Summer days are gone too soon

It’s my last week at Human Rights USA before I return to New York City. I’ve literally stayed here as long as I could. There is a part of me that is not prepared for the fall semester quickly approaching and a part of me that is anxious to get this ball rolling.

I took some time from my internship to have a vacation – after all it is a job … Now I’m back to work and it feels weird. The same old routine I left 10 days ago is here to greet me again. I am concluding some research that requires some serious analysis, background research and critical thinking. But I must say I’ve got the hand of it. I remember how intimidated I was when I first started doing this kind of research. But now I realize it’s how you perceive it. The approach and process is more important than trying to sound smart.

I agree with Carly! Time is flying! Where did summer go? I’m just getting started with this heat and it’s gonna get cold again. I did enjoy my internship and I did enjoy DC. I met some great people, built some strong relationships, toured the city, MD, and VA, relaxed, visited the Kennedy Center and had a free movie on the lawn downtown—good stuff. Now I have to go back to New York to read about Economics and Policy Frameworks. Good grief! But that’s the routine.

See yall in class or on the crowded hallways of CCNY.

Week 11

This is going to me be my last blog post for the summer. This week I finished up the fact finding/research assignment I mentioned in the previous post about funding trends as concerns energy innovation. I also attended a conference session on energy modeling and efficiency in buildings. It was fascinating to hear the industry’s perspective of the challenges with regards to intelligent software (or the steps needed to advance software to reflect the reality of building science and energy modeler’s needs) as well as the steps needed to advance the energy modeling discipline and its outcomes/benefits to a larger audience. Some of the discussions summarized the difficulties faced in the field when the energy modelers, architects, engineers, and contractors do not communicate with one another. For example, an energy modeler can prescribe certain design changes but the changes do not get implemented. Or the results of a model show a clearly more efficient solution but it does not get implemented because the contractor is either not in the loop or no one is pressing for corrections to be made. It was eye opening to hear this as someone who is not from the buildings industry. These communications and integration challenges are even more startling when one thinks about some of the policies that directly target buildings as an area to reduce carbon dioxide emissions or make the structure/system more energy efficient. I guess what may seem logical on paper may turn out to be more complicated when various parts of the system (team) are not communicating well.

Time is flyin’

Since the conference ended, I have worked on various projects throughout the office, writing, editing, having fun. Another intern has finally joined me, so it is nice to have the company. The next couple of weeks I will be pretty much winding down my internship.

One interesting thing that has happened recently has to do with the arrest of four people (closely associated with WCC) for a peaceful demonstration against Malaysia’s Internal Security Act (ISA) that happened over a week ago on the 50^th anniversary of the Act. The ISA basically allows the government the right to detain individuals without trial and without evidence, under certain circumstances. The government here does not allow public demonstrations (peaceful or otherwise), so in an ironic example of the workings of ISA, people who were simply trying to educate the public on why they should work to abolish the ISA (or at least reform it) were arrested and detained (they were later released). Many members of WCC were present in the large crowd as police officers shoved the people into vans.

Penang is a tiny place, much like a small town, everyone knows everyone, that sort of thing. So it’s not surprising that our friends of WCC were among the arrested. If you are leading a demonstration for the government, then you pose no risk of running into trouble, however, if you are part of the opposition, you will likely face difficulties. It’s a sad but true notion in a place that appears so peaceful to outsiders. Everyday I discover some strange fact or law hidden behind the beautiful façade of the island.

I can feel my time here slipping away, and anxious feelings associated with the beginning of a new semester fill some of my sleepless nights. I am going to try to make the most of my remaining time here, although I am sure I will still have my regrets. Congrats to those of you who finished, maybe you can relax your brains a little before the next chapter.

Week 8, 9 and 10

The last three weeks of my internship was spent mostly on researching and contacting clients from various US universities. We would have a Professional development training in India this month and I was given the responsibility to coordinate it. So, the last two weeks went busy coordinating and contacting agents. I will do an extra week to get things done.
Apart from work, it was kind of sad to leave DC. I made some awesome friends there and got such great opportunities to network with people. I hope I can get the opportunity again to work with them. It has been a great internship.

