“If you control an industry’s standards, you control that industry lock, stock and ledger.”[1] What Are Standards? Before the now-ubiquitous USB drive existed, computers used serial and parallel ports to transfer data from devices like keyboards, mice, and printers. To address this inefficiency, the USB was invented in 1994 by Ajay Bhatt of Intel and […]

Dr. Albert Zeufack sat with our lead interview editor, Mez Belo-Osagie.  Dr. Zeufack answered questions on a wide variety of topics including his career path in academia and policy-making, digitization, Africa’s infrastructure gap, and Chinese engagement with the African continent.

In exploring what constitutes an existential risk – something that threatens the extinction of intelligent life – we evaluate the significance of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat both naturally occurring and manmade.

When it comes to politics, April 2020 may be just as important as November 2020. Why? 1 April 2020 is enumeration day for the 2020 Census, a monumental task the federal government undertakes every ten years to count each and every resident—but this time, part of that count will occur for the first time over […]

“My religion is Indian” said a poster held by one of the hundreds of students and South Asian diaspora gathered outside the Science Centre on the cold, wet evening of December 17th. Despite disparate climates and different hemispheres, protestors at Harvard organized in solidarity with student protestors in India against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) […]

Even at Harvard, a liberal Atlanticist bubble where the Marshall Plan was first announced, events to celebrate NATO’s 70th Anniversary celebration were sparsely attended by American students, unlike Europeans who were excited to attend. Expectations for the NATO summit scheduled this month in London were low, and organizers hoped at best to avoid new tensions […]

Of the many possible sites for a heated political showdown, the target federal funds rate hardly registers on the front lines. Yet in December 2018, US President Donald Trump took to Twitter to decry the US Federal Reserve’s decision to raise its benchmark rate. Breaking more than two decades of White House silence on monetary […]

This time of year, after finals wrap up and we’re headed back home, we finally get the chance to catch our breath, spend time with the people we love, and curl up with a good book. The holiday pause creates an opportunity for reflection and gratitude for community. This winter break, I am grateful for […]

This moment offers a rare opportunity for foreign powers to help break Lebanon’s historical cycles of violence and support demands for a shift to a more robust and representative democracy.

Africa in the 21st century is young, urban, and digitally connected. More than half of all Africans are younger than 20. By mid-century, more Africans will migrate to cities than on any other continent in the world, seeking opportunity across both physical and digital spaces. Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced the highest growth in internet usage […]

On December 3rd 2019, the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers (HGSU-UAW) strike went on an indefinite strike. Despite steady snowfall through the day, students marched in Harvard Yard demanding a “contract now”. Speaking with The Citizen, Ege Yumusak, a graduate student in the Department of Philosophy and a member of the bargaining committee, said […]

Meritocracy is generally celebrated as an ideology that promotes equality of opportunity, and hence, seen as just. Xuan Yee interrogates this view by exploring the moral, psychological, and intellectual ramifications of meritocracy when taken to its extreme. He argues that an unquestioned belief in meritocracy is dangerous, for it encourages the successful to justify their own moral deservingness of their position in society, and thus, legitimizes inequality.