What’s New at Open Book Systems

On February 13, 2012, Ali Tweel, a blogger from Libya, covered TEDxTripoli: the first global conference held in Libya since the Revolution. TED (Technology, Entertain and Design) has hosted annual conferences around the world since 1990 featuring speakers such as Vice President Al Gore and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. These independent conferences share TED’s mission of “ideas worth spreading.” TEDxTripoli featured speakers such as Deputy Prime Minister of Libya Mustafa Abushagur, Libyan Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Aref Ali Nayed, Kickstarter co-founder and CEO Perry Chen, and President and CEO of Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) Hannah Song.

Blogger Ali Tweel wrote about the conference’s events, including an author OBS has been working with, Harvard Business Professor Emeritus Bruce R. Scott, who spoke about his new book Capitalism: Its Origins and Evolutions as a System of Governance (Springer Verlag) and how capitalism is intertwined with democracy as well as how it is independent from it. A full video of Professor Bruce Scott’s presentation can be found here.

Though the original blog post by the Libyan commentator was in Arabic, with the help of Google Translate, we took up the blogger’s suggestion and edited the translation about Professor Scott’s presentation. We welcome others (especially those who read Arabic!) to send us their edits so we can better understand what this blogger is writing, and how Bruce’s presentation was received. The original Arabic blog post can be found here, with the original Google Translate version here.

“One of the more important conversations of the conference was an interview with Professor Bruce R. Scott, a professor at Harvard Business School, where he spoke to us about capitalism and democracy, and the modern beauty of open access to information….Intelligent, modern, friendly, and engaging, Professor Scott bravely recognized the corruption of his home country, America, using as an example the election campaigns in which people can funnel money and power into an individual, which is ‘an open invitation to corruption.’”

In Ali Tweel’s brief impressions at the bottom of the post, he mentions Professor Scott again:

[below the video of a kiwi]

“I liked the interview with Professor Bruce Scott… I also liked how he incurred fatigue from travel which seems difficult for him [editor’s note: many speakers at the event only appeared in video]….he is a man who deserves recognition.”