Calling all student entrepreneurs....

Join LSE Generate and LSE Careers for this week's Global Entrepreneurship Week activities.

LSE Chill has a new venue

Don't miss the next LSE Chill on Friday 28 November at the new venue - Café 54 in the New Academic Building.

Natasha Valladares

Natasha's had a fair bit to deal with over the last few years but despite it all is a bone fide 'Dancing Queen', if somewhat reluctantly...

The number of traders in some areas of Sierra Leone affected by Ebola has fallen by almost 70 per cent, warns a new bulletin on the economic impact of Ebola from the International Growth Centre (IGC), based at LSE.

According to the November edition of the IGC’s Economic Impact of Ebola bulletin, based on research by the IGC and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), there are 69 per cent fewer domestic rice traders in Kailahun and Kenema - the first districts to be cordoned - than when these areas were surveyed in 2012. The decline of traders in more recently cordoned areas is 29 per cent. These reductions suggest that economic activity is declining, which has the potential to reduce the income of farmers and the country as a whole.

Prices of food remain broadly stable across the country, but there a few areas where prices are much higher than in previous years.

A new book by Professor John Hills (pictured) challenges the 'strivers versus skivers' myths that underpin current political debate around welfare benefits.

Extensive research presented in Good Times, Bad Times: the welfare myth of them and us contests the common perception that what most of the welfare state does is fund hand-outs to a minority of unemployed, feckless 'spongers' who are content to live long-term on benefits.

In reality, research shows that people's lives are constantly changing as their income fluctuates from birth to old age. Most of us benefit from the welfare state at different points in our lives, getting back roughly what we paid in.

New Gearty Grilling online

A new Gearty Grilling video, part of the series of short video debates between Conor Gearty, director of the IPA and professor of human rights law, and leading researchers at LSE, is now online.

Nicholas Barr remembers Bill Phillips

Bill Phillips - crocodile hunter, World War II radio officer and LSE Professor of Economics - would have been 100 on Tuesday 18 November 2014.

LSE’s Professor Nicholas Barr celebrates Bill Phillips’ extraordinary life and achievements in this LSE History blog post.
 

Academic abroad

Dr Panos Kanavos, deputy director at LSE Health, Department of Social Policy and Aris Angelis, PhD fellow, Department of Social Policy, presented Advance-HTA project’s interim results together with other partners of the project at a two-day Capacity Building workshop in Mexico City, on Thursday 6 and Friday 7 November. Over 70 Health Technology Assessment (HTA) experts and decision makers of ministerial and academic affiliation attended the workshop, coming from all over the Latin America region with countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay.

Advance-HTA is a research project funded by the European Commission's Research Framework Programme (FP7). It comprises several complementary streams of research that aim to advance and strengthen the methodological tools and practices relating to the application and implementation of HTA. It is a partnership of 13 Consortium members led by the Medical Technology Research Group, LSE Health. More information can be found at www.advance-hta.eu/.

This week is Global Entrepreneurship Week and you can join LSE Generate and LSE Careers on social media for a Twitter Q&A and entrepreneurial tips competition.

Miles Kirby, owner of food startup Caravan, will be online at 2pm tomorrow to answer your entrepreneurial questions in a live Twitter Q&A. Simply tweet your questions using the hashtag #LSEgew by 11am tomorrow, and the best ones will be passed onto Miles! Make sure you follow @LSEGenerate on Twitter to see the answers.

You can also share your own entrepreneurial tips on Twitter using the hashtag #LSEgew for a chance to win a bespoke two hour mentoring session with a branding expert. Tips can be anything related to life as an entrepreneur, from hints for clarifying your business idea to suggestions to boost the success of your startup. The deadline is 11:59pm on Sunday 23 November so get tweeting!

Courses scheduled for next week include:

• News Resources
• Keeping up to date with research
   

The School is running a series of free workshops for researchers planning to submit posters, photographs and short films to LSE Research Festival 2015.

