The Kaplan Project

Zach Kaplan Keith and I lead a research team.

Zach Kaplan and Keith Schacht demo toys from the future

The Authority recently received the second annual progress report on the Kaplan Project.

To date, the Kaplan Project has resulted in three scientific, peer reviewed, publications, and it is expected that there will be more.

And this is an insight that came, about two decades ago, from a person that I'm very fortunate to work with, David Kaplan.

See Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, Using the balanced scorecard as a strategic management system , Harvard Business Review (January February 1996), pp. 75 85.

The report deals with the third Kaplan cruise, which was completed in June 2004 under the auspices of IFREMER, one of the contractors with the Authority.

The writer Robert Kaplan points to the birth of a new warrior class as cruel as ever and better armed ranging from Russian Mafiosi and Latin American drug kingpins to terrorists who glorify violence just as ancient Greeks did in the sacking of Troy. Kaplan argues that modern leaders must respond in kind, and that modern leadership will demand a pagan ethos rooted in the past.

Update on progress with the geological model for the Clarion Clipperton Zone and on the Kaplan project on the study of the biodiversity in the Clarion Clipperton Zone.

The Inventables guys, Zach Kaplan and Keith Schacht, demo some amazing new materials and how we might use them. Look for squishy magnets, odor detecting ink, dry liquid and a very surprising 10 foot pole.

This phase of the Kaplan Project addresses its second objective, which is to investigate and study disturbance and recolonization processes at the sea floor following mining track creation and plume resedimentation in the abyssal nodule provinces.

(d) The promotion and encouragement of marine scientific research in the Area through, inter alia, an ongoing programme of technical workshops, the dissemination of the results of such research, and collaborations with the Kaplan Project, ChEss and CenSeam

There are a lot of surprising innovations coming from South Africa, says David Kaplan, an economist at the University of Cape Town who specializes in tracking technological change. But the gap between esoteric knowledge and economic applications remains large.

It is envisioned that the collaborations are to be carried out through the Kaplan Project. This project had undertaken its first cruise for the study on the levels of biodiversity, species range and gene flow during 4 February and 8 March 2003.

For example, the DNA techniques being utilized in the Kaplan project to assess the distribution of organisms in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, with which the Authority is associated as a sponsor, could be readily used for research in the distribution of the biodiversity in exclusive economic zones.

At this early stage of the process, the applicability of some of the techniques used for research in the Area to address similar matters in the exclusive economic zones of many developing countries is readily acknowledged, for instance the DNA techniques that are being utilized in the Kaplan Project.

Both India and the US have a direct albeit different interest in restoring peace and order to the South Asian neighborhood. As Robert Kaplan argues stabilizing Afghanistan is about much more than just the anti terrorist war against al Qaeda and the Taliban it is about securing the future prosperity of the whole region , as well as easing India and Pakistan toward peaceful coexistence through the sharing of energy routes.

China s incursion reaffirms the ancient strategic axiom that geography is the real determinant of history and, as a result, of foreign and security policy, too. Robert Kaplan wisely observes that Indian geography is the story of invasions from a northwesterly direction, and India s strategic challenges still inhere in this fact, which is why Afghanistan, to Indian eyes, is linked to the sub continent s history, and thus our future.