Transformative new technologies are reshaping economies and societies. But as they create new opportunities, they also pose new challenges, not least of which is rising inequality. Increased disparities and related anxieties are stoking societal discontent and political ferment. Harnessing technological transformation in ways that foster its benefits, contain risks, and build inclusive prosperity is a major public policy challenge of our time and one that motivates this book. In what ways are the new technologies altering markets, business models, work, and, in turn, economic growth and income distribution? How are they affecting inequality within advanced and emerging economies and the prospects for economic convergence between them? What are the implications for public policy? What new thinking and adaptations are needed to realign institutions and policies, at national and global levels, with the new dynamics of the digital era? This book addresses these questions. It seeks to promote ideas and actions to manage digital transformation and the latest advances in artificial intelligence with foresight and purpose to shape a more prosperous and inclusive future.

The Future of Work and Life Reimagined In a world where technology evolves at breakneck speed, one question remains pertinent: how will Artificial Intelligence reshape our future? AI-Powered Tomorrow: How Humanoid Robots Will Transform Labor and Daily Life provides an engrossing exploration into the transformative potential of AI and robotics. Dive into an enlightening narrative that sets the stage for a revolutionary shift, as humanoid robots rise to prominence. Uncover key breakthroughs in AI and robotics, and explore their burgeoning roles within the labor market. From automation in manufacturing to AI's influence in service industries, this book offers a panoramic view of current applications and future possibilities. Discover how these innovations redefine productivity, enhancing efficiency and decision-making while impacting job satisfaction and quality. As AI-powered robots embed themselves deeper into economic structures, industries worldwide brace for disruption. Navigate through riveting analyses of global GDP shifts, changing industry dynamics, and economic opportunities amidst challenges. Join the dialogue on workforce evolution, addressing skills essential in the AI age, and strategies to mitigate job displacement. Beyond economics, AI's influence permeates daily existence–from reshaping urban living to transforming domestic life and healthcare. Considerable ethical discussions arise regarding AI's societal role and the need for robust legal frameworks. Simultaneously, explore AI's potential in addressing global challenges, from climate change mitigation to humanitarian efforts. Dive into the psychological effects of human-robot interaction, and ponder the emotional and cultural shifts anticipated in this AI-driven landscape. This insightful guide aims to prepare readers for the imminent AI revolution. Embark on a fascinating journey to understand strategic planning for businesses, education's role in fostering AI literacy, and how societies worldwide can adapt for a sustainable, technologically integrated future.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. In one country, the prime minister pushes for the liberalization of digital finance as a central pillar of the country's national strategy, while the central bank almost makes it a criminal offence. In another, the digital minister tries to scupper the very process to support digital transformation that the president has asked them to co-lead. This book gives a ringside seat on seven developing countries' tumultuous early steps on the path to a reform of the economy and the government using technology. Written by a group of academics and practitioners from Oxford at the heart of the process, but foregrounding the voices of the policymakers and participants, this book documents and critically assesses efforts to assist a set of governments to kick-start digital transformation. In doing so, it offers lessons for policymakers in other countries who want to pursue similar efforts. Beyond that, however, it is also an exposition of the process of policymaking more generally in the 2020s, and offers broader insight into how outsiders can play a sensible role in other reform processes in developing and emerging countries.

A monthly published in Hindi and English. The journal is devoted to all aspects of rural reconstruction and village democracy. The journal carries educative and informative articles on rural development and is useful for scholars, academicians and students preparing for civil services and other competitive examinations.

More than a decade has passed since the publication of the series entitled Social Analysis of Agriculture and Rural Investment Projects, which comprises three complementary manuals – the Manager’s, Practitioner’s and Field guides. During this time, conflict, climate change and economic downturns have been driving up poverty, hunger, and socioeconomic inequalities, reducing the resilience of agrifood systems. In response, the FAO Investment Centre has updated the Social Analysis guides to address the evolving and volatile rural transformation context, providing programme managers, practitioners and field workers with a set of enhanced tools for the design, implementation and evaluation of inclusive investments in agrifood systems. Today’s investments must prioritize more demand-driven, people-centred, culturally sensitive and locally owned sustainable approaches, with increased attention to reducing gender and other inequalities. Operationalizing these principles contributes to FAO’s and financing agencies’ objectives of ending poverty, improving food security and nutrition, and reducing inequalities. The goal of the updated guides is to support investments that contribute to inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, aligned with the outcomes of the UN Food Systems Summit, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the core principle of leaving no one behind. This publication is part of the Investment Toolkits series under the FAO Investment Centre's Knowledge for Investment (K4I) series. The contents of this publication have been turned into three e-leaning courses, which are accessible for free through the FAO E-learning Academy.

