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Tech's Chaunte Lowe Has High-Jump Medal Podium in Sight

August 16, 2016

Chaunte Lowe, an alumna of the School of Economics, was featured in “Tech's Chaunte Lowe Has High-Jump Medal Podium in Sight” for The Atlanta Journal-Constiution.
Excerpt:
Lowe, whose competition begins with preliminaries Thursday, is far from the rising junior who represented the U.S. in the 2004 Olympics, when she became Tech’s first-ever female Olympian. She is married with three children. In 2015, she scaled back on her training to care for her daughter Aurora, who was demonstrating behavioral issues that doctors believed were related to autism or Asperger’s Syndrome. Previously based in metro Atlanta, the Lowes now live in Orlando. Lowe and Page keep up through videos of workouts and phone calls.
“This time at the Olympics, I won’t be a sophomore in college, or a mother, nursing a one-year-old,” Lowe told news media at the Olympics. “So this time I put myself in the best advantage, and I think that’s really going to work well for me this time.”

For the full article, read here.

Published in: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Job Is Football: The Myth of the Student-Athlete

August 16, 2016

Johnny Smith, assistant professor in the School of History and Sociology, wrote “The Job Is Football: The Myth of the Student-Athlete” for The American Historian.

Excerpt:

He was a student of history, but most people knew him as the star quarterback of the football team.

In the summer of 2013 Kain Colter, the twenty-one year old starting quarterback at Northwestern University, enrolled in a course that examined the social and political history of labor in America since the nineteenth century. His instructor, Nick Dorzweiler, challenged the students to reflect on how the meaning of labor has changed over time and what work means to them as citizens. After visiting a Chicago steel mill, Kain began considering the role of unions in professional sports and wondered why college athletes did not have one, too.

For the full article, read here.

Published in: The American Historian
How a Favela Kid Became Brazil's Top Badminton Player

August 13, 2016

Kirk Bowman, associate chair and Jon Wilcox Term Professor of Soccer, Global Politics, and Society from the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs in Georgia Tech's Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts was quoted in “How a Favela Kid Became Brazil's Top Badminton Player” for The Christian Science Monitor.
Excerpt:
“You go into the favelas and it’s chaos,” says Kirk Bowman, a political scientist at Georgia Tech and co-founder of Rise Up & Care, an American NGO that gives funding to established projects like Miratus in poor communities around the world. “But you walk into [Miratus] and it is order and purpose and happ[iness]. It’s a totally different world, and it’s no wonder that these kids, their grades improve, relationships in the family improve. They have role models and are achieving goals at a really young age.”

For the full article, read here.

Published in: The Christian Science Monitor
Regulating Genetic Research and Applications

August 10, 2016

A short commentary piece by Dr. Margaret Kosal on “Regulating genetic research and applications” related to biosecurity and CRISPR-Cas9 type systems was published in the Summer 2016 issue of the journal “Issues in Science and Technology,” as part of their series on issues at the intersection of technology and policy.

Published in: Issues in Science and Technology
When to Watch Georgia Athletes Compete on Day 5 of Olympics

August 10, 2016

Gal Nevo, an alumnus of the Ivan Allen College School of Economics, was featured in “When to Watch Georgia Athletes Compete on Day 5 of Olympics” for 11 Alive.
Excerpt:
NBC Noon-2 p.m.
Swimming- Qualifying heats It will be a busy day in the pool. UGA's Chantal Van Landegem will swim for Canada in the 100-meter freestyle. She already has a bronze medal after helping Team Canada in the 4x200-meter free relay. Then, Javier Acevedo will swim for Canada in the 200-meter backstroke. If they all qualify, they will swim in semifinal heats Wednesday night. UGA's Allison Schmitt and Melanie Margalis will help the U.S. try to qualify for the women's 4x200-meter freestyle relay. Schmitt won a silver medal while helping the 4x100 relay team earlier in the games. Georgia Tech will watch Gal Nevo represent Israel in the 200-meter iindividual medley. Finally, in primetime, Georgia's Hali Flickinger will swim in the 200-meter butterfly. She finished fourth in her semifinal heat Tuesday night to qualify.
For the full article, read here.

