Christina Scott: A funny story always got funnier when she related it...
I was travelling in the Himalayan Republic of Nepal when I heard the sad news: Christina Scott, a pioneering science journalist from South Africa, has just been killed in a road accident. She would have turned 50 on November 20.
Christina’s tragic and abrupt departure elicited an outpouring of grief, memories and tributes from science journalists, scientists and others who knew and admired her. I’m late to join that, I know, but here’s the slightly expanded version of what I just posted on SciDev.Net as a reader comment:
“Short, stroppy reporter with a funny accent. Likes to eat sushi. No head for alcohol and caffeine addiction.” That’s how Canadian-born Christina chose to introduce herself. Everyone has an anecdote about her, reminding us of the colourful and highly talented person she was.
Christina was passionate, articulate and had a clear vision of how science, technology and innovation could make a difference to millions of people in Africa, Asia and Latin America. She made science fun. She was also great fun to work with.
Christina and I didn’t meet that often, separated as we are by time zones and the Indian Ocean. But our few encounters — usually at professional gatherings of science journalists — left a deep impression.
We first met at the Fifth World Conference of Science Journalists in Melbourne in April 2007, where we were both speakers.
She and I were part of a memorable plenary session on ‘Reporting Science in Emerging Economies’ that was put together by SciDev.Net and produced by Julie Clayton. It had science journalists or editors from Brazil, China, India, Sri Lanka and Zambia.
It was Christina who came up with a novel idea to dim the meeting hall lights just as we started. In the semi-darkness, she lit a single cigarette lighter to symbolise how science journalists in the developing world struggled daily with power outages, poor literacy, unsympathetic editors and uncaring governments.
Earlier in that conference, Christina compared some of her professional tribe to extremophile bacteria: hardy enough to survive in very harsh environments. The broad conclusion from our session was that, just as life finds a way against many odds, so does science journalism. In conditions far from ideal, science journalism happens — and even thrives — thanks to the resilience, resourcefulness and commitment of its practitioners.
Christina Scott (left) making a point. Photo courtesy WFSJ
Christina excelled in communicating science through print, web and broadcast media. She switched easily between written and spoken words, and could hold an audience in any medium. Such multimedia journalists are rare.
But she didn’t allow the technology ‘tail’ to wag the journalism ‘dog’. In 2007, she was still wondering if Internet, computes and online communications could make much headway in reaching out a majority of South Africans. It wasn’t a lack of connectivity and computers any longer, but a more basic absence of electricity in many remote areas.
To her, old fashioned radio was still the most cost-effective way to reach more people quickly. That was also her favourite medium, one in which she did some of most memorable coverage.
Christina had a fine sense of theatrical performance to engage a live audience. She knew just how to shook and hook them. She had no time or patience for political correctness or euphemisms; she just spoke truth to power.
I learnt much by being in her audience, or sharing a platform with her. It was exhilarating to see how she engaged audiences full of jaded and sceptical journalists.
Once, during a panel discussing HIV/AIDS, she asked her audience how many were aged over 50 years. A few hands went up. “In South African terms, chances are you’re already dead,” she declared.
She didn’t have comforting words for those below 35 either: “You’re probably infected with HIV, and don’t know it yet — and go around giving it to others!”
That’s how she summed up the stark realities of South Africa, which has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world. She then personalized, with a wish was that her daughter, then 15, would get through college without contracting HIV.
Christina Scott was a supernova who shone bright and fiery. Her trail would continue to blaze for a long time. But we won’t hear that spirited voice, in that funny accent, always ready to tell an interesting story.
This is the Sinhala text of my weekend column in Ravaya, published on 6 Nov 2011. To mark the newspapers’s 25th anniversary that falls this month, I begin some reflections on the future of newspapers. In this first piece, I discuss how science fiction and thriller writer Michael Crichton (1942-2008) once foresaw the fate of what he called ‘Mediasaurus’.
In my own tribute to Steve Jobs, just published on Groundviews.org, I raise some pertinent questions about nurturing discovery and innovation in Asian societies.
