Creation of “Electronic United Nations (eUN)”

NOTE on March 30, 2022,10:00pm

This is the final draft version of this application.  Any without this note is fake due to the malfunction of this web site software which often brought up older version of draft.   This was very confusing so that this web site software should have been scrutinized severely.   T. Utsumi

=======================================

Describe the specific problem within the Challenge that you are working to solve. 

We promote rational, scientific systemic policy analysis and decision-making with the use of System Dynamic (SD) methodology which was initiated by Professor Jay W. Forrester at the Sloan School of Management of the MIT a half century ago.

The targets are,

• UN’s Sustainable Developing Goals (SDGs), and
• Global Climate Change.

What is the scale of the problem in the communities you are working in, and globally? 

With a fund from the World Bank, we created Global University System (GUS) in the summer of 1999 at the University of Tampere in Finland, which is a part of their UNESCO/UNITWIN/Networking Program (*), 

(*) Dr. Utsumi is the V.P. for Technology and Coordination of GUS. 

This is a global headquarter of similar GUS in various countries, which is the consortium of higher educational and healthcare institutions in each country, e.g., GUS/Nigeria, GUS/Ghana, etc. They will form expert-task teams for each segment of the UN/SDGs (17 of them all).  Each of them will construct their SD models which will be in the inexpensive laptop computers scattered around the broadband Internet which will then be interlinked through ubiquitous interlinkage mechanism (UIM) with the use of blockchain technology (a part of our pending patent) as forming a virtual Beowulf mini-super-computer for a country’s comprehensive simulation models. (This will be significant improvement to the “Limit to the Growth” of Professor Dennis Meadows at the Sloan School of the MIT, which neglected national boundaries).  

This approach is also much significant improvement to the FUGI (Future of Global Interdependencies) econometric model of Professor Akira Onishi of Soka University in Japan, which has 194 country models and 6 UN sector models and has been used at the UNDESA and ECOSOC regularly (*).  Professor Onishi requested Dr. Utsumi to improve the FUGI model as replacing each econometric country models with the one of SD models (**) to improve its accuracy to help the UN organizations. 

(*) In a sense, this FUGI model is the first version of the Electronic United Nations (eUN).

(**) which will be developed by this project.

According to him, a generic model was firstly copied to other countries – each of those countries were then equipped with specific data obtained from the staffs of the Bank of Tokyo who stationed in those countries.

This is also, in a sense, to construct virtual Beowulf mini supercomputer with inexpensive laptops with models scattered around the broadband Internet.  Those interconnected models will form the Electronic Africa/ECOWAS, Electronic African Union, and eventually, Electronic United Nations, etc.

For example, even without pinning down to the specific problem, the effect of COVID-19 pandemic to almost every aspect of society is significant.  The use of System Dynamics (SD) methodology can clearly forecast numerically/graphically the consequences of any decisions made for lockdowns.

How many people are affected? 

We cannot yet state any exact numbers at this stage of our project development.

The number of people affected by this project will be significantly changed as our project progresses with the involvements of segments of SDGs in every country.

This is also, in a sense, to construct virtual Beowulf mini-super-computer with inexpensive laptops with models scattered around the broad Internet, which models will be interconnected with Ubiquitous Interlinkage Mechanism (UIM).

Which factors contributing to the problem relate to your solution? 

Awareness to our rational and scientific approach with SD to the conventional policy analysis and settings.

President Obama once made an analogy between the difficulty of governing U.S. economic policy and the difficulty of large oil tanker maneuvering through narrow passage in the New York harbor -- since there is a simulator/trainer for the captain of such tanker, why not a similar one for economists and politicians? 

Dr. Utsumi once led a group of engineers who engaged in the design of such simulator/trainer for ethylene plant at the Stone and Webster Engineering Company in Boston, which is much difficult to design and construct than the one for oil tanker.  Such simulator/trainer are available for airplane and nuclear power plant, etc.

About Importance of Simulation

Albert Einstein once said “Imagenation is more important than knowledge.” “True sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”

The knowledge accumulated as data in a computer is the basis of Artificial Intelligence (AI).  On the other hand, computer simulation deals with imagination, important ingredient of creativity, exploring future of our humanity.

When society and technology advance, the target of simulation (the so-called “SIMULAND”) is getting more complex and larger, and become beyond the capability of any single person or organization to handle alone, and hence it has become to be handled cooperatively – hence necessitate the use of the so-called Distributed Simulation technology with Ubiquitous (*) Interlinkage Mechanism (UIM) which utilizes distributed ledger technology of blockchain (a part of our pending patent).

(*) The word "Ubiquitous" is applied here, since there are more than 20 various simulation languages for the SD which is to be used depending on the preference of SD modelers.

On the other hand, Dr. Utsumi created the Summer Computer Simulation Conference (SCSC) of the International Society of Modeling and Simulation in late 1960s, which became the regular annual event of this society as he was serving Program- and General-Chairmanships several times.  When it was held at Sheraton Hotel at Prudential Center in Boston in the summer of 1971 (with 900 attendees, the largest conference in the field of computer at that time), Dr. Utsumi was its General Chairman, and invited the group of the Club of Rome at the MIT’s Sloan School of Management to describe their activities which later became the book “Limits to the Growth” by Professor Dennis Meadow.

After their presentation, Dr. Utsumi realized there were no Japanese among them, and thought Japanese model should be included since Japan is a part of the world.  This was the initial point of Dr. Utsumi’s global activities, global modeling, global distributed simulation, global peace gaming – more later about this.

Dr. Utsumi then introduced System Dynamics (SD) methodology and hence computer simulation to Japan as publishing a book with the same name as “System Dynamics” in Japanese, from Kyoritsu Publishing Firm, a notable scientific and technical publishing firm in Japan.

The other important factor Dr. Utsumi realized is that both models of process control and SD use a set of ordinary non-linear simultaneous differential equations.

Professor Akira Onishi of Soka University in Japan then constructed the “Future of Global Interdependency (FUGI)” as combining econometrics and SD.  This had 194 country models and 6 UN sector models.  

According to him, a generic model was firstly copied to other countries – each of those countries were then equipped with specific data obtained from the staffs of the Bank of Tokyo who stationed in those countries.

Professor Onishi requested Dr. Utsumi to replace FUGI’s country models with the corresponding one Dr. Utusmi will develop with his “Creating the Electronic United Nations” project – one by one as its project progresses.

Include any relevant local or global statistics. 

We have now about a half dozen higher educational institutions in the Africa/ECOWAS countries which will serve as the center of the coalitions of higher educational and healthcare institutions as naming GUS/Nigeria, GUS/Ghana, GUS/Benin, etc.

The Millennium Institute (MI) has already constructed more than 43 countries’ SD models, as consulting their governments. The MI is now the world-renowned think-tank specializing on the use of SD.

If you’re not sure where to start, take a look at these resources here and here. You can also review answers from successful applications, such as this one.

With a fund from the World Bank, we created Global University System (GUS) at the University of Tampere, Finland in the summer of 1999.  This is a part of their UNESCO/Unitwin/Networking Program.  We are forming its sister units in various countries, as GUS/Nigeria, GUS/Ghana, GUS/Benin, etc., etc.

These are consortium of higher educational and healthcare institutions in their countries.

They will form Expert/Task Team for each segment of the UN/SDGs and Global Climate Change, and construct their SD models.  The models for various SDGs will then be interlinked together with the use of Ubiquitous Interlinkage Mechanism (UIM) of GLOSAS/GUS to form a comprehensive model of each country.  These will then be interlinked with similar ones in a region to form, say, the Electronic Africa/ECOWAS, Electronic Africa Union, Electronic Central Asia, etc, etc., and eventually the Electronic United Nations (eUN).

The repetitive operation mode of those models will become the Simulator/Trainer for aspiring future leaders and young government officials, as displaying those outputs along with the real-time data gathering from the outside world.

Fusion of Humanity and Science for Global Peace Gaming

The School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University teaches normative (role-playing) gaming in international political science courses. Making rational decisions requires qualitative and quantitative skills. We plan to combine this SIPA’s qualitative negotiation gaming with the quantitative model-based simulation for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in cooperation with Global University System (GUS) and Millennium Institute (MI) in Washington DC. We will supplement the simulation efforts with workshops on simulations and online webinars, onsite courses or webinars on energy pollution and impact on climate change, public health, and other SDGs. This combined use will be a significant paradigm shift in the international political science field with the “fusion of humanity and science,” which will promote rational, scientific systemic thinking for policy analysis and decision-making of the SDGs. This will provide additional feature of examining consequences of human decision-making over the convergence of socio- and environmental-systems.

Rothchilds/Dynasty/Illuminate:

Upon the request from the Rothchilds/Dynasty/Illuminate, Dr. Utsumi submitted his rough estimates of initial operation cost of this project (US $9 billions) – which copy was submitted along with his application to the MITR/SOLVE in the summer of 2021 (Application Name: Global University System (gus)) – since this year’s application does not provide the scheme to upload a file, Dr. Utsumi will refrain doing so.

Should the MIT/SOLVE agrees, Dr. Utsumi is willing to approach them to work together.

Everything goes well on this side, Dr. Utsumi would then approach various financial and operational organizations and government agencies in Japan to join in this project.

Training Center for System Dynamics Methodology with SDGs Decision-Making Simulator/Trainer

As mentioned above, our project is to promote rational, scientific, systemic thinking in policy-analysis and settings with the use of System Dynamics (SD) methodology.  Thus, we need to have substantial numbers of knowledgeable expert on the SD in the fields and sectors we will deal with.

To secure ample supply of SD experts, we will establish Training Center for System Dynamics Methodology with SDGs Decision-Making Simulator/Trainer at the Utah Valley University in Oren, UT and California State University in Chico, etc, in corporation with the Millennium Institute (MI) – by the way, the MI was established by Dr. G. O. Barny (who was the classmate with Dr. Utsumi during their SD course at the Sloan) with help from then the U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

This “Sustainable Decision-Making Simulator/Trainer” is for broad environmental policy and sustainable development issues to design and use system dynamics models to help find solutions to complex challenges. Aspiring young future leaders in government institutions and international organizations will be trained for rational scientific policy analysis and decision-making. They will be invited for a brief (say, 2 to 3 days) workshop from Kyrgyzstan and ECOWAS countries (say, 2 or 3 from each country).

Two Components of Training Course:

Training in system dynamics modeling for sustainable development will be offered in two components, an on-line component in basic system dynamics followed by an intense two-week modeling course to be held at Utah Valley University(UVU) and/or California State University in Chico (CSU/Chico).

The on-line course will provide training in the foundations of systems thinking and system dynamics computer simulation.  The duration of the course will be one month requiring about 10 hours per week to complete.  This course will be divided into two parts. PART ONE consists of interactive exercises conducted on a web-based simulator. These exercises are set in the context of national planning for sustainable development and demonstrate how feedback loops and other elements of dynamics complexity drive national development.  Concurrently with the interactive portion of the program, trainees are given a series of model building exercises with Stella software. By the end of this program the trainees will be adept in building, simulating and analyzing simple system dynamics models.  The online course also includes a series of reading assignments on system dynamics and related studies. The Millennium Institute has offered an online training program for several years and has recently upgraded the program to include the Stella modeling software.

PART TWO: Trainees who have successfully completed the online course will attend, in person, a two-week training program at Utah Valley University.  This course, taught by a system dynamics modeler from the Millennium Institute, will delve more deeply into the theory and practice of system dynamics.  Models focused on the SDGs will be developed in class in small groups. Trainees will also have the opportunity to learn how to use the iSDG planning model.

They would then conduct similar seminar to educate followers in their Central Asian (e.g., Kyrgyzstan, etc.) and African/ECOWAS (e.g., Nigeria, Ghana, etc.) countries, and then construct SD models of each sectors of SDGs, which will then be interlinked together to form a comprehensive country model, which will then be interlinked together with other countries’ to form the Electronic Central Asia and Electronic ECOWAS, etc..

As said above, we will have Expert Task Force Team for each of segment of UN/SDGs who will construct their own SD models, including issues raised for this inquiry above. They are the experts involving in those issues every day.  We encourage them to conduct frequent real-time face-to-face workshop and/or on-line ZOOM mtg as discussing the details of SD modeling and verifying its behaviors. The model behavior should also be verified against to the real-time data – any discrepancies should be well examined for verification of data and/or model mechanism.  Those contentious subjects could be well suited for the conduct of the so-called "Global Peace Gaming (the word coined by Dr. Utsumi),” which eventually become similar magnitude as the War Gaming, which is often conducted at the US Pentagon, etc. International workshops and conferences will also be held for exchange of ideas and procedures for standardization. As using Professor Onishi’s FUGI model, Dr. Utsumi conducted such peace gaming on the U.S./Japan automobile trade issue in early 1990s.

In the CONCEPT stage of this project, after encountering with the ARPANET, the prototype of Internet, during the first Internet conference at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC in October of 1972, Dr. Utsumi initiated globalization of Internet and then worked on de-monopolization and de-regulation of the Japanese telecommunication industries.  He had to exhaust his fortune, albeit small, in addition to smashing his wife’s 3 brand-new IBM electrical typewriters (prior to word-processors and personal computers), for submitting thick petitions to various US governmental offices and large corporations – as finally obtaining the personal help from the Commerce Secretary, Mr. Malcolm Baldridge, who traveled to Japan and pressured high-ranking governmental officers – in a sense, it was the first U.S./Japan Trade Conflict issue.

The telecom deregulations were emulated in many other countries around the world as having nowadays billions of people using Internet/email and smartphones, through VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol).

He then conducted the “Global Lecture Hall (GLH)” multi-points, multi-media videoconferencing using a dozen satellites almost twice every year in 1990s, ranging from Melbourne, Australia to Moscow, Russia connecting more than two dozen satellites for many universities between them.  Some events used the SEE-YOU-SEE-ME through newly established Internet, which was the predecessor of the Zoom nowadays, and developed at the Cornell University in Ithaca, NY with a fund from the NSF.

