Dr. Mihaela Ulieru

PROJECT 1: Adaptive Governance (http://gameb.wikispaces.com/Why+is+this+called+Game+B%3F). The digital ecology will have an impact on legacy institutions, entrepreneurs and consumers differently. Banking, urban environments and legacy telecommunication firms are facing major disruptions which threaten to destabilise society if not timely and properly addressed. Each group will face challenges and will be forced to adapt or perish. As we are moving toward a new data ecology based on identity… Show more

PROJECT 1: Adaptive Governance (http://gameb.wikispaces.com/Why+is+this+called+Game+B%3F). The digital ecology will have an impact on legacy institutions, entrepreneurs and consumers differently. Banking, urban environments and legacy telecommunication firms are facing major disruptions which threaten to destabilise society if not timely and properly addressed. Each group will face challenges and will be forced to adapt or perish. As we are moving toward a new data ecology based on identity, trust, data and governance, many questions remain about the implementation of these technologies and the surrounding regulation. Our project aims to answer them - yet the first hard truth that we have to recognize is related to the limitations of government, which can at best serve as a collaborator rather than as an innovator (as for example the MIT and DARPA collaborated on the development of the Internet). Government issued regulations are by definition reactive blunt instruments that often drive “bad guys” to quickly innovate around them, since the current set of rules, shaped and amplified by modern technology, essentially require business models based on increasing returns to scale (a scenario that classical economics deemed impossible). Having won the most significant battles against labor, companies and investors are now buying the electoral process – the very set of “governance rules” on which the “winners” thrive in our “pathological” society. It is time to change the rules with more inclusive and generative ones, and embed them into constitutional systems that can enable free flows of creativity in trusted structures that are resistant to capture. Show less

"PROJECT 4: Adaptive Risk Management

(http://www.theimpactinstitute.org/Publications/Ross-et-al-Socio-Physical-risk-reduction.pdf) The digital ecology will have an impact on legacy institutions, entrepreneurs and consumers differently. Banking, urban environments and legacy telecommunication firms are facing major disruptions which threaten to destabilise society if not timely and properly addressed. Each group will face challenges and will be forced to adapt or perish. New approaches to… Show more

"PROJECT 4: Adaptive Risk Management

(http://www.theimpactinstitute.org/Publications/Ross-et-al-Socio-Physical-risk-reduction.pdf) The digital ecology will have an impact on legacy institutions, entrepreneurs and consumers differently. Banking, urban environments and legacy telecommunication firms are facing major disruptions which threaten to destabilise society if not timely and properly addressed. Each group will face challenges and will be forced to adapt or perish. New approaches to risk management are urgently needed – such as moving from risk governance to resilience governance, which is the main focus on this project (http://www.theimpactinstitute.org/Publications/Keynote-Reformatted.pdf)."
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PROJECT 2: Emergent Engineering (http://www.theimpactinstitute.org/Publications/Ulieru-Doursat-Published.pdf) Designing participatory software platforms that embed such rules for catalyzing social networks enables the deployment of living, self-directed “digital ecologies” where people can reshape society and the world.


PROJECT 3: Privacy in the new Digital Ecology. (http://www.theimpactinstitute.org/Publications/Final-noorian_ulieru_pN.pdf) Another significant challenge is related… Show more

PROJECT 2: Emergent Engineering (http://www.theimpactinstitute.org/Publications/Ulieru-Doursat-Published.pdf) Designing participatory software platforms that embed such rules for catalyzing social networks enables the deployment of living, self-directed “digital ecologies” where people can reshape society and the world.


PROJECT 3: Privacy in the new Digital Ecology. (http://www.theimpactinstitute.org/Publications/Final-noorian_ulieru_pN.pdf) Another significant challenge is related to the concept of privacy which becomes more and more confused in the context of shared big data. Consumers are becoming more segmented about expectations of privacy with respect to the content they share. Some are ambivalent others are very open, while some are very private. We aim to address these challenges by developing “one--‐click” interaction systems enabled by personal data, digital (and in the future personal) currencies and computationally validated governance rules that can create efficiencies in a variety of industries from banking and manufacturing to telecom (here post Ulieru/Cobzaru publication) and contract law (http://www.commonaccord.org/).
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The Ecology of Digital Assets project originated in August 2013, when the Institute for Data Driven Design (ID3) invited me along with a dozen other leading thinkers, programmers, tech experts and entrepreneurs from all continents to meet in Jefferson, NH, to try to name, capture and distill the ingredients of the digital culture now emerging and to describe the broad, general contours of the transition to the digital assets driven world.

Backed by MIT Media, Lab… Show more

The Ecology of Digital Assets project originated in August 2013, when the Institute for Data Driven Design (ID3) invited me along with a dozen other leading thinkers, programmers, tech experts and entrepreneurs from all continents to meet in Jefferson, NH, to try to name, capture and distill the ingredients of the digital culture now emerging and to describe the broad, general contours of the transition to the digital assets driven world.