Here’s an excerpt:
We might admire – even revere – mavericks like Steve Jobs from afar, but few Asians have any idea where mavericks come from, or how best to deal with them. Our conformist and hierarchical societies don’t nurture mavericks. Our cultures tend to suppress odd-balls and iconoclasts. That’s probably why we don’t have enough of our own Steve Jobses, Richard Bransons and Anita Roddicks.
Mark Twin said: “The man with a new idea is a crank – until the idea succeeds”. The question is: do we Asians hush down our home-grown cranks even before they have a sporting chance? Are we culturally too biased against individualism that propels useful – and potentially transformative mavericks?
As a ‘maverick spotter’ and cheerleader for all types of innovation, I often worry that we are. I have come across bright young men and women who were ridiculed in the classroom (‘freaks!’) or scorned at home (‘losers!’) for not wanting to be doctors, engineers or lawyers.
This is the central argument in my latest op-ed, a tribute to Steve Jobs and a reflection on individualistic tech innovation in our own Asian societies.
This is the Sinhala text of my weekly column in Ravaya newspaper, issue for 9 Oct 2011. In this, I discuss the plight of two telescopes in Sri Lanka – a private one used by Sir Arthur C Clarke, and another gifted to the government by Japan that is located in the wrong place and grossly underused.
The story goes like this. Victor Hugo was travelling out of town and wanted to know how his latest book was selling. He messaged (telegraphed?) his agent: ?
The agent, not to be outdone, replied: !
Enough said. How I wish I could beat that economy of words…
I have a fondness for both question marks and exclamation marks — I used a good deal of both in my own speaking and writing. I use these as a metaphor in a tribute I just wrote about one of my mentors: Ray Wijewardene.
“If I had to condense the multi-faceted and fascinating life of Ray Wijewardene, I would reduce it to a whole lot of question marks and exclamation marks. In his 86 years, Ray generated more than his fair share of both.
“He was unpigeonholeable: engineer, farmer, inventor, aviator and sportsman all rolled into one. Whether at work or play, he was an innovative thinker who rose above his culture and training to grasp the bigger picture.”
Sir Arthur C Clarke at the ACCIMT in better times For many years, I’ve been explaining and clarifying to everyone that I worked with the late Sir Arthur C Clarke in his personal office in Colombo, which was completely separate from a government entity named the Arthur C Clarke Institute for Modern Technologies in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. This is not just an institutional demarcation; the latter body set up by the government of Sri Lanka in 1984 and sustained since then with public funding has completely under-served its founding ideals and remains mediocre and unproductive after a quarter century. I have no wish to be associated, even mistakenly, with such an entity.
I remained quiet about this for as long as Sir Arthur was alive, as it was not tactful for me – as part of his team – to criticise a state entity named in his honour. A year after his death, I broke that silence and wrote a media article which was published in the current affairs magazine Montage in April 2009.
That elicited some strange ‘reader comments’ on the magazine’s website — several of which alleged that I was a ‘traitor’ who was out to discredit the hard-working (‘Sinhala Buddhist’) engineers and managers of this institute! I could not fathom how and why the staff’s ethnicity or religious faith was relevant.
Beyond such vitriol, these pseudonymous ‘readers’ never once responded to my specific questions about the public-funded institute’s scientific productivity and public accountability.
Unfortunately, Montage went out of publication and its website, which was located at http://www.montagelanka.com, is also no longer available online. So in the public interest, I’m reproducing my article below, unedited as it appeared in print in April 2009. Alas, I never saved the online comments so those are probably lost forever…
As always, this blog is open to a rational discussion of the core issues raised below, as all the concerns still remain valid. And there are no ‘sacred cows’ in my book!
Monument for Sir Arthur C Clarke: Time to ask some tough questions
By Nalaka Gunawardene
As the first death anniversary of Sir Arthur C Clarke approaches, Lankans are still debating how best to cherish the memory of the celebrated author and visionary who called the island his home for more than half a century.