The Millennium Institute has also consulted governments of more than 43 countries as constructing their country models.

Our next and current stage is to proliferate global higher education with Global University System (GUS) mentioned above, as focusing on System Dynamics (SD) methodology.  This is to promote rational, scientific systemic thinking for policy-analysis and settings for the UN’s SDGs and Global Climate Change.

As mentioned above, the MIT is the birthplace of the System Dynamics (SD) methodology, which is the main technology of our eUN activities.

Thus, we would like to expect understanding and support from alumni of the SD courses – better yet to have their participations since this will make them not only to be just excellent technicians but also technologist – as like the famous graduate, Mr. Kofi Annan who was a graduate of the MIT/Sloan School and became the Secretary General of the United Nations.

Also, since the simulation field is getting complex and large so that the distributed simulation would become inevitable future with interlinkage of various inexpensive laptop computers scattered around broadband Internet, thus forming invisible inexpensive global-scale virtual Beowulf super computers.  The MIT graduates/students may be interested in developing such ubiquitous interlinkage mechanism with distributed technology of blockchain.

As said elsewhere, we would welcome the involvement of MIT faculty, graduate students and SOLVE members.

We would also like to have involvement of IBM in blockchain field which may expand their involvement of constructing (a) real-time data gathering center in participating municipalities, (b) mission center along with it including simulator/trainer – IBM once constructed such a center with $16 million for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

If the MIT people’s participation to this eUN project would realize, it may correspond to the case of creating the Law of Sea in 1960s – according to legend, a group of MIT students discussed with the UN officers with computer outputs for enactment of this law in 1960s.

Referring to our activities in the past half century which were done mostly with our own funds, the current status of our project (including the one made by our partner, the Millennium Institute) belongs to PILOT STAGE.

Planning Workshop:

   In two months after the release of this grant, we will conduct the planning workshop of this project to discuss the following;

• Fusion of Humanity and Science, i.e., combined use of qualitative normative (role-playing) gaming with model-based quantitative approach,
• Transplanting Columbia University course to the UVU and then later to universities in Central Asian, Shinshu University in Japan, and Africa/ECOWAS countries,
• Creation of training Center for System Dynamics Decision-Making at UVU and/or CSU/Chico,
• Assisting colleagues in ECOWAS and Central Asian countries to apply for the UNESCO-Japan Prize for Education for Sustainable Development.

   The following will also be discussed and planned with colleagues from selected overseas countries:

• Construction of socio-economic-energy-environmental simulation models of each of their countries which can produce output data in time-series format; and
• Interlink them all through Internet to form a global simulation model, which will perform in parallel and distributed simulation mode.

At this workshop, we will discuss standardization of (a) nomenclature and measurement units, (b) modeling, and (c) database structures, etc., for easy comparison. We will also exchange information and ideas on promoting intense collaboration and comradeship across all team members. So far, we have the following universities to act as the key coalition of higher educational and healthcare institutions in their countries.

Burkina Faso: University of Ouagadougou, 
Ghana: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, 
Nigeria: University of Port Harcourt

      Many African universities are in line to join in this GUS project.

Kyrgyzstan: Osh Technological University.

United States: Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ), Columbia University SIPA (NY), Utah Valley University (UVU), Mayo Clinic (MN), Millennium Institute (DC), California State University in Chico (CSU/Chico), etc.    

   They will form task force teams for each of segment of the SDGs, to have them to construct their segment system dynamics simulation models, which will then be interlinked together to form their comprehensive country models. We will then link them to form Electronic ECOWAS, Electronic African Union, Electronic Middle East, etc.  No organization has ever developed a model for a globally distributed simulation using a virtual super-computer through broadband Internet for a socio-economic-energy-environment system. Here, the virtual Beowulf mini-super-computer will consist of inexpensive laptop computers scattered around the world which are interlinked through broadband Internet with Ubiquitous Interlinkage Mechanism (UIM) with the use of distributed ledger technology of blockchain, a part of our pending patent.

      At this workshop, we will form a team of experts to construct a full proposal for our following 5-year project, which will kick off the initial steps of our GUS projects in ECOWAS and Central Asian countries with colleagues in the US as well as in Japan.  This team will solicit participation of Shinshu University and other universities in Japan which will then apply for fund to the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST).

Estimated Budget: Planning Workshop: $300,000; SD Models: $300,000; Liaison with Japan: $200,000; Total: $800,000.

As said above, we may approach Rothchilds/Dynasty/Illuminate and Japanese sources to cover most of this, should the MIT/SOLVE would agree on this project.