Published in: 11 Alive
Clinton Accused of Aiding Moscow Push for 'Russian Silicon Valley'

August 10, 2016

A 2010 program headed by then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton to help Moscow develop a “Russian Silicon Valley” may instead have drawn some of America’s biggest tech companies into “industrial espionage” – even advancing the country’s military and spying operations, according to a new report by Clinton critic Peter Schweizer’s Government Accountability Institute. Fox News discussed the report with Margaret E. Kosal, an Associate Professor at Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.
Kosal said that “While the project might have seemed a good opportunity to work in an emerging market, there are challenges working in Russia including dealing with cronyism and government bureaucracy.”
“But from a national security perspective,” Kosal said, “the biggest concern is the ability of the Russian military to obtain, misuse, or develop nanotechnology for an application that catches the U.S. by surprise.”

Published in: Fox News
The Slow-Game App is the New Smoke Break

August 9, 2016

Ian Bogost, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication was referenced in “The Slow-Game App is the New Smoke Break” for The New York Times.
Excerpt:
While the shiniest, most successful phone apps are designed to push our competitive buttons and light up our pleasure centers with quick rewards, slow games seek access to a different part of our brains. They soothe rather than excite. The author and game designer Ian Bogost has referred to this genre as video game Zen, the mobile equivalent of running a tiny rake across a desktop Japanese garden. David OReilly, the filmmaker and digital artist who designed Mountain, calls these games “r elax ’e m u ps,” a clever play on their departure from the ubiquity of first-person shooters. ThatGameCompany, the studio behind slow games like Cloud and Journey, strives to create “positive change to the human psyche.”

For the full article, read here.

Published in: The New York Times
The Clean Power Plan Turns 1

August 3, 2016

Marilyn Brown, Ph.D., the Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy was featured in “The Clean Power Plan Turns 1” for Politico.
Excerpt:
ME loves the smell of energy efficiency in the morning: A new paper out today from Georgia Tech professor Marilyn Brown concludes that the Clean Power Plan offers an opportunity for U.S. commercial building owners to save $11.3 billion annually by 2030 via energy efficiency measures. They would also save $3.6 billion a year on natural gas, according to Brown’s take. Southern states' share of those savings could be $5.26 billion on power and $910 million on gas. Those figures are based on projected business-as-usual increases over the next 15 years. The new paper is based off a June study written by Brown.
For the full article, read here.

Published in: Politico
Facebook is Not a Technology Company

August 3, 2016

Ian Bogost, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, wrote “Facebook is Not a Technology Company” for The Atlantic.
Excerpt:
At the close of trading this Monday, the top five global companies by market capitalization were all U.S. tech companies: Apple, Alphabet (formerly Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook.
Bloomberg, which reported on the apparent milestone, insisted that this “tech sweep” is unprecedented, even during the dot-com boom. Back in 2011, for example, Exxon and Shell held two of the top spots, and Apple was the only tech company in the top five. In 2006, Microsoft held the only slot—the others were in energy, banking, and manufacture. But things have changed. “Your new tech overlords,” Bloomberg christened the five.
But what makes a company a technology company, anyway? In their discussion of overlords, Bloomberg’s Shira Ovide and Rani Molla explain that “Non-tech titans like Exxon and GE have slipped a bit” in top valuations. Think about that claim for a minute, and reflect on its absurdity: Exxon uses enormous machinery to extract the remains of living creatures from geological antiquity from deep beneath the earth. Then it uses other enormous machinery to refine and distribute that material globally. For its part, GE makes almost everything—from light bulbs to medical imaging devices to wind turbines to locomotives to jet engines.
Isn’t it strange to call Facebook, a company that makes websites and mobile apps a “technology” company, but to deny that moniker to firms that make diesel trains, oil-drilling platforms, and airplane engines?
For the full article, read here.

