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Scotland join Finland in launching scheme to offer everyone a basic monthly income

Scotland join Finland in launching scheme to offer everyone a basic monthly income regardless of employment status or salary

Scotland is poised to join Finland and Canada in testing Universal Basic Income (UBI), a welfare system in which all citizens are given a fixed sum of money, regardless of their income or employment status. Any money earned from salaries or businesses is then taxed progressively. 

Proponents of UBI say that it could empower people by offering them the flexibility to earn, learn, start a family or a business, safe in the knowledge that they will have enough money to get by. It is seen as a means to reduce welfare dependency and income inequality.

Critics believe UBI is nothing more than a socialist utopian ideal or “fairytale”. They say that it would be unaffordable, leading to tax hikes and discouraging business investment whilst causing a drop in productivity. They also argue that, given everyone would receive the benefit, it would do nothing to combat inequality.

As Fife and Glasgow look into establishing trial schemes for 2017, Finland is already one step ahead. Though some smaller, successful trials have gone on at local level since the 1970s from India to the United States, Finland will be the first to conduct a UBI experiment on such a scale. The two-year pilot scheme will provide 2,000 – 25 to 58 year-old, unemployed Finnish citizens with a monthly basic income of 560 euros replacing their other benefits. They will continue to receive the UBI even if they find work.

For Kela, the organisation running Finland’s social security and managing the pilot scheme, the hope is to see an increase in employment and a reduction in the current costly bureaucratic mechanisms which can, reportedly, discourage some people from finding employment.

Scotland has seen a huge increase in health inequality, poverty and the use of food banks in recent years. In Glasgow where one-third of all children are living in poverty, the idea is being warmly welcomed by the public and supported by both the SNP and Labour.

The Guardian quoted radical Economist and UBI champion Guy Standing on the subject. It said: “The sense of insecurity, the stagnating living standards, all of those things are clear in Scotland and the fact that so many within the SNP are supportive means there’s a real opportunity to do a pilot in Scotland… People relate to the idea that everyone should have a social dividend. Everywhere I go, it’s the communities that feel left behind by globalisation that are most interested [in the idea of a basic income]. We have seen a sea-change in attitudes.”

UBI is still a pipe dream for most, even Finland is only at the very beginning of a long and time-consuming study but if the results are promising, this could mark a new era in the relationship between the individual and the state.

SAPIENZA University Collaborates on First KENYAN Satellite

Kenya is ready to send its first satellite into orbit in collaboration with Sapienza University.

The 1Kuns Satellite, which stands for “First Kenyan University Satellite” will be built by a team of university students from Nairobi University and Sapienza University in Rome with the support of the Italian Space Agency. The CubeSat is a small cubic satellite that should be completed in 2017 and will be used to observe the Earth.

The satellite will be assembled by students of the International Master Course in Space Mission Design and Management organized by the Astronautics, Electrical and Energetics Engineering Department at Sapienza University in collaboration with the University of Nairobi.

Mwanghi Mbuthia, the scientific representative of the Engineering School of Nairobi University visited  Rome on December 6 and illustrate the project and meet with the Project Scientific Manager, Fabrizio Piergentili from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Fabio Santoni, Master Course Director from the Department of Astronautics, Electrical and Energetics Engineering.

The idea developed as part of the Ikuns contract, which was already part of a Sapienza-ASI Agreement for the management and development of research activities at the Sapienza Broglio Space Center managed by ASI in Malindi, Kenya. The project brings together both scientific and technological objectives and promises to have a great educational impact.

The 1Kuns Satellite is an extraordinary goal for a developing country such as Kenya and a unique opportunity for students at the two universities, who will be able to work in a stimulating international environment. The competitive character of the Italo-Kenyan university team and the value of its work has been rewarded when the 1Kuns-KenyaSat Mission was selected by UNOOSA – Spatial Affairs Office of the UN and JAXA – the Japanese Spatial Agency, selected it to be launched into orbit on board of the Japanese KIBO module on the International Space Station.

The official announcement of the first Kenyan CubeSat was held at the “UN-IAF Workshop on Space Technology for Socio-Economic Benefits,” organized in September by the United Nations in Guadalajara, Mexico.