digitalcommons

MakerFaire

MakerFaire

MakerFaire is sponsored by Make Magazine, a wonderful publication for the do-it-yourself movement. It is for peole who don't just want to consume a product but make them, modify them, see how they can be fixed if broken or repurposed if thrown away.

Over two days (May 19-20) at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds 400 Makers and 45,000 attendees interacted with the projects and each other.  I personally have never had such a good time at a public event. To give you an idea of the spirt of the place, we parked the car and watch a father and daughter unload an ATV converted into an electric cupcake. When the girl saw us her first words were, "Do you want to drive it?"

The exhibits ranged from musical instruments, fabric crafts, computer controlled devices of all kinds, battling robots, and a variety of unsual bicycles and a complete amusement park driven by bike power. A drag strip offered races between different power tools. Simulators allowed you to pilot a hang glider or and 1950's flying disc. High mileage vehicles included a biodiesel BMW motorcycle, tuned Priuses, and different electric cars.

I was glad to meet Stephen Dunifer of Radio Free Berkeley. He has long been a pioneer pushing for a more enlightened and open policy for community radio. In additon, his technical publications he sells kits for low power radio transmitters starting at $280 for a 15 watt station.

Robots

There were different classes of battling robot vehicles, a robot drum set, and a model of R2D2. These two yellow robots could perform a variety of gymnatic exercises in a suprisingly fluid manner.

The next  MakerFaire will take place in Austin , Texas, October  20-21, 2007.  I'll be posting a video of the  event later. In the meantime,  watch this one

South Africa & mobile phones

I spoke with Peter Benjamin in CapeTown using SkypeOut. Peter has had a long career with ICT in Africa including a great study of S. African telecenters. My cost was 7 cents a minute to call a landline but much more to call a mobile number. The quality of okay and we did not drop during the 30 minutes I was talking . Peter was working with OneWorