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The merger of globalization and I.T. is driving huge productivity gains, especially in recessionary times, where employers are finding it easier, cheaper and more necessary than ever to replace labor with machines, computers, robots and talented foreign workers. It used to be that only cheap foreign manual labor was easily available; now cheap foreign genius is easily available.

Chungking Mansions, 36-44 Nathan Road. Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. "Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong" by Gordon Mathews, Hong Kong University Press. Available at English language bookstores in Hong Kong and Amazon.com.

Singapore is one of the most "evolved" social media markets around the world, according to market research firm Firefly Millward Brown. The global study, which was conducted in 15 countries between October and December last year,

Kundavi is building a global hub for creativity and innovation in Los Cabos, Mexico.

Low end globalization

Erik Hersman has pioneered the use of technology to monitor crises, elections and services in Africa, and says it is transforming the continent faster than anyone predicted

How interested are people in innovation - and how does that change cross-culturally? What do users across the world really want, how can we uncover and design for their unmet needs, and what services can we attach to products to stay close to our customers? We've found that these questions point to a new need for innovative cultures in the world today (distinct from innovative companies).

Six months after an uprising led by people like her ousted Hosni Mubarak and overturned the established order of the Arab world, Ms. Mehairy has joined the ranks of Egypt's newest business class: the entrepreneurs of the revolution. Instead of leaving Egypt as she had planned, she is staying to nurture a start-up called SuperMama, an Arabic-language Web site for women that has 10 local employees.

The 2011 Singapore General Elections was a water-shed event in Singapore's political history. Not because for the first time ever, an opposition party (the Workers' Party or WP) managed to secure a Group Representative Constituency (GRC) from the PAP. Nor was it because the PAP's popular vote had fallen from 67 percent in 2007 to 60.1 percent. Rather, it was a result of Singapore's political landscape being dramatically altered with the advent of social media and the Internet. The Internet and Social Media sparked a new way of thinking for Singapore, especially in the political arena. While older Singaporeans relied on state controlled media agencies for their news and information, the Internet opened up a source of independent information that could not be tightly regulated or controlled  as  traditional media platforms. Singapore's World Press Freedom Index ranking is a dismal 136th out of 178 countries (assessed by Reporters Without Borders) and 151st out of 196 countries according to the Freedom of the Press 2010 Global Rankings report. As Singaporeans began to seek alternative viewpoints that were not expressed in the local media, websites like The Temasek Review and The Online Citizen cropped up. These sites gained popularity and support for publishing articles that were critical of the local government for the first time.

FOUR out of five Latin Americans live in cities, compared with fewer than half of Asians or Africans. The region's 198 biggest cities-those with more than 200,000 people-account for 60% of its economic output, with the ten largest alone generating half of that. The productivity gains that flow from bringing people together in cities have been one of the drivers of economic growth in Latin America over the past half century or more. But congestion, housing shortages, pollution and a lack of urban planning mean that Latin America's biggest cities now risk dragging down their country's economies, according to a report* by the McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of McKinsey, a firm of management consultants.

nstant messenger applications remain the most commonly used social media in Mexico, in part due to the easy portability of the software, according to Andy Atkins-Krüger's recent WebCertain Search and Social Report 2010. Twitter and Facebook are gaining in popularity, however, with about 50 percent of online users are now active on Facebook as well. Internet access is limited to just over 25 percent of the Mexican population, so the potential for growth in this largely untapped market makes it a popular target for newer social media sites.

The International Network of Crisis Mappers is the largest and most active international community of experts, practitioners, policymakers, technologists, researchers, journalists, scholars, hackers and skilled volunteers engaged at the intersection between humanitarian crises, technology and crisis mapping. The Crisis Mappers Network was launched by 100 Crisis Mappers at the first International Conference on Crisis Mapping in 2009. As the world's premier crisis mapping hub, the Network catalyzes communication and collaboration between and among crisis mappers with the purpose of advancing the study and application of crisis mapping worldwide.