Run by a practising photographer, film maker and graphic designer, researchers at all levels are welcome to attend:

• LSE Research Festival Workshop: Photography on Tuesday 25 November from 10am-1pm
• LSE Research Festival Workshop: Film, part 1 on Thursday 27 November from 10am-1pm
• LSE Research Festival Workshop: Poster on Tuesday 2 December from 2-5pm
• LSE Research Festival Workshop: Film, part 2 on Thursday 22 January from 9.30am-12.30pm

LSE’s Teaching and Learning Centre is running a special event for MSc students who have to write qualitative dissertations this year.

Designed to help you avoid the ‘Why didn’t I start earlier’ anxiety experienced by many Master’s students at the end of Summer term, this event will offer advice about what you could be doing before and during the Christmas break to prepare for the writing of your dissertation.

LSE Residential Services have a number of vacancies in halls. If you are interested please contact us at accommodation@lse.ac.uk. Offers will be made on a first come, first served basis.

Wednesday 26 November in the Fourth Floor Restaurant

Good for you, good for the planet but still very filling and tasty. Our ‘Feel Good Food’ world cuisine menu will offer reduced meat and increased vegetarian alternatives.

As well as raising awareness and promoting the sustainable aspects of the food we serve, we aim to demonstrate that limiting meat in our diet and using healthier ingredients, seasonal vegetables, fish from sustainable stocks and higher animal welfare produce can benefit your health, the environment and animal welfare.

You can enjoy a traditional Christmas lunch at your favourite LSE Catering outlet on the following dates:

• Fourth Floor Restaurant - Tuesday 2 December
• LSE Garrick - Wednesday 3 and Thursday 4 December
• Staff Dining Room (members only, bookings essential) - Tuesday 9 and Wednesday 10 December

Special Christmas Receptions

Taken some impressive snaps while out and about in London? Send them in to Perspectives and they could be featured in the December edition of LSE Perspectives.

Each month 12 photos taken by the LSE community are chosen to appear in LSE Arts online gallery. Submit your photos by Monday 24 November.

Computer tip of the week - How do I…?

If you need to learn how to do something on your computer, often the quickest way is to search the internet for solutions, ensuring you include the version of the software you are using. So how do you find out which version of MS Office you have? The way you check depends upon the version you have.

If you have tabs at the top of your screen, including a File tab that is a different colour from the rest, then you are using Office 2007, 2010 or 2013. Click the File tab > Help. The panel on the right side of the screen will tell you the exact version and more.

If, instead, you see a row of words (known as the Menu bar) starting with File, you are using Office 2003 or an earlier version. To find the exact version, open the Help menu and select the ‘About…’ option. A dialog box opens, displaying details of the version you are using.

If you have any other IT questions, check out our online guides and FAQs or attend our weekly Software Surgeries. A huge range of additional computer training resources are available from the IT Training website.
 

Learn something new with the LSEAU Dance Club

Upcoming workshops include:

• Bollywood Dance Workshop - Tuesday 25 November and Tuesday 9 December at 8pm in the New Studio, SSH Building
  This hour long dance class provides a fun introduction to Bollywood dancing and welcomes all levels of experience. Only £1 for any LSE Student, and free for dance club members.
• Ballroom Dance Workshop - Tuesday 2 December at 8pm in the New Studio, SSH Building
  This introduction into ballroom dance welcomes all levels of experience and features a variety of different ballroom dance styles. Only £1 for any LSE Student, and free for dance club members.
   

The ActiveLifeStyle Project

Want to play more sport or get involved in recreational activities such as Badminton, Zumba and even Belly Dancing? Mehak Adil is an LLM student at LSE who is also involved with the ActiveLifestyle project. Mehak would like to encourage other students to get involved: "The project, which is sponsored by Sport England, aims to get students involved in sport and physical activity in a more relaxed, fun way."

There are a number of upcoming events for you to take part in:

Thursday 20 November
Running Group (outside SSH, 6pm) Twice a week this group jogs around London, with the start and finish at SSH.

Friday 21 November
Women's only Street Dance Taster Class (The Venue/SSH, 3.30pm) This taster session is just £1

5-a-side Football Drop-in (Powerleague Shoredtich, 6pm) Join us for the fortnightly football drop-in session. Simply sign up on the LSESU website and show up on the night: we organise the teams there.

