The Priority for Civic Education and Technological Knowledge

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Talking of education in such a context may come across as an obvious requirement, which forces us to be realistic since an educational project that encourages federative thinking remains, at this stage, wishful thinking. Parties and communities mindful of their continued existence have already acknowledged the important role education plays in this equation, hence, their support remains very questionable. Right now, the level of the private academic programs is acceptable so long as it complies with the demagogy of political parties while the poor quality of programs offered in the public school system requires a serious overhaul.

It is perhaps here, that the virtues of introducing a civic educational program with a balanced approach is relevant since a dual civic platform that varies from the private to the public will cause more harm than good. But how? The current predicament of the education system can in fact be turned into an opportunity. In line with the proposed federative language, a new civic program in schools is capable of awakening a National Conscience on a national scale.

The new school bench will be Internet-based along the academic bench itself. CAGI will have to be mindful of this matter when devising and later adopting a comprehensive and virtual educational program custom-tailored to the specific needs and environment of all the Lebanese population including their parents. Its content will tremendously vary from anything resembling current academia. As we all know too well, our children’s fragile civic conscience can easily be distorted and channeled in a different direction by the ignorance of their parents for two important reasons:

1. Parents remain confined to the conditioning and environment established during the civil war and its aftermath, many experienced it in their prime and lived for more than thirty years under partisan and communitarian influence doubled by a total absence of a civic spirit. The large majority will either not pass-on the liberating force we speak of to their offspring either out of acclimatization to what has come to pass or out of their inability to recognize that kind of spirit in the first place.
2. Not all parents know how to use the Internet and of those who do, few are technologically proficient compared to their children who were conceived at an age powered by net-citizens sharing a symbiotic connection with the web. Logical deduction leads us to conclude that this reality will inevitably see

these children adopting character traits that to a large degree are those acquired and learned by their cyber interactions and very much divergent from those of their parents.

In comes CAGI Online whose role in this matter will be essential to the development of a civic educational program that prompts the curiosity of parents as well as children. Its format will have an entertaining, humorous, seductive, and convincing mass appeal. One medium in which it could reveal itself would be through a series of TV broadcasts accompanied by round-table discussions, coupled with talk shows, and enhanced by social media and blogs.

By taking on a story-telling format, its civic educational quality will transform the important issues at stake into gripping themes enriched with input from experts in education, social sciences and cultural studies. Diversity of this order will have advertisers battling for a 30-second spot, which in turn will generate revenue from brands, crowd funding, and institutions eager to sponsor civic education through the promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility projects.

Backed by popular demand, CAGI Online will create a website dedicated to the investigation of uncivilized behavior. As more users take the time to upload

examples of bad behavior through various media, a grass-root movement of what is and is not acceptable will become a meeting point for people sharing a common and newfound civic language.

Finding innovative means to communicate civic education will unfortunately not be enough to bolster a sustainable civic spirit as the need for a comprehensive academic plan to engage the entire population is still needed.

Technological Education:

Technology federates cognitively what water federates intrinsically. Numbers belongs to no religion and speaks all languages. Our numerical system was created by the Arabs and adopted by Westerners. There is certainly a common field all of us can agree on without losing the existential battle, namely that of knowledge, more accurately technological knowledge.

Undoubtedly, Lebanese people have spread their knowledge, yet the conflicts, chronic instability, and irresponsibility have dimmed to an invisible degree such enlightenment, depriving us of any of the progress ushered in by the 21st century. We have the right to be anxious when comparing the state of technology in the developed world to our own current sad affairs. To start with, we have fallen far behind

in terms of Internet bandwidth speeds for example, while the rest of the world basks in the glory of what the United Nations termed “the right for the 21st century man”. While some States voted for the right to free Internet access, we whine with despair over the shamefully slow connections and are grateful to pay premium prices for mediocre services that put us at the bottom of the list of countries in respect to Internet speed rankings.

I was reading in TIME magazine’s February 21, 2011 issue that by 2045, computing technology will be so advanced that artificial intelligence will be equal or even exceed the sum of all mankind’s intelligence. We call this the “moment of singularity” in the evolution of the human race. 2045 is in 35 years!

In the blink of an eye, that world will become a reality for our children. Question is, will we allow our ignorance to shackle them with medieval barbarity, or will we take a stance and open the gates of knowledge for them to make the best of what is to come? Will their world be one of post-oil sustainability or one of inherited misery?

Bearing in mind the sum of our people’s intelligence, Lebanon is quite suitable to become a new Middle-Eastern Silicon Valley. Unfortunately we are not only

trailing far behind the West, but also Asia and India as well as our Arab neighbors.

Still, the opportunity to federate in this area of activity is tremendous.

Unless we establish technical universities specialized in cutting-edge technologies, computer science programs, as well as degrees in nanotechnology and genetic engineering, little hope remains for the Nation’s future generations. Pray do tell, is this so difficult to achieve?

Not so as Lebanon offers both, a comfortable lifestyle as well as a respectable academic level of education. With the help of friendly States, hiring the best international teachers will be an easy feat with the main university in the capital and its regional branches spread across the country.

Space for the creation of hi-tech start-up clusters, designed to boost the technological revolution would, following the new zones created by the hydroelectric initiative become available. In part, these structures will host and bring together the ‘brainiacs’ of the Lebanese community behind such ventures such as Charles Elachi from the Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory closely associated to NASA in space exploration, Daher Co. in the high-tech aeronautical field and Murex in the banking and financial software industry, to name just three examples.

Joint ventures between the State and entrepreneurs could lead to the creation of a technology stock market whose merits and federating potential has yet to be investigated. And it is on this positive note that I launch into a new chapter that touches on another angle of Lebanese genius; the creative economy.

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