Backed by MIT Media, Lab (http://connection.mit.edu/digitalassets.html) the project aims to distill the ingredients of the next generation social Internet – vision which I pioneered in 2008 as general chair of the first IT Revolutions conference (http://itrevolutions.org/2008/) and investigated further in my research as Canada Research Chair on eSociety: (http://www.theimpactinstitute.org/Digital%20Ecologies.pdf).

In a nutshell, the idea stems from the realization that institutions invented in the 18th century are poorly equipped to deal with a 21st century society of instantaneous global communication, data-driven commerce, self-organized virtual communities and non-state digital currencies.

The virtualization of many basic functions of society, the rise of Big Data, and the ubiquity of computing demand new rules or, better yet, new types of self-enforcing social contracts for all types of human interaction and governance. In this new data ecology, virtually anything can become a “digital asset” - identities, currencies, securities, contracts, mortgages, derivatives, goods, services, rewards, genome, licenses, titles, certificates, etc.

From commerce/governance to education/social life, we are rapidly moving into an immersive societal ecology of data, accelerating the immediacy of providing users with the ability to manage their own digital assets.

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The discussion yielded a commitment to capture the features of this new ecology and its impact on society and the world at this time when scientific findings are undermining many foundational claims about human rationality and perfectibility while exponential technological changes and exploding global demographics overwhelm the capacity of democratic institutions to rule effectively, and ultimately, their very legitimacy.

My chapter in the book From Bitcoin to Burning Man and Beyond… Show more

The discussion yielded a commitment to capture the features of this new ecology and its impact on society and the world at this time when scientific findings are undermining many foundational claims about human rationality and perfectibility while exponential technological changes and exploding global demographics overwhelm the capacity of democratic institutions to rule effectively, and ultimately, their very legitimacy.

My chapter in the book From Bitcoin to Burning Man and Beyond, which encapsulates the findings of the first year of this exciting endeavor, answers the fundamental question of how to design effective self-governance, question which is at the center of the book (see Publications section). Show less

Working with the Department of National Defence we developed a system supporting RECON, an initiative to support intelligence analysts with a novel context management and case-based recommendation capability.

Challenges: Because access to data was grossly limited due to organizations operating under stringent security restrictions the Human Factor was identified as a major roadblock to collaboration.

The real-life operational exercises we ran (a stadium evacuation scenario and a maritime port emerging threat) were strenuous but exciting, and identified several previously undetected clashes and roadblocks. Timely changes were made to policies and protocols to ensure an effective and smoothly… Show more

Challenges: Because access to data was grossly limited due to organizations operating under stringent security restrictions the Human Factor was identified as a major roadblock to collaboration.

The real-life operational exercises we ran (a stadium evacuation scenario and a maritime port emerging threat) were strenuous but exciting, and identified several previously undetected clashes and roadblocks. Timely changes were made to policies and protocols to ensure an effective and smoothly integrated security system during the Vancouver Games. The system’s best practices were synthesized after the Olympics through deep analysis of the critical factors identified and we are currently working to implement the lessons in similar large scale events planned around the globe and sharing these lessons at various security forums, among which:

Project detail: Consulted as expert for several NATO working groups (complex systems, resilience and agility and cybertherapy and rehabilitation) and presented at several NATO and European Security meetings, among which are located in the presentations section below.

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- Panelist at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Cybertherapy, February 20-22, 2011, Vienna, Austria

- Panelist on "Global Security Problems Between Democracy and War" at the Forum on Changing Global Power Balances and Turkey, with participation of the Turkish President and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, October 6-7, 2010, Istanbul, Turkey

- Invited Keynote Speaker at the NATO Conference on Simulation Modeling of Complex Security Operations, Ottawa, Canada, May 3-6… Show more

- Panelist at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Cybertherapy, February 20-22, 2011, Vienna, Austria

- Panelist on "Global Security Problems Between Democracy and War" at the Forum on Changing Global Power Balances and Turkey, with participation of the Turkish President and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, October 6-7, 2010, Istanbul, Turkey

- Invited Keynote Speaker at the NATO Conference on Simulation Modeling of Complex Security Operations, Ottawa, Canada, May 3-6, 2010

- Invited Keynote Speaker at the Defence S&T Symposium on Agility and Resilience Strategies, Ottawa, Canada, April 27-29, 2010

- Expert Evaluator for the Joint Call on ICT and Security - appointed by the European Commission Directorate General Security, Information Society and Media, 2007- ongoing

- Invited Expert Speaker at the Public Policy Retreat of Public Safety Canada, Ottawa, February 18-19, 2010

- Expert (only Canadian invited), Panel on Managing and Engineering in Complex Situations, MITRE Corporation, MacLeans DC, USA July 30 – August 1, 2008

- Expert on the Security Foresight Advisory Panel, Centre for Security Science, Science & Technology Directorate – appointed by the Office of the National Science Advisor, Government of Canada, 2006-2007

- Expert on the Canada-US Fulbright Emergency Preparedness Working Group, 2006

- Member Review Panel on Safety and Security, NSERC Strategic Partnerships Projects, 2006-2007

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