Over the course of seven years, the Tata center recruited and trained more than 200 graduate students from 18 different MIT departments to design and implement energy solutions that are practical and reliable in the developing world. Their work produced 45 patents, 12 commercial licenses, and over a dozen startups. This chapter demonstrates the method for implementing similar programs, with a focus on energy-related research projects. The program leaders describe their project as “CPR for Engineers,” with a three-axis model focusing on developing Compassion, Practice, and Research.

Chapter 2 offers a case study centered on the island of Hachijō, where life with the current gave rise to unique economic practices and social organization. It centers on the seasonal rhythm of castaway arrivals and repatriation that, by the mid-eighteenth century, had become an important branch of the local economy. Numbers of castaways were significant because sailors used winds and the eastward current to propel their voyage, even though their crafts were unfit for offshore sailing. In the peak year of 1850 alone, 300 sailors arrived on twenty-seven vessels from western Japan. Historical arrivals of foreign castaways and flotsam have created a virtual geography and local identity that connected the remote island to India, whence the “river” Kuroshio was believed to flow, and China, whence the current was believed to have brought important cultural achievements.

The chapter examines the governance structure of global tennis. It shows the existence of three distinct entities, the ITF, WTA and ATP, all endowed with distinct yet inter-related subject matters. All are potentially in conflict, but there is a great deal of synergy involved. The same is true among these three transnational tennis entities and national federations. The chapter shows that each entity has assumed the aegis of particular tennis tournaments, while the ITF is considered as possessing overall control over the development of the game (outside the professional circuit), including doping and corruption, and is the designated sport governing body responsible for organizing tennis at the Olympics. The chapter examines the particular governance structures of all three tennis entities and briefly sets out the role of players’ councils. The chapter goes on to explore commercialization, corruption and financial governance challenges.

While animals and plants have been part of Ottoman studies for a long time, the way students of history study them has changed over time. This chapter traces that change and its implications. It first describes the literature acknowledging the significance of plants and animals (such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and sheep) as commodities in both domestic and world markets, but viewing their role in history as basically secondary to humans. Then it provides an overview of studies on the cultural representations of animals and plants, and finally focuses on recent historiography that sees nonhuman species as active agents of Ottoman history. The latter approach, the chapter argues, provides a more comprehensive and dynamic understanding of the past as it highlights the role played by nonhuman actors, ranging from crop plants to street dogs and mosquitos, in transformations that the empire underwent in the course of centuries.

Chapter 2 focuses the largest sector of the economy: Agriculture. The rural economy produced most of the output in Mughal India and in British India. 85 percent of the population lived in rural communities. The economic history of India has a rich narrative of regions, of introduction of new institutions and integration of the cultivators into commercial exchange of food and raw material at the regional level. This chapter brings together an overall narrative of the regions and explains why some regions prospered, while others declined. It sees the role of infrastructure as an important part of this discussion, that is, the impact of the railways and irrigation. While British investment in irrigation and new technology in agriculture was inadequate and can explain agricultural stagnation in different parts of the country, the railways played an important role in integrating markets. The chapter ends with a discussion of the building of agricultural infrastructure after independence and the Green Revolution of the 1960s and it importance in economic growth and development.

Women do not receive their fair share when it comes to patenting and are far less likely to own patents. This disparity is due in part to the inherent biases in science, technology, and the patent system and in part to the high costs of the patent application process. This chapter therefore proposes an unconventional new regime of unregistered patent rights to relieve women and other disadvantaged inventors of such costs and biases and thereby increase their access to patent protections. To explain the proposal, this chapter details the challenges facing women and other disadvantaged inventors in applying for patents as well as the fact that other intellectual property regimes, such as copyright and trademark, allow such unregistered rights. The chapter also addresses a number of objections that the proposal would inevitably raise. In particular, it shows that, because the proposed unregistered patent system would grant rights for only three years and protect only against direct and knowing copying, these rights would be unlikely to deter incremental or complementary innovation. Such rights would also be fully subject to invalidation under a preponderance of the evidence standard.

