Apologies for the radio silence lately, I’ve been working, a LOT. Three nights last week I came home, went to the hotel, and worked until 10 or 11pm. Time’s flying and there’s a lot of work to do, but it’s coming along quite well.
The website I’m getting up and running hit a rather welcomed snag: the non-profit who offered to build it for us for free is really strained and they couldn’t promise us they’d get it done by September when we need it. I was pretty concerned about the final product considering they were doing it for free and were very busy, so I was relieved to pursue paid options for development. So I’ve been scrambling for two weeks to find someone, figure out the criteria for making a decision, and find a way to get about $10k of work done for $3500. Fortunately we finally moved forward with someone yesterday that I’m really excited about.
I’ve also reached my preliminary conclusions on the leapfrogging technology question and I’m pretty pleased with how that work has come along. I really drew on my knowledge of the technology space from Google, but applied the concepts I learned at Harvard to put the pieces together. Based on the maturity of the market, the current infrastructure, and the activities of others in the space, I concluded that there is a real and pressing need not for aid to build infrastructure, but for policy to coordinate investments and determine what roles the private sector, government, and outside support (i.e. foundations we work with) should play. Once a policy is in place, our foundation partners could support the areas designated for public funding. But without an overall plan, anything we could pursue would almost certainly be inefficient at best and harmful to the market in the long run at worst.
This policy is well out of the scope of the project I’ve been assigned, but it could potentially become my thesis next year. That would require both me deciding it’s what I want to do my thesis on and support in the government for not just the policy but also for me to work on it. I’m navigating some pretty political waters with this one, so the road might end here.
I’m very grateful to have worked on this technology piece. The other projects I’m working at are important and often interesting, but I could have done them well years ago. It doesn’t take years of tech experience and $40k in Harvard’s pocket to get a website up and running, but I do feel uniquely qualified to assess the technology question and I’m very happy to have had the opportunity to apply myself to it.
The website I’m getting up and running hit a rather welcomed snag: the non-profit who offered to build it for us for free is really strained and they couldn’t promise us they’d get it done by September when we need it. I was pretty concerned about the final product considering they were doing it for free and were very busy, so I was relieved to pursue paid options for development. So I’ve been scrambling for two weeks to find someone, figure out the criteria for making a decision, and find a way to get about $10k of work done for $3500. Fortunately we finally moved forward with someone yesterday that I’m really excited about.
I’ve also reached my preliminary conclusions on the leapfrogging technology question and I’m pretty pleased with how that work has come along. I really drew on my knowledge of the technology space from Google, but applied the concepts I learned at Harvard to put the pieces together. Based on the maturity of the market, the current infrastructure, and the activities of others in the space, I concluded that there is a real and pressing need not for aid to build infrastructure, but for policy to coordinate investments and determine what roles the private sector, government, and outside support (i.e. foundations we work with) should play. Once a policy is in place, our foundation partners could support the areas designated for public funding. But without an overall plan, anything we could pursue would almost certainly be inefficient at best and harmful to the market in the long run at worst.
This policy is well out of the scope of the project I’ve been assigned, but it could potentially become my thesis next year. That would require both me deciding it’s what I want to do my thesis on and support in the government for not just the policy but also for me to work on it. I’m navigating some pretty political waters with this one, so the road might end here.
I’m very grateful to have worked on this technology piece. The other projects I’m working at are important and often interesting, but I could have done them well years ago. It doesn’t take years of tech experience and $40k in Harvard’s pocket to get a website up and running, but I do feel uniquely qualified to assess the technology question and I’m very happy to have had the opportunity to apply myself to it.
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