Ours is a land where private individuals — and governments –- just love to put up ostentatious and often superfluous structures to honour the departed. We typically don’t assess their cost-effectiveness or utility. Neither do we pause to ask how the person being honoured would have felt about it.
The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) recently announced plans to launch the country’s first satellite, which is to be named after Sir Arthur. According to news reports, it will be launched into low earth orbit (LEO) at an estimated cost around US$ 20 million.
Would naming Sri Lanka’s first satellite be a fitting tribute to Sir Arthur, universally acclaimed as inventor of the communications satellite (comsat)? Or should a monument to this ‘one man cheering squad for Sri Lanka’ be more rooted in the Lankan soil, where people can see and feel its presence everyday? And, by the way, what about the state technical institute in Moratuwa that already bears the Arthur Clarke name?
Sir Arthur, with whom I worked closely for 21 years as an aide and a decade as spokesman, would surely have wanted an open and frank debate on this matter. He opted for rational, evidence-based decisions based on cost-benefit analysis. He frowned upon grandiose plans made for their own sake, whether their implementation was going be paid for by public or private funds.
Besides, he already had an asteroid, dinosaur species and a geostationary comsat named after him during his lifetime. Topping that without going over the top would be a challenge indeed.
A living legacy
The tussle for the Clarke legacy started within hours of his death on 19 March 2008. He had left clear written instructions for his funeral to be held on a strictly secular and austere basis. He didn’t want any decorations, and explicitly disallowed official involvement by British or Lankan governments.
As this news spread, it fell on me to explain to government officials why offers of a state funeral and other types of state patronage could not be accommodated. This raised some eyebrows and dashed hopes of some who wanted to turn the sombre event into a carnival. In the end, the state appealed for a symbolic radio silence of two minutes to coincide with the funeral.
In the weeks and months that followed, many have asked me what kind of monument was being planned in Sir Arthur’s memory. The answer, as far as the Arthur Clarke Estate is concerned, is none –- and this seems to surprise many.
Yet it is entirely consistent with Sir Arthur’s personality and vision: he never sought personal edifices in his honour or memory. When a journalist once asked him about a monument, he said: “Go to any well-stocked library, and look around…”
That evokes memories of the well known epitaph for Sir Christopher Wren, one of the greatest architects of all time, who significantly changed London’s skyline: “Lector, Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice”(“Reader, if you seek his monument, look around”). It also begs the question why Sir Arthur chose not to make any mention of the physical entity that already bore his name: the Arthur C Clarke Institute for Modern Technologies (ACCIMT).
Indeed, the ACCIMT is today a perfect example of a good idea gone astray, becoming a disgrace to the very man it was meant to honour. How did things go wrong to the point where Sir Arthur Clarke distanced himself from the Arthur Clarke Institute in the last few years of his life? These thorny questions need to be asked now that we are discussing matters of legacy.
The world was very different, and aspirations were very high, when ACCIMT was established in 1984 by an Act of Parliament to help transfer and adopt modern technologies in five areas: computers, telecommunications, energy, robotics and space technology. The Institute, initially called the Arthur Clarke Centre, was to undertake research and development as well as train technical professionals in ways that would accelerate economic development and advance the quality of life.
Several leading Lankan professionals were associated with its creation. Among them were civil servant (later Minister) Dr Sarath Amunugama and diplomat (now academic) Dr Naren Chitty. In 1985, President J R Jayewardene appointed the eminent biochemist (and his science advisor) Professor Cyril Ponnamperuma as its founder director.
As patron, Sir Arthur had no executive functions or responsibilities, but generously provided advice, guidance and some funding to the fledgling institute. He donated US$ 35,000 received for the 1982 Marconi Fellowship. Just as importantly, he mobilised his far-flung network of international contacts in scientific, technological and engineering circles. The Arthur Clarke ‘fan club’ stretched far and wide -– from the White House to the Kremlin, and from elite academia to geeky Silicon Valley. Carrying this unique calling card, ACCIMT had access to a global reservoir of goodwill, partnerships and external funding.