Theoretically, all inventions are equal under the law: they receive the same scope of protection for the same period, backed by the same remedies. In reality, such equality has been strongly compromised. Patents are concentrated in the hands of big companies and privileged individuals. Women and minorities – as well as firms they own – are less likely to file for patents and have their patents granted. Small companies are also less likely to file and receive patents than strong incumbents. This chapter argues that some changes in the patent system can trigger better accessibility, affordability, and equality. It builds on the author’s earlier proposal to replace the patent record with a decentralized database that would include more information about inventions from more sources and additional functions. Under the proposal, inventors would submit patent applications to a shared patent record instead of a central patent office. During the examination process and throughout the duration of the patent, industry and state actors would be able to update the record. For example, third parties could submit prior art, scientists could weigh in on obviousness, patentees could offer licenses, and courts could list outstanding cases that pertain to the patent.

Videogames once seemed like they would have a part to play in the future of the book – the natural evolution of literary practice onto more expressly interactive digital platforms. Today, despite numerous compelling examples of videogames that support literary engagement, the comparison can seem strange, clichéd, banal, and beside the point. This chapter attempts to reset the comparison of videogames and literature for the present moment of digital culture. First, it presents a brief history of critical perspectives on videogames as literature. Second, it reflects on the contemporary status of and challenges to videogaming’s literary aspirations following recent shifts in the industry’s design priorities and monetization practices. This chapter does not present an argument regarding the status of games as literature. Rather, its goal is to describe the urgent work of literary studies in continuing to rethink digital gaming in the unfolding digital age.

Commercialization is the process of bringing diagnostics from the laboratory setting to the commercial market. Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx®) portfolio companies were tasked with developing and producing millions of rapid, accurate, low-cost, and convenient COVID-19 tests to meet surging demand, but tests only help if people can access them. Many would-be purchasers discovered that tests alone would not solve the problem – they needed comprehensive testing solutions. In this chapter, we discuss RADx’s role in assisting portfolio companies in understanding customers’ evolving needs; the shifting market dynamics with each new wave, vaccine, or variant; and the barriers and opportunities to market success. We highlight go-to-market strategies and policy decisions that worked well and we outline policy and regulatory barriers that hindered broader success. We reflect on the lessons learned and potential solutions to adopt before the next pandemic and in the broader context of the future diagnostic delivery system.

During the Tokugawa period, commoners developed increasingly sophisticated methods of challenging what they perceived as unjust government policies or unethical behavior by the wealthy. Popular movements coalesced around petitions that stated grievances. They typically took the form of mass demonstrations that required preparation, organization, and leadership. Even urban food riots had a logic to them. In many cases, they erupted after women had called on merchants to feed the poor, and they followed a code for conduct that cautioned against stealing. In the early nineteenth century, farmers created village leagues that employed representatives to manage issues with regional implications and make their case for commercial policies. In some instances, they argued that all human beings are equal, an argument made unsuccessfully by outcaste villagers. Villagers commemorated popular movements in chronicles and tales, mixing fact and fiction in the interests of a good story, and they remembered their fallen leaders in memorial services.

This chapter maps the effects of war on economies and on women’s work. First, it surveys the role of women both as an official and unofficial part of armies and other military support operations. Second, it looks at the way that military conscription of young men affected the work of women who stayed home, especially given that many of these men would never return or would return unfit for work. Third, it examines the strain that armies, whether engaged in hostilities or simply passing through a region, placed on the local resource base and the way this affected the structure of work, including, at times, amplifying its coercive character. Fourth, war encouraged women in garrison and port towns to engage in new forms of commercialized service work, while giving rise to a large body of people, including many women, to which the state owed wages or pensions. Finally, war generally went along with rising taxes, most often upon commodities and often on staples, such as salt. One result was a sharp increase in smuggling, which, in turn, altered both women’s and men’s relationship to consumption and to the State.

Chapter 9 is about how public institutions contribute to the trajectory of progress. The most common methods for public involvement are through creating institutions (universities, research facilities, etc.) and through distributing grants. There are any number of combinations by which governments and public institutions can give out grants, with each country having their own unique variation. These mechanisms are crucial in determining the rate and direction of progress. By supporting certain research areas, we commit to making progress in one area while potentially reducing it in others. The chapter is also concerned with how public funding differs from private funding, how important public funding is in steering the direction of research towards areas directly relevant to the common person, and how public funding has become more commercialized.