Published in: The Atlantic
A History of Violence: The Evolution of the First-Person Shooter Video Game, from ‘Maze War’ to ‘Overwatch.’

August 2, 2016

Ian Bogost, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was quoted in “A History of Violence: The Evolution of the First-Person Shooter Video Game, from ‘Maze War’ to ‘Overwatch’” for The Ringer.
Excerpt:
Predictable, kind of played out, but also disturbingly fun when you’re in a bad enough head space, the military FPS has become gaming’s classic rock. Fans expect a certain experience (realistic weapons, player models, and locations; a satisfying shooting mechanic; lots of explosions) from a military FPS. And those expectations limit the genre’s potential to innovate.
Not that fans really want innovation. When Activision recently announced that a remastered version of 2007’s Modern Warfare would be available only as a paid add-on to the franchise’s latest release, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare,fans of the series howled. Call of Duty heads prefer a remastered nine-year-old game to Infinite Warfare’s New Coke vibes (now with 80 percent more war inspace!).
“In some ways, what makes genre fiction good is [when] it’s the same as other genre fiction,” says Ian Bogost, a professor of interactive computing at Georgia Tech and a game designer and writer. “And I feel like that’s what the FPS is. It’s the ultimate genre fiction of games. The ultimately self-sustaining genre. You get these little twists and changes that respond to current trends.”
For the full article, read here.

Published in: The Ringer
Retired Admiral Prepares CEOs to Battle Cybersecurity Threats

August 1, 2016

Former vice-chair of the Joints Chiefs of Staff and Sam Nunn School of International Affairs professor of the practice, Admiral James A. Winnefeld (retired) was featured in “Retired Admiral Prepares CEOs to Battle Cybersecurity Threats” for hypepotamus.
Excerpt:
Many factors play into a company’s cybersecurity strategy, but to be truly effective, it all has to start in the CEO’s corner office. That’s according to a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is now helping Georgia Tech teach cybersecurity lessons to leading Atlanta’s Fortune 500 firms and founders trying to launch startups.
“The very high-profile (security) incidents that have occurred have put CEOs and CSOs on the skyline and maybe cost them their jobs,” said Ret. Adm. James A. Winnefeld, a professor at Georgia Tech’s Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. “An important characteristic is the deep involvement of senior leadership, both in establishing a good culture in cybersecurity and being active in decision making.”
Those factors, plus heightened liability and compliance requirements for data security, prompted Winnefeld to establish the Cybersecurity Leadership Program, which recently completed its first week-long course for 38 company executives and organizational leaders. Five Georgia Tech schools and institutes took part in the program in addition to the Nunn school: Georgia Tech Professional Education, Georgia Tech Research Institute, the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy and the Institute for Information Security and Privacy.
For the full article, read here.

Published in: hypepotamus
Rio de Janeiro-Atlanta Partnership Films Celebrate Community Development

July 31, 2016

Kirk Bowman, associate chair and Jon Wilcox Term Professor of Soccer, Global Politics, and Society from the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs in Georgia Tech's Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts was featured in “Rio de Janeiro-Atlanta Partnership Films Celebrate Community Development” for Global Atlanta.
Excerpt:
“We are trying to tell a more accurate story of what’s happening in the world because the negativity is so pronounced; it can overwhelm the positive inspirational stories that are out there. Sharing this information is the way people can most help these communities,” Dr. Bowman told Global Atlanta in an interview. “There are so many false stereotypes. If people share these five trailers, they will have an impact on how we view poor people and poor communities. We love film because it’s such a powerful way of delivering these messages.”
Dr. Bowman said this project is exciting not only for the direct impact it will have on the community organizations it sponsors, but also because it highlights tangible cooperation and productivity coming out of connections between the cities of Atlanta and Rio.
Rio has been one of Atlanta’s sister cities since 1972, and two Rio de Janeiro film authorities signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in film making in 2014 with the City of Atlanta’s Mayor’s Office of Entertainment. This upcoming film festival demonstrates that those relationships are “really beginning to bear fruit,” Dr. Bowman said.
For the full article, read here.

