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A decade of democracy
Overcoming Apartheid : Landmark survey reveals South Africa’s peaceful transition to democracy
South Africans celebrate a decade of democracy this month as they observe the 10th anniverary of the April 1994 elections that brought Nelson Mandela to power and ended years of apartheid and white rule. While many expected South Africa’s transition to democracy to be filled with pain and heartbreak, a new book attributes the nation’s remarkable success to it’s steadfast faith in the power of truth to promote national healing and reconciliation. “Without the truth and reconciliation process, the prospects for a reconciled, democratic South Africa would have been greatly diminished,” concludes James L. Gibson, author of “Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation?”
That will be $90,000, please
Researchers calculate cost-savings of living kidney donors
Of the 55,000 Americans waiting for kidney transplants, last year only 13,000 had the operation. Some 3,000 others died on the waiting list. Part of the problem involves obtaining donated organs. Currently only half of potential organ donors actually donate, but even if every eligible donor donated, many on the waiting list still wouldn’t be helped. Living donors are another potential source of organs, and the transplants from living donors also have the greatest chance of success. Encouraging more people to donate a kidney while they are alive could put a big dent in the number of people on the waiting list, but how can society encourage more of those people to donate? Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Minnesota set up a mathematical model to determine whether it might be cost effective to pay people for their kidneys. Potential ethical issues aside, the researchers determined that society could break even by paying as much as $90,000 to those willing to part with a kidney for money.
Entrepreneurship
Has America lost its entrepreneurial edge?
The uncertain economy of the last few years has some wondering if American innovation and ingenuity is in decline, but not Kenneth Harrington and Robert Skandalaris. Harrington, director of the Skandalaris Entrepreneurship Program at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis and Skandalaris, founder and Chairman of Noble International Ltd, are collaborating on a book on entrepreneurship and find it alive and well. But in a recent article, they caution that “people, organizations, institutions, and governments that don’t have a strategy to lead in entrepreneurial innovation will be displaced or at serious risk of becoming obsolete.” The Washington University business school launches its 2004 Olin Cup Entrepreneurship Competition this month with special events, speakers, and workshops. Washington University recently received a major grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to expand entrepreneurship education campus-wide.
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