Hat tip to BoingBoing for this link to the Wired Magazine letter from Arthur C. Clarke.
I had blogged about an earlier post Clarke had put on his personal website. Here is some of Dr. Clarke's letter to Wired Magazine:
The New Year dawned with the global family closely following the unfolding tragedy via satellite television and the Web. As the grim images from Banda Aceh, Chennai, Galle, and elsewhere replaced the traditional scenes of celebrations, I realized that it would soon be 60 years since I conceived the communications satellite (in Wireless World, October 1945 -- I still think it was a good idea).
I was also reminded of what Bernard Kouchner, former health minister of France and first UN governor of Kosovo, once said: "Where there is no camera, there is no humanitarian intervention." Indeed, how many of the millions of men and women who donated generously for disaster relief would have done so if they had only read about it in the newspapers?
But cameras and other communications media have to do more than just document the devastation and mobilize emergency relief. We need to move beyond body counts and aid appeals to find lasting, meaningful ways of supporting Asia's recovery.
In that sense, the Asian tsunami becomes a test for information and communications technologies (ICTs) in terms of how they can support humanitarian assistance and human development.
Interestingly, two popular ICTs played a key role during the early stages. Dr. Clarke was the first person to come up with the idea of placing a satellite high enough in Earth Orbit that its orbital period would be 24 hours, rendering it stationary to the earthbound observer. He wrote several articles about this idea and then applied for a patent. He was unable to get one because of the previous articles -- missed out on quite the fortune... The whole letter is very thought-provoking in a very good sense -- check it out. Here is the link again: Letter from Sri Lanka