Published in: Global Atlanta
Dois Cafes a Conta Com Luis Lomenha

July 31, 2016

Kirk Bowman, the Jon Wilcox Term Professor of Soccer and Global Politics in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and his upcoming Reimagine Rio event were featured in “Dois Cafes a Conta Com Luis Lomenha” for O Globo.
The full article requires a subscription, but can be read here.

Published in: O Globo
Festival Reimagine Rio terá programação paralela aos jogos olímpicos

July 28, 2016

Kirk Bowman, the Jon Wilcox Term Professor of Soccer and Global Politics in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and his upcoming event Reimagine Rio were featured in “Festival Reimagine Rio Terá Programação Paralela Aos Jogos Olímpicos” for Cinema Sim!
For the full article, read here.

Published in: Cinema Sim!
'The Politics of Innovation'

July 26, 2016

Mark Zachary Taylor, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs was featured in “‘The Politics of Innovation,’” in a feature about his new book of the same name.
Excerpt:
The subtitle of Mark Zachary Taylor’s new book, The Politics of Innovation (Oxford University Press), asks why some countries are better than others at science and technology. He argues that the answer lies in politics and proposes a theory of “creative insecurity,” arguing that innovation rates should be higher in countries in which external threats outweigh domestic tensions.
“S&T progress creates winners and losers, and the losers resort to politics to slow innovation,” Taylor, an associate professor of political science at Georgia Institute of Technology, writes in the book’s introduction. “However, external threats increase political support for S&T and thereby counteract domestic political resistance to innovation.”
You can read the articule in full here.

Published in: Inside Higher Ed
This Badminton Academy in a Favela Will Give You Hope for the Rio Olympics

July 26, 2016

Kirk Bowman, associate chair and Jon Wilcox Term Professor of Soccer, Global Politics, and Society from the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs was quoted in “This Badminton Academy in a Favela Will Give You Hope for the Rio Olympics” for The Washington Post.
Excerpt:
Back then, Ygor was “just a little kid, dreaming of the Olympics,” said Kirk Bowman, a professor in soccer and global politics at Georgia Tech, who runs Rise Up & Care with Jon Wilcox, a banker from Orange County, Calif.
Brazilian filmmaker Katia Lund, a co-director of the hit film “City of God,” is making documentaries about the Rio projects she works with, including Miratus, which will be shown in Rio on Aug. 6.
“The news from Brazil is like the seven plagues,” Bowman said. “But there are positive stories as well, especially in the favelas.”
For the full article, read here.

Published in: The Washington Post
Rest in Peace, VCR

July 26, 2016

Ian Bogost, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication wrote “Rest in Peace VCR” for The Atlantic.
Excerpt:
The video store, as it is nostalgically remembered, looks like a record shop, or a hookah parlor. Staffed by scruffy burners or neo-hippies who “really know their stuff,” splayed with shelves at all angles, plastered in posters, encrusted with knick-knacks.
Some such stores might have existed, but the earliest video stores were nothing like them. They were modernist celebrations of minimalism and order. Light grey walls and dark grey carpets, austere racks displaying evenly-spaced, singular copies of video boxes. They were quiet and circumspect. Some were tacked on to television equipment repair facilities; others freely stood behind nondescript façades. Indulgences to style were limited: a neon accent, or an OCR-inspired logotype. Before video was culture, it was technology.
What kind of technology? One that cut wormholes through space-time. Called “time shifting,” the videocassette and the VCR made it possible to record a program broadcast at a particular time and to watch it later. Or, to rent or buy a videocassette copy of a film and to watch it from the comfort of home after it had left the theater. It did this for two decades, from 1975 to 1995, and then the DVD continued its legacy, in part, for a decade more.
The full article can be read here.