Tuesday 25 November
Kayak Ergometer (12.30pm) Drop by SSH to take the Active LifeStyle challenge using the kayak ergometer. How fast can you kayak 500m?

Security officer and former boxer Daniel Beckley is running skip fit lessons for all staff and students at LSE. Build up your fitness, burn calories and increase your stamina, all within an hour.

The next lessons will take place from 1-2pm at the Badminton Court, Old Building, on Tuesday 2 December and Tuesday 9 December. Just turn up on any of these dates with your own skipping rope. All lessons are free.

The Low Carbon Entrepreneur Prize is looking for ideas from London's students to make your London a smarter, cleaner, better place to live and work. Are you a London student or recent graduate with an idea to reduce London's energy use and carbon emissions?

There is a £20,000 prize fund for the winning ideas to get them started. The money needs to be used before July 2016. The winners also get help and advice from us to set up their business. Worried about pitching? The skills learned in this training not only help with pitching ideas, they are also useful for interviews, and in future careers. Everyone who applies can choose to have a chance to be considered for one of up to six paid internships with competition sponsors Siemens.

Last year's winners, Solarbox, won £5,000 and have already used it to launch their first free solar powered mobile phone charging station in a repurposed red telephone box. You may have read about Solarbox on LSE's website - they were also students at LSE.

The eight entry categories are:
1. Product design
2. Transport In the city
3. Materials/reuse and recycling/circular economies
4. Behaviour change/networking
5. Energy efficiency/capture/generation
6. Food/food waste
7. Water management
8. Other – any other idea to help create a sustainable future for London.

Entry is free and you can submit as many ideas as you can come up with. Apply on your own or in a group. The deadline for submissions is February 2015.

NEW EVENT - Foreign Policy in a time of turmoil

On: Tuesday 25 November from 3-4pm in the Shaw Library, 6th floor, Old Building
Speaker: Børge Brende (pictured), Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway.

We live in a world of unprecedented progress and unexpected crises. We have to adapt to a changing security landscape, while at the same time maintaining the pillars of peace and prosperity: democracy, cooperation and respect for international law. Following agreed rules of behaviour brings benefits to all nations - a win-win situation. But we must take into account that not all leaders have taken this on board yet.

This event is free and open to all with no ticket or pre-registration required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. More
 

Other upcoming LSE events include....

Museum Madness
Date: Monday 24 November at 6.30pm in the New Theatre, East Building
Speaker: Fiammetta Rocco (pictured)

More Women Can Run: why women remain underrepresented in politics
On: Monday 24 November at 6.30pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Professor Susan J Carroll

In Conversation with the Lord Chief Justice
On: Tuesday 25 November at 6.30pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (pictured)

Power Politics and the Humanitarian Impulse: the United Nations in the post-Cold War era
On: Wednesday 26 November at 6.30pm in the Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
Speaker: Professor Mats Berdal

The Languages of Migration
On: Wednesday 26 November at 6.30pm in the Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speaker: Professor Michael Rosen (pictured)
 

On: Tuesday 25 November from 2.15-3.45pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Bradley Franks

Are there cultural differences in how we think? Are there differences between how we see ourselves and how others see us - and is this influenced by culture?

This session will examine the ways in which we make attributions - explanations of causality - for our own and others’ behaviour. This is at the heart of how we apportion responsibility for action, how we praise and blame other people, groups and ourselves. It also drives how we form impressions of other people.

Banal, Benign or Pernicious? The Relationship Between Religion and National Identity from the Perspective of Religious Minorities in Greece

On: Tuesday 25 November from 6-7.30pm in room COW 1.11, Cowdray House
Speaker: Effie Fokas, Research Fellow, Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), Athens, and Research Associate, Hellenic Observatory, LSE

This event examines repercussions of the religion-national identity link for religious minorities in particular, and in doing so assesses ways in which this link can form a significant barrier to religious freedom for individuals who fall outside its scope. The discussion draws on results from the Greek case study conducted as part of a broader empirical research project on pluralism and religious freedom in majority Orthodox contexts (PLUREL).

