The history of urbanization in Ethiopia goes back centuries. Archeological and historical evidences show the existence of cities since the Aksumite period. Despite its long history, however, the process of urban development in Ethiopian is known for its extremely slow and sporadic progress (Mesfin 1976). This is in part a result of the fact that pre-twentieth century Ethiopian urbanization was intimately linked with political capitals. After the abandonment of Aksum as a capital, Ethiopian kings have for centuries practiced a tradition of roving capitals because of political, military, and environmental reasons (Assefa 1993:275). Menilik’s decision to make Addis Ababa a permanent capital represented an end to this longstanding practice.

A webinar on BUILDING REGIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP SYSTEMS will be held in the United States on Thursday, January 31, 2013 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., U.S. Central Time (17:00 - 18:30 UTC/GMT).  This event is supported by a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to the bi‐state “State of Ingenuity” (SOI) regional collaborative.  This is the first in a series of webinars that is being developed by Northern Illinois University in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin‐Whitewater, the SOI project coordinator, and other SOI partners.  The SOI region has a membership with PASCAL International Observatory.

A few conference alerts and other items people have passed to us. Hope you are well. We are particularly keen that you and your colleagues put in a proposal in to share your innovative practices and take part in the Barcelona event.  This will be the only event in the coming years with a global mandate and a focus on Knowledge, Transformation and Higher Education.  PLEASE pass this on to others in your networks.

Thank you

Rajesh Tandon and Budd L Hall

Co-Chairs

Just jumping onto a fine talk given by our friend Andrew Petter, President of the Vancouver, Canada based Simon Fraser University.  Andrew was an important voice at Uvic for its 'engagement' agenda and then moved into full speed once named as President of SFU supporting a move that included branding SFU as "The Engaged University"

His opening speech at the recent World University Forum is titled "From Ivory Tower to Public Square: Democracy and the Engaged University"…worth a read!

The PIE stimulus paper on Shanghai by Professor Jian Huang (School of Education Science, East China Normal University) is appropriately titled Towards a Learning Society Experience and Reflections from Shanghai. The paper traces steps taken by Shanghai from 1999 to set in place a policy framework for a learning society linked to long term planning for education reform.