Tragically, despite this head start and advantages, the Institute reaped little benefit. While it did show some early promise, it has failed to consolidate itself as a credible and productive technical institute. Its founding aim of becoming a centre of excellence for the developing world also flopped. When assessed using universally accepted measures of scientific productivity -– such as research publications in refereed international journals, peer citations and patents for innovation — it shows a dismally poor track record.
For sure, it has been dabbling with a few everyday technologies such as traffic lights, telephone locks and domestic gas leak alarms. Useful as these applications are in specific situations, they cannot justify 25 years of substantial investment of Lankan tax payer money as well as international donor funds.
March of ICTs
Perhaps an institute with this kind of lofty mandate could have been more influential at the apex policy level. The past 25 years have seen Sri Lanka adopting many new information and communication technologies or ICTs (e.g. mobile telephony in 1989, commercial internet connectivity in 1995). There has been an unprecedented and phenomenal growth in the coverage of telecom services. These developments have thrown up many policy and regulatory challenges for the state and private sector players.
Alas, ACCIMT has not kept up with the rapid evolution of information society, and failed to carve out a clear niche for itself even as Sri Lanka engages the Global Village through a multitude of ICTs. Its voice is neither heard nor heeded in key debates on bridging the digital divide, and on how best to prepare our youth to ‘exploit the inevitable’ in a globalised marketplace. These concerns were very dear to Sir Arthur, who continued to talk and write perceptively about them to the very end of his life. But ACCIMT is still stuck in the obsolete analog concerns of the 1980s.
Peer acceptance and recognition are indicators of any technical institute’s standing. ACCIMT would struggle to demonstrate its worth on these criteria. It is routinely bypassed by state policy making mechanisms and agencies. It is curious how the telecom industry regulator is spearheading the government’s newly announced satellite project. Why is ACCIMT, with a statutory mandate in this subject, not playing a more prominent role in such plans and discussions?
When the rest of government ignores the institute, it’s not surprising that technology-based industries don’t turn to it for advice either. The institute’s principal activity these days is conducting training courses in electronics — useful, no doubt, but for which purpose there already are several dedicated vocational training centres.
For much of its 25 years, the Arthur Clarke institute has taken cover behind its famous patron to avoid adequate public scrutiny. Large sections of society, including many in the media, harboured a misconception that Sir Arthur Clarke was personally involved in its management and research; in practice, he had none.
Early sparks
Things didn’t always look this bleak. For a while, it seemed as if the institute would live up to its founders’ expectations. For example, it was the first to downlink and relay CNN broadcasts in Sri Lanka. CNN founder Ted Turner‘s respect for Sir Arthur made this possible. The institute was also involved designing low-cost dish antennae for households to directly capture satellite TV transmissions in the 1980s when only two terrestrial channels were available. March of technology and commerce later made these services redundant.
One far-sighted activity that Professor Ponnamperuma started was the Science for Youth programme. On a national and competitive basis, 25 of the brightest high school leavers were selected and introduced to modern technologies over six consecutive weekends. Out of that exercise eventually emerged the Young Astronomers’ Association and Computer Society of Sri Lanka, the latter now a professional body.
As part of the 1986 batch, I can personally vouch for the insights and inspiration Science for Youth gave me in those pre-Internet days. I was especially fascinated by the outspoken views of inventor and aviator Ray Wijewardene. The friendship I formed with him has lasted for over two decades and enriched me enormously. Later, as a young science journalist, I used to cover the institute’s public events hosting of visiting tech pioneers and Russian cosmonauts. For a while, ACCIMT was a ‘happening place’.
Then, sometime in the 1990s, the institute abandoned most of its public engagement and outreach activities. This inward looking attitude didn’t change even after the government decided to locate the country’s largest optical telescope (donated by Japan) at the institute. I remember how exasperated Sir Arthur was to hear schools being told that they may visit and look at the telescope during the working hours from 9 am to 5 pm!
