“A Proposal: EURO Working Group for Development”

“A Proposal: EURO Working Group for Development” Fernando Crespo (Chile) Leroy White (UK) Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber (Turkey) Chandra Sekhar Pedamallu (USA, INDIA)

To begin • It is a group connected with: • “OR for Developing Countries Study Group” of Operational Research Society of the United Kingdom. • “African Operational Research Network” (AORN) • With “sponsorship” of EURO Working Group on Continuous Optimization (EUROPT; http://www.iam.metu.edu.tr/EUROPT/)

Chronology • This idea-project began in the EURO Summer Institute 2004 “Optimization and Data Mining”, Ankara, Turkey, July 9-25, 2004. • Every evening after dinner, the IFORS Scholarship Student (of Developing countries) spoke over that we became challenged by social applications of operational research in the developing countries and by establishing the group “Young People for Operational Research in the Developing Countries” (YORC).

What it can make: OR in Developing Countries? • To the moment good experiences in social applications, government, forest industrial planning, etc.. • Problems on how to make this experience in a common way mainly consist in getting advice, various help or financial aid from other places internationally (from development countries or to join inter-developing countries).

What it can make OR in Developing Countries? 2 • Other Problems: • In many cases, your need licenses of software, knowledge, computers… • Contacts to decision makers and politicians at different stages. • The present situation of many developing countries is characterized by local corruption. • Decisions without a real evaluation and strong influence exercised by particular interests and lobbies.

Principal Objective • The objective of EURO Working Group “Operational Research for Development” is to make a re-effort in the integration of people from both the developed and the developing countries with the ideas of presenting the state and offers of modern OR, especially, to the developing and threshold countries, in using these offers of knowledge, scientific and practical experience, of communication and collaboration, to make new research and applications for serving people and overcoming real-world challenges via the local integration of EURO and IFORS.

Possibles Issues • This integration has an OR impact not only to the academic world but to the local companies of any kind of production and service: • agriculture, tourism, industry, and information and communication technologies of the future as well. • Thus, people with knowledge and experience in OR techniques and solutions (cf. http://www.informs.org/Resources/) will be invited to work and exchange their expertise in OR with young people from the developed and the developing countries. • These companies from the developed countries become partners, they can set up their businesses and operations in the developing countries.

Emphasis • We emphasize the central role of education in the entire process of collaboration. • Here, we are learners also and invite to a sustainable development and living based on mutual respect and partnership, guided by the progress in modern OR, • and embedded into a dynamical framework of common learning and scientific progress: feedback from applications to theory and from researchers of developing countries to centers of excellence.

For the moment, the help of EURO • For all this, our group wants to apply for and regularly use the precious scientific instruments and offers of EURO, namely, in particular: • EURO working group’s Workshops, • Sessions at EURO conferences organized by the EURO working group, • EURO Summer and Winter Institutes, • EURO Mini Conferences, and • Special Issues of European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR).

Challenges • How to integrate both young people from the developed and the developing countries, despite their differences in academic background and origin of country for this common idea. • How can the knowledgeable and experienced researchers / scientists share or contribute their expertise to the younger researchers or the less experienced researchers. • How will the knowledgeable and experienced researchers / scientists benefit from the exchange of ideas and collaboration. • Where can the financial aids be obtained, allocated and disseminated for the promotion of this project.

Challenges 2 • Who will (in which way) benefit from this project; how can sustainability be included. • How can education and continuous learning be organized, e.g., in conferences and workshops, on local, national and international stages. • How can the engagement and participation of the young people become well embedded into their academical and professional preparations and lifelines. • How can EURO Working Group Operational Research for Development give further impulses and stimulation to the international collaboration and network among other groups and institutions which share our group’s goals and devotion.

Application • In the center of consideration, there are the present or forecasted problems of the developing countries. A few of them are listed as follows: • Distribution Problem: Most of the big problems facing the developing world are the problem of distribution of resources. Resources are food, medicine, electricity, water, education, etc.. • Budgeting: Many of the problem treatments suffer from a poor or short-term planning. OR techniques can help us to plan and budget better for a sustainable living and prosperous world. • Tranportation: Ever since the emergence of the OR field transportation has been a main emphasis. However, yet many of the developing countries lack proper roads and rails needed. OR can be of great help to solve this problem. • Infrastructure planning: This includes sanitation, urban waste management, housing, highways, etc., all of this being a matter or OR studies. • Health care: OR can be used in health care, especially, in the control of epidemics, in computational biology, medicine and hearth informatics, and even in some of the environmental problems. Solving problems on hospital or human resource location (or other mixed problems of health care with resources) is a recurrent problem in international organizations without profit (WHO, World Health Organization; for a special one project in Africa see http://www.afro.who.int/hrd/). • Complex Social Problems Analysis: Many countries have inner wars, civil wars, attack to other races, drugs, poverty, gettos, bigs cities without complete services, problems with human rights.

Application • Natural disasters: Asia experienced hardship by the tsunami of 2004. OR based techniques can serve to predict such disasters well ahead so that relocation of people can be done well in advance, and to organize first aid efficiently. • Employment: With unemployment growing at an alarming rate, governments are faced with a serious problem of where to invest money so that youth can be benefited the most. Tools like social capital networks can be of good use to the policy makers for deciding which schemes do better. OR will be useful to create next generation entrepreneurs. • Migration: Because of unemployment, various forms of disasters and poverty, of expectations on finding a better life in the big cities, people leave the country sides, move to the metropoles or to the developed countries, contributing to unemployment, to a collapse of infra structure, and to social conflicts there. Help by modern OR for a better education and sustainable living in rural areas of the developing and threshold countries are promising for overcoming these challenges. • Energy: The energy problem is in the center of any development in two dimensions: on the one hand side, guaranteeing heating and operating mechanical processes, and on the other hand, individual physical strength and personal devotion.

Networks of Collaboration • The above mentioned integration also promotes the research collaborations among the scientists from the developed and the developing countries despite their different traditions and research experiences in OR. • In this case, the human resources in the involved countries can be diversified to face the challenges of the world globalization. This may help to increase the further exchange among all these researchers and boost the development of k-economy in that country, which is about knowledge and the ability to use it to create new value and wealth.

Networks of Collaboration 2 • Another benefit of this integration consists in the development and creation of some OR applications, of algorithms and software. • In this case, those with more experience can share their valuable expertise and also enter into the development of OR tools of the future. At the same time, those people with less experience will gain more experiences in OR, theoretically or practically. • The local companies can find themselves as partners involved into research and development of OR applications. By this way, the local companies can expand their business and operations by venturing more in the field of modern hospitable OR.

Networks of Collaboration 3 • All these efforts will indirectly promote and create awareness of OR to the young researchers in the developed and the developing countries. • This takes place simultaneously not only, but in full accordance, harmony and collaboration with the efforts of EURO and IFORS, and Continental and Locals Societies of Development Cuntries.

WEB PAGE • http://www2.ing.puc.cl/~fcrespo/eurofdv/

“A Proposal: EURO Working Group for Development”