This event is free and open to all with no ticket or pre-registration required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. More
 

On: Tuesday 25 November from 6.30-8.30pm in the Thai Theatre, New Academic Building
Speaker: Dr Mzukisi Qobo (pictured), teacher of international political economy at the University of Pretoria and deputy director at the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation.

Widely considered to be Africa’s oldest liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC) played a historic role in ending apartheid in South Africa and has been the country’s ruling political party since 1994. More recently, however, the ANC's legacy has been tarnished by allegations of corruption and inefficiency.

Dr Mzukisi Qobo will discuss his view that political governance in South Africa has collapsed, and explore the possibilities of the country’s political future.

On: Wednesday 26 November from 6.30-8pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Dr Ingrid Volkmer, Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne.
Discussant: Professor Mary Kaldor (pictured), Professor of Global Governance and Programme Director, Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, LSE.

Professor Volkmer’s new book The Global Public Sphere (Polity, 2014) completely rethinks the 'public sphere' concept for an age of global media.

Pressed for Time: the acceleration of life in digital capitalism

On: Thursday 27 November from 6.30-8pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Professor Judy Wajcman (pictured), Anthony Giddens Professor of Sociology at LSE.
Respondent: Genevieve Bell, Vice President of User Experience Research at Intel Labs.

The technologically tethered, iPhone-addicted figure is an image we can easily conjure. Most of us complain that there aren't enough hours in the day and too many emails in our thumb-accessible inboxes. This widespread perception that life is faster than it used to be is now ingrained in our culture, and smartphones and the Internet are continually being blamed.

But isn't the sole purpose of the smartphone to give us such quick access to people and information that we'll be free to do other things? Isn't technology supposed to make our lives easier?

In her new book Pressed for Time (University of Chicago Press) Judy Wajcman explores why it is that we both blame technology for speeding up everyday life and yet turn to digital devices for the solution.

This event is free and open to all with no ticket or pre-registration required. Entry is on a first come, first served basis. More
 

On: Thursday 27 November from 6.30-8pm in room 9.05, Tower 2
Speaker: Dr Andrew N. Buchanan (pictured), Senior Lecturer in Global, U.S., and Military History at the University of Vermont.

In this presentation, Andrew Buchanan will offer a thorough reinterpretation of US engagement with the Mediterranean during World War II. He argues that, far from being a reluctant participant in a 'peripheral' theater, the United States pursued a sustained grand-strategic interest in the region. By the end of the war the Mediterranean was an American lake, and the United States had substantial political and economic interests extending from North Africa, via Italy and the Balkans, to the Middle East.

On: Friday 28 November from 6-8pm at Café 54, New Academic Building

LSE Chill has a new venue - Café 54 in the NAB.

Running since 2011, the monthly performance night will feature performances including the Anthropology band, The Funktionalists, student Hari Chitnavis and friends.

If you are interested in performing at any of next year’s events please email arts@lse.ac.uk with your name and details of your act.

On: Tuesday 2 December from 6.30-8pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Professor Matthew Connelly (pictured), Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2014-2015.

Wikileaks and Edward Snowden have brought significant attention to state secrecy in the US. But how did the US national security state emerge? And what shaped the government’s approach to official secrecy?

On: Monday 8 December from 12-1.30pm in room 9.04, Tower 2 followed by a sandwich lunch and book signing.
Speaker: Brian Pinto, Chief Economist, Emerging Markets, at GLG.
Discussants: Willem Buiter (Chief Economist, Citi) and Jonathan Leape (Executive Director, IGC)

On: Thursday 11 December from 6.30-8pm in the Hong Kong Theatre Clement House
Speaker: Yiannis Boutaris (pictured), Mayor of Thessaloniki

Amidst the economic crisis in Greece, something unusual emerged in Thessaloniki, the idiosyncratic 'co-Capital' of the country. Under the mayorship of Yiannis Boutaris, the first non-political figure to be elected as Mayor in the city’s modern history, the city started to re-invent itself, beginning from its very own mode of governance.

In this lecture, Yiannis Boutaris will talk about the challenges of administrative modernisation and the necessary institutional changes Greece needs to accomplish at the level of local administration so as to accommodate the principle of subsidiarity.