Global Citizen from Gulmi recounts Kul Chandra Gautam's journey from a remote village in Nepal, lacking schools, roads and electricity, to the highest ranks of UNICEF. By turns serious, amusing and poignant, it shares the highs and the lows of an illustrious career spanning three decades. It contains candid anecdotes about Gautam's interactions with international personalities such as Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Bill Gates, Eduard Shevardnadze and King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand as well as UNICEF's celebrity Goodwill Ambassadors. Gautam also shares his insightful views on the future of Nepal, the UN and global society as a whole.

Digital transformation across the public sector has stalled. After over 25 years of considerable time, money, and effort at national, state, and local levels, we’re still not 'there' yet. The reason is that successive waves of investment in digital transformation have focused largely on improving the transactional functions and activities of government. They have failed to embrace a bigger challenge - the need for governing and government to rethink a new 'theory of the business' - which that same revolution has caused and to which it is an inescapable part of the answer. This is a unique, timely, and distinctly Australian look at a global phenomenon by two 'reflective practitioners'. Their personal and practical experience of digital transformation in government and the public sector in Australia suggests it is a story missing half its plot. Packed full of insights from government and digital leaders from around Australia and across the world, this is a much-needed practical guide for public servants and leaders in any jurisdiction. It contains insights and ideas about the way digital technologies, and their associated tools, platforms, and cultures, are changing the business of governing and the design and delivery of public policy and services. "Are We There Yet? lucidly diagnoses how digital technologies, including AI and big data, are transforming the role of the public servant and the project of governance itself. Stewart-Weeks and Cooper describe the important shift from power to problem-solving and explain how to harness digital transformation to make government work better for all of us.” - Beth Noveck, author of Wiki Government, former Deputy Chief Technology Officer in the Obama White House, Professor in Technology, Culture & Society, New York University and Chief Innovation Officer for New Jersey "I've read a lot about the potential impact of digital technology on public services … this is the first book to persuade me that the power of digital, properly conceived, really can transform the nature of democratic governance." - Professor Peter Shergold AC, Chancellor, Western Sydney University, Former Secretary, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet

This book enhances the reader’s understanding of the theoretical foundations, sociotechnical assemblage, and governance mechanisms of sustainable smart city transitions. Drawing on empirical evidence stemming from existing smart city research, the book begins by advancing a theory of sustainable smart city transitions, which forms bridges between smart city development studies and some of the key assumptions underpinning transition management and system innovation research, human geography, spatial planning, and critical urban scholarship. This interdisciplinary theoretical formulation details how smart city transitions unfold and how they should be conceptualized and enacted in order to be assembled as sustainable developments. The proposed theory of sustainable smart city transitions is then enriched by the findings of investigations into the planning and implementation of smart city transition strategies and projects. Focusing on different empirical settings, change dimensions, and analytical elements, the attention moves from the sociotechnical requirements of citywide transition pathways to the development of sector-specific smart city projects and technological innovations, in particular in the fields of urban mobility and urban governance. This book represents a relevant reference work for academic and practitioner audiences, policy makers, and representative of smart city industries. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Urban Technology.

This book conceptualizes ecopedagogies as forms of educational innovation and critique that emerge from, negotiate, debate, produce, resist, and/or overcome the shifting and expansive postdigital ecosystems of humans, machines, nonhuman animals, objects, stuff, and other forms of matter. Contemporary postdigital ecosystems are determined by a range of new bioinformational reconfigurations in areas including capitalism, imperialism, settler-colonialism, and ontological hierarchies more generally. Postdigital ecopedagogies name a condition, a question, and a call for experimentation to link pedagogical research and practice to challenges of our moment. They pose living, breathing, expanding, contracting, fluid, and spatial conditions and questions of our non-chronological present. This book presents analyses of that present from a wide spectrum of disciplines, including but not limited to education studies, philosophy, politics, sociology, arts, and architecture.