Published in: The Atlantic
With BOAT Lab, Tech, Art, and Ecology Converge In One Floating Makerspace

July 23, 2016

Andrew Quitmeyer, alumni of the Digital Media Program in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication was featured in “With BOAT Lab, Tech, Art, and Ecology Converge In One Floating Makerspace” for Fast Company.
Excerpt:
If you were given $10,000 to improve a community in another country using art, how would you do it?
For Andrew Quitmeyer, the answer was: BOAT.
An American post-doctoral researcher with a PhD from Georgia Tech, Quitmeyer created Building Open Art and Technology (aka BOAT), a floating art and tech lab for a village in the Philippines. Its purpose? Teach locals about ecological conservation.
Quitmeyer's PhD research focused on “Digital Naturalism,” or studying animals in their natural habitats with computers and sensors. He channeled that into gadget tutorials for young folks and robotics projects in Central American jungles, which eventually led him to apply to be an arts ambassador for a new outreach program known as American Arts Incubator.
The program premiered last year as a partnership between the U.S. State Department and the Silicon Valley-based company ZERO1 with the mission of using art to connect to communities outside the U.S. Each ambassador leads a community in workshops and activities to explore a theme unique to their country. In his application, Quitmeyer proposed that as an arts ambassador to the Philippines, he would raise ecological awareness by combining monitoring of the local environment with performances illustrating the community's responsibility to clean up the area.
For the full article, read here.

Published in: Fast Company
Rio Terá Programação Paralela à Olimpíada com Documentários Inéditos Dirigidos por Kátia Lund, de Cidade de Deus

July 22, 2016

Kirk Bowman, the Jon Wilcox Term Professor of Soccer and Global Politics in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and his upcoming event Reimagine Rio were featured in “Rio Terá Programação Paralela à Olimpíada com Documentários Inéditos Dirigidos por Kátia Lund, de Cidade de Deus” for AdoroCinema.
The full article can be read here.

Published in: AdoroCinema
5 Reasons That Technology Is Good for Kids

July 20, 2016

Ian Bogost, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communications was quoted in “5 Reasons That Technology Is Good for Kids” for Parade.
Studies show that a curriculum involving digital media can improve early literacy skills. Participating four and five year olds enjoyed boosts in letter recognition, sound association with letters, and understanding basic concepts about stories and print. However, it should be noted that gains were achieved through the use of high-quality educational titles – and that strong parental and teacher involvement was key to success, as always. Experts further point out that teens and tweens can also benefit from the use of high-tech solutions. As Georgia Tech professor Ian Bogost explains: “Look at [popular online games and virtual worlds]: You’ve got 11-year-olds who are learning to delegate responsibility, promote teamwork and steer groups of people toward a common goal.”
Read the full article here.

Published in: Parade

Recent Press Coverage

Tech's Chaunte Lowe Has High-Jump Medal Podium in Sight

The Job Is Football: The Myth of the Student-Athlete

How a Favela Kid Became Brazil's Top Badminton Player

Regulating Genetic Research and Applications

When to Watch Georgia Athletes Compete on Day 5 of Olympics

Clinton Accused of Aiding Moscow Push for 'Russian Silicon Valley'

The Slow-Game App is the New Smoke Break

The Clean Power Plan Turns 1

Facebook is Not a Technology Company

A History of Violence: The Evolution of the First-Person Shooter Video Game, from ‘Maze War’ to ‘Overwatch.’

Retired Admiral Prepares CEOs to Battle Cybersecurity Threats

Rio de Janeiro-Atlanta Partnership Films Celebrate Community Development

Dois Cafes a Conta Com Luis Lomenha

Festival Reimagine Rio terá programação paralela aos jogos olímpicos

'The Politics of Innovation'

This Badminton Academy in a Favela Will Give You Hope for the Rio Olympics

Rest in Peace, VCR

With BOAT Lab, Tech, Art, and Ecology Converge In One Floating Makerspace

Rio Terá Programação Paralela à Olimpíada com Documentários Inéditos Dirigidos por Kátia Lund, de Cidade de Deus

5 Reasons That Technology Is Good for Kids

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