
Name: Heather Budge-Reid
Email:
Web Site: http://www.iqsensato.org
Bio: Heather is an Associate Director, Strategy and Communications at IQsensato.
Posts by Heather Budge-Reid:
Knowledge definitions (2)
September 30th, 2009I admit that I await each issue of Intelligent Life Magazine from The Economist with excitement, if not bated breath. The spine for the last quarter reads “Knowledge is Pleasure” – which it certainly is sometimes, but as I read the magazine I realised that sometimes it clearly isn’t. Knowledge can bring pain and fear and if it is the sense that we make of information (see my previous blog), knowledge certainly includes mistakes. So how can knowledge be owned or traded, and how indeed can a price be put on it?
Who Owns the HIV Genome Knowledge and Why the Deafening Silence?
September 7th, 2009Hope you didn’t blink the other week or you may have missed the fact that they have mapped the HIV genome. It was in the journal Nature, on the BBC News and on Medical News Today website, among others. It’s great news as it opens up all sorts of health benefits. My worry is that it may not be great news for everyone, and the point is that the public does not know who owns the information and, therefore, does not know who can benefit or at what cost.
Knowledge Definitions (1)
August 30th, 2009Raising public and policy debate is always easier if everyone understands the terminology. Obvious, perhaps, but in the case of ‘knowledge’, the definition may well stand in the way of understanding. There is wide-ranging debate among philosophers about what knowledge means, while among development specialists there seems to be an agreement to disagree and remain silent.
Keeping Up With the IP Debate
July 25th, 2009Gene Quinn (author of IPWatchdog.com) has released a list of the top 50 Patent Blogs. Although this is a non-scientific survey, it is worth looking at the list and making sure that you are visiting regularly the blogs that are important for you. Not all the blogs relate to the area of work that IQsensato focuses on, but it’s worth a look to check you are in the loop.