Analyzing the Stop & Frisk Data-An article in NY Times

At the New York City Mission Society/Miniskin, our Law & Justice center started working with the youth in Harlem. We provided them counseling, and educated them what we felt  needed the most; how they can avoid stop & frisk situations.

The Stop & Frisk situation is getting worse in New York City. The New York Civil Liberties Union recently published a report in which they analyzed that between Jan 2006 and march 2010, the police made about 52,000 stops and only a small percentage of those arrests proved to be guilty, rest were all dismissed. The results were published in the New York Times newspaper on July 11, 2010 focusing on certain neighborhood and describing that how the situation became so uncomfortable for people of all ages.

Just After the release of this report, we were able to organize a workshop for Harlem youth which were among the worst victim of stop & frisk, living in the Harlem neighborhood. At the workshop, it was clear that those youth ages 13-18 were very frustrated of the situations. We heard many incidents in which they were stopped and frisked. Also, we were clearly able to see that how these youth were unaware of their rights while being stopped by a policeman. That was one of the main goal which our center is focusing on. Educating these youth about their rights is so important. In order to provide them with a better understanding of their legal rights we arranged another workshop for these youth at the Neighborhood defender services at Lenon Avenue where a criminal defense attorney Thomas Geovanni who was going to talk about handling a stop & frisk situations and the best reactions of youth when a policeman stops them.

The New York Times article came at a perfect time when we are working for almost the same purpose. We were under a process to analyze the stop and frisk data given to us by the NYCLU. Two days after the nytimes article, Governer David A. Paterson signed a bill limiting Stop and Frisk Data. The bill states that, ” Police officials in New York City can no longer electronically store the names and addresses of people stopped in the street to be questioned but found to have done nothing wrong”.

We believed this was a very positive step taken up by the governor which will help resolving many issues.

I will provide the details of the meeting at NDS in my next post.

Upcoming events

This upcoming week is the cumulation of the summer youth program that I have been helping with, and Tuesday we have a speaker coming from UNICEF.  Still have to get some things from imedia to make sure her presentation goes as planned.  On Wednesday we will have the last gym day, and will be hosting a carnival for the kids.  There will be different games set up all around the gym, and they can win tickets and earn prizes.  It should be a lot of fun.  On Thursday I should be starting to do more with the Law and Justice Center that another Capstone group has put together here in Harlem!

Weekly update #10

This week was spent mostly on research regarding leading researchers, topics, institutions and funding patterns/outcomes for research in cleantech. The sub-fields that I am responsible for are waste management and recycling, energy and smartgrid, and climate adaptation. Another person is responsible for transportation, buildings and materials, and air and water.  The research is coming along, I found a few reports produced by academic, non-governmental, and financial organizations.

One report, by the National Science Foundation, compares scientific research and development investments by private firms and academia across states (in this report, the data is aggregated; breakdowns by funding category are not shown). Notably, New York does not land within the first quartile of leading states that either have above average R&D investment by private firms or by academic institutions.  However many of New York’s neighboring states, for example Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Connecticut all fall within the first quartile of states with private firms that invest in R&D at an above average rate.  New York lands within the 3rd quartile (below average) as compared to the rest of the country.   An interactive map can be viewed here: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind10/c8/c8s4o39.htm

With regards to academic research and development investment, New York again lands within the 3rd quartile, while several of its neighbors, namely Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, as well as Maryland, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont, lead the way in the first quartile. This metric was calculated based on academic R&D as compared to $1,000 of a state’s Gross Domestic Product. Meaning, that if the state’s GDP was low, a low investment in R&D would not be skewed (or appear unfairly “small”). An interactive map with more details can be viewed here: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind10/c8/c8s4o40.htm

These findings are somewhat disturbing as, according to the NSF, applied research is usually handled by private firms, while basic research is usually undertaken by academic institutions. But if neither is happening in significant ways, then the state could be loosing out on not only developing scientific innovations, but all the potential economic benefits to having innovation developed within the state. For example,  job creation and private investment/funding/public grants that may go along with commercializing an innovation (i.e. taking the breakthrough from the idea stage to the application stage to the marketplace), as well as longer term benefits like creating a new sector within a local economy.

I’ll end this week’s summary here for now. Next week, I will have a more complete picture of the research and may update this discussion (in a separate post).

Hope everyone is well.