Restaurant Noma: an exquisite experience in Nordic Cuisine
by Rene Redzepi and team
Editor’s Choice : A Special Edition featuring Nordic Food Ambassador Rene Redzepi, Noma Restaurant
Chef Rene Redzepi, Denmark’s finest culinary artist; has reinvigorated Nordic culinary experience through his restaurant “Noma” a two Michelin star restaurant. The name is an acronym of the two Danish words “nordisk” (Nordic) and “mad” (food), and the restaurant is known for its reinvention and interpretation of the Nordic Cuisine.
Chef Rene, is currently one of the most influential and referenced persons on the gastronomical scene for his efforts to advance and promote the knowledge of Nordic food world- wide. It’s the entire package, from its ingredient ingenuity to flawless execution that makes Noma; a beacon of excellence and which leads to an emotive, intense, liberating way of eating, unlike any other place.
Read the article (.pdf)BUDRUS Documentary film
by Ronit Avni
Budrus is an award-winning feature documentary film about a Palestinian community organizer, Ayed Morrar, who unites local Fatah and Hamas members along with Israeli supporters in an unarmed movement to save his village of Budrus from destruction by Israel’s Separation Barrier.
Read the press-kit (.pdf)Transforming Tanzania’s Agrarian Sector through Maize Breeding
by Dr. Arnold A Mushongi
Dr. Arnold A Mushongi mentions in his report about how maize is a political crop in Tanzania & Sub Saharan Africa, a crop that was popularized in the Southern Highlands Zone between 1950s and1970s. The diversity of uses of maize decreases with level of economy of the country. The potential of the crop to boost Agrarian Economies is higher particularly in sub Saharan Africa (SSA) as maize is synonymous with food security and it is also a source of income to rural resource-poor farming communities.
The report further mentions that genetic advancement in crops contributes significantly to food security. MacRoberts (2009) reported that improved varieties are a prime catalyst to strategies use of agro-inputs and other sectors of crop development. For instance, tolerance of crops to biotic stresses would minimize use of pesticides (Robinson, 1987), whereas tolerance to biotic stresses may suggest use of less fertilizers under low soil moisture conditions (Bänzinger et al., 2000), all of which reduce costs of production to resource-poor farmers (Echarte et al., 2008) and facilitate sustainable conservation of natural resources (Duvick, 1999).
Mushongi recommends, the viable solution would be to engage private sector in the design for new maize cultivars in order to increase grain yield productivity under unpredictable production conditions.
The availability of fake inputs in the market where farmers loose money for seed, pesticides, fertilizers and labour thus perpetuating poverty to farmers who are already resource poor and produce maize under suboptimal conditions.
Smallholders are likely to be even farther from realizing yield potential, for reasons not confined to weather. One reason is that the genetic advances offered by breeding research have not been matched by agronomic practices and efficient support services for smallholders, many of whom are located in marginal areas. Byerlee and Heisey (1996) asserted that as adoption of improved maize moves into more marginal areas the effects on national yield levels are also numerically marginal. Put simply, there may be little advantage of using a hybrid if the yield potential of the farmer’s soil is less than 1 ton.
Read the article (.pdf)Innovation in Open Networks – Creative Commons, the Next Layer of Openness
by Joichi Ito
Joi talks about the explosion of innovation around the Internet is driven by an ecosystem of people who work in an open network defined by open standards. However, Joi stresses the fact that the technical ability to connect in an increasingly seamless way has begun to highlight friction and failure in the system caused by the complicated copyright system that was originally designed to “protect” innovation. Just as open network protocols created an interoperable and frictionless network, open metadata and legal standards can solve many of the issues caused by copyright and dramatically reduce the friction and cost that it currently represents.
The article further mentions that the open standards and the small pieces loosely joined had created an ecosystem of components and networks that dramatically lowered the cost of development, collaboration and delivery. This allowed people to innovate, launch, fail, connect, mashup and remix in such an efficient way and at such low cost, that the center of innovation moved from the research laboratories of the giant companies to the startup and venture capital scene in Silicon Valley.
Creative Commons provides tools for users to dedicate their works to the public domain. For some scientific data or educational resources the public domain provides the maximum flexibility and value.
Read the article (.pdf)The Power of Young
by Simon Sinek
The article talks about the power of being passionate. Simon reiterates that “There is something about youth that the more experienced often forget and don’t take advantage of – their passion. Passion is a valuable currency. Some are rich with it and some poor. Some trade it in over the course of their careers only to be left at the end of their lives with a big house and a fast car but no more passion. The youth, low on experience, are often rich in passion. More importantly, it is their passion that provides the necessary capital required to make the kind of progress that the financially rich can only look upon and drool.
Steve Jobs was 21 when he founded Apple. Mark Zuckerberg was 20 when he started Facebook. Michael Dell was 20 when his company built its first computer, Bill Gates was 20 when Microsoft became Microsoft. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were 25 when they founded Google and Richard Branson was only 22 when he opened Virgin Records. Everyone on this list was low on experience and even lower on cash when they started. All they had was an intense passion to pursue their visions and an ability inspire others to join them in their pursuit.”
Read the article (.pdf)