But by then, he was not going to intervene. After he turned 80 in 1997, Sir Arthur adopted a policy of ‘benign neglect’ towards the institute on which he had pinned such high hopes only years earlier. Ever conscious of his ‘resident guest’ status, he chose not to criticise the institute in public, although he shared his dismay and disappointment in private.
As we debate how best to preserve Sir Arthur’s illustrious legacy, we cannot afford to continue such ‘benign neglect’ on the publicly-funded Arthur Clarke Institute. A good starting point would be to belatedly ask tough questions and engage in some serious introspection.
Sir Arthur would have expected nothing less.
About the writer: Science writer Nalaka Gunawardene worked for Sir Arthur Clarke’s personal office, which was totally separate from the Arthur Clarke Institute. The views in this article are entirely those of the author.
Photographs courtesy Rohan de Silva, Arthur C Clarke Estate.
My weekly column on science, development and media, published in Ravaya newspaper on 28 August 2011 (converted into unicode Sinhala font using UCSC online facility, which has some limitations).
Map courtesy Christian Science MonitorI’ve been travelling for 25 years, but never once experienced an earthquake. Oh, I regularly visit places located in highly seismically active zones: Japan, Indonesia and Nepal among them. However, I’ve never been in the right place at the right time — or should it be ‘the wrong place at the wrong time’?
That was finally corrected with the US East Coast earthquake on 23 August,the last day of my visit to Washington DC, where I’d been staying with a friend in Alexandria, Virginia. Daughter Dhara and I had just finished packing for our long return journey and making ourselves some lunch. Our friends were at work; we were alone with another visitor.
Around 2 pm, and without any warning, the whole house started shaking. The basement made the biggest noise and a cupboard full of glassware next to the dining table rattled quite hard – for a moment I thought it was going to crash forward.
But luckily it didn’t. The noise and vibrations last for about 20-30 seconds. By then I figured that it was an earthquake. We were within a few feet of the front door, so we quick ran outside. Wrong move, we later heard (we should instead have crept under a table and waited for things to settle). But all our neighbours too did the same, rushing out looking all panicked…
Things settled down soon enough, and no further tremours were felt. After a few minutes, we went back inside.
But I was puzzled: the US East Coast is not known to be seismically that active. Yet a few minutes later the US Geological Survey, which monitors earthquakes worldwide, posted an update: this was indeed a magnitude 5.8 quake which was centred in the state of Virginia — the epicentre was only around 50km from where we are at the time. The largest previous earthquake (magnitude 4.8) in this area had occurred in 1875. Smaller earthquakes that cause little or no damage are felt each year or two.
Within an hour of the incident (late by social media standards!), I tweeted: “After 25 yrs of world travel, incl a dozen visits to Japan, I’ve finally experienced a #quake in Virginia, USA. Shaken but not stirred…”
What I didn’t express, until now, is the sense of relief that as quakes go, this was a relatively harmless tremour!
As news started coming in, we heard that the impact had been felt more forcefully in nearby towns and neighbourhoods. Government and corporate offices – including the US Congress and Pentagon (Defence Dept) — evacuated as a precautionary measure. Many shopping malls and other public places closed up in a hurry. The cell phone networks were clogged with too many people calling each other. It was a mild form of panic, something the Californians on the West Coast — so accustomed to tremours in their lives — found amusing.
The US media — perhaps starved of breaking news in the lazy days of Summer — went into overdrive with saturation coverage. Much of it was cacophonous, but some outlets were more informed and measured.
Volunteers help restock shelves in Mineral, Virginia, just a few miles from the epicenter of Aug 23 earthquake - Image courtesy CNN.com
Among the more perceptive pieces was what an op ed that appeared on CNN.com and written by Christa von Hillebrandt-Andrade, manager of the Caribbean Tsunami Warning Program of the U.S. National Weather Service and president of the Seismological Society of America, She noted: “Although seismologists, historians and emergency managers have recognized the potential for an earthquake along the East Coast for years, most people were caught by surprise and so responded inappropriately. The ground doesn’t shake as much in the East as it does in California, Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands. But because of the great concentration of population and infrastructure in the East, it’s an area of immense risk.”
