it won the Educating Africa Awards 2011 for entrepreneurship in education. It "pays itself".

Science Across Egypt depended in its first phase on my educational consultancy for international schools seeking accreditation in Egypt, as well as general teacher training to produce the autonomy of self-reform. Schools already pay for quality assurance and teacher training to get accredited (according to the Egyptian laws which link accreditation to licencing international school). As an educational expert in the international educational system in Egypt - due to being in (administrative) charge of the regional office of one of the American accrediting association in Egypt 2005-2007, I was hired by schools to conduct the self- study, guide their quality control process prior to accreditation and as well as the design/development of curricula/extra curricular activities. This process involved management of the school activities at the time of the self-study and a power to hire teachers as well as recruiting volunteers who were willing to give a hand.

GALLERY
LINKS TO ACTIVITIES


Worthy to make the point here that the "international-education" in Egypt - and the Middle East in general, has a different notion than the one commonly used in the West. It is of Egyptian students studying international curricula. International education is a huge business in Egypt so the  number of international schools is shockingly high but unannounced (you have to count the schools through the different accrediting organisations or know by first-hand experience as I do -  being a successful business used as a backdoor to universities to escape the difficult and highly competitive "Thanawya Amma" Egyptian high schooling. The programme also comprised other nationwide and international raising-awareness campaigns, research and publications.



Science Across Egypt Activities: Integration of sciences + community participation @ Qawmia American School 2012

 I write to wrap up an approach in education and in acknowledgement of the role of each one who collaborated either as hired or voluntarily or who is willing to collaborate in the future, but specially in acknowledgment of the role of Dr Ahmed Abdel Azeem in implementing the Science Across Egypt©  project and to thank him for what he said in  his most recent Radio interview - which I have just been forwarded, about our previous collaboration.

Unfortunately, sustainability is not separate from politics and equality issues in the Middle East.

In spite of the heavy persecution - which drove me out of Egypt March 2013 - because of my religion and my activism as a Coptic independent female*, all of the models I instituted are now alive, autonomous and thriving. It is rewarding to see the fruit of my well-documented activism blooming, even if I was denied the appreciation sometimes. However, I keep a public account and documentation of my voluntary activities and research on this blog [MY OWN EDUCATION] as a love letter for my children and next generations hopefully reading: Appreciated or not, this is (as I aspire) my modest contribution to "advancing the human organisation", with much love.


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 * 2011-2013 was a hard time for women in general and Coptic women in particular. For a Coptic independent female activist it was a hell.

a) An article about a Christian woman on the path of emigration by Dr Mostafa Alnagar March 2013
b) A presentation at the Amnesty International York (2014)on Women's day about women in Egypt at that time.