She added: “Since earthquakes are infrequent in this region, most people don’t know earthquake preparedness measures. Instead of running out of buildings, they should have dropped, covered and held on. Earthquakes are natural phenomena that become disasters when we don’t prepare adequately — or are not educated in proper measures.
“The 2004 tsunami is an example of a rare event catching people unprepared, with catastrophic results. In December of that year, more than 230,000 lives were lost in countries around the Indian Ocean. Residents and tourists were taken by surprise — they were not warned, nor did they recognize the natural signs.”
She also cited the exception to that norm: the British school girl Tilly Smith who was vacationing on a Thai beach that day and recognised the tell-tale signs of the oncoming tsunami. In the wake of the Virginia quake, my Oct 2007 blog post about Tilly has attracted considerable attention.
Ray Wijewardene (1924 - 2010): A man for all elements
One year has passed since Ray Wijewardene’s death aged 86. In that year, I’ve been privileged to play a part in celebrating his life and preserving his legacy.
My main contribution todate is building the official Ray Wijewardene website, which was launched in time for Ray’s 87th birth anniversary. It can now be accessed at: http://www.raywijewardene.net
Here’s the promotional blurb I sent out to a few dozen people this weekend:
Philip Revatha (Ray) Wijewardene (1924 – 2010) was an extraordinary Sri Lankan who was rightly called a Renaissance Man. Educated at two of the most prestigious universities in the world (Cambridge and Harvard), he excelled in many different areas of human endeavour: agriculture, aviation, engineering design, inventions, renewable energy technologies and water sports. He also painted and played the violin.
The Ray Wijewardene official website went ‘live’ just in time for Ray’s 87th birth anniversary on 20 August 2011.
This informative website captures highlights of Ray’s rich and colourful life that covered different areas of human endeavour: agriculture, aviation, engineering design, renewable energy, transport and water sports. It promotes his vision for self-reliance, innovation and sustainable development in Sri Lanka and in other countries in the humid tropics.
Weaving the four elements: Ray's logoThe website introduces Ray as ‘a man for all elements’, and showcases his personal logo that symbolised the integration of the four elements in eastern philosophy: water, fire, air and matter/Earth.
It carries first person narratives written by five individuals who knew Ray in different capacities: aviator Capt Elmo Jayawardena, renewable energy specialist P G Joseph, science writer Nalaka Gunawardene, conservationist Dr Ranjith Mahindapala and biologist Rohan Pethiyagoda. It also collates links to tributes and appreciations that were published in the media following Ray’s death in August 2010.
In another section, the website has a photo gallery that includes many hitherto-unseen images drawn from the Wijewardene family albums and from various other institutional and media sources. These offer glimpses of Ray Wijewardene’s education, training, career and leisure activities that took him to the universities of Cambridge and Harvard, international service with the United Nations, the Olympic and Asian games and the grassroots in Sri Lanka.
The website was conceived and built by the Colombo-based non-profit media foundation TVE Asia Pacific. It is an entirely voluntary effort that involved the collaboration of many individuals from different backgrounds and geographical locations. Information and images were sourced from Ray’s family members, friends and associates.
More information, photographs and videos are to be added as new material becomes available. The website actively seeks memories, anecdotes and images for the Ray biography compilation project that is now underway.
The Ray Wijewardene Charitable Trust (RWCT) was established in early 2011 to promote Ray’s vision and ideas in Sri Lanka. The Trust will support innovation in areas that were close to Ray’s heart. This website is the Trust’s first public activity to preserve Ray’s legacy.
In this Ravaya column (in Sinhala), I summarise the views of late Dr Ray Wijewardene on sustainable farming. Written to mark his first death anniversary, it is the beginning of a series of explorations of his critical thinking on issues of agriculture, energy, environmental conservation and innovation.
This first appeared in Ravaya Sunday broadsheet newspaper on 21 August 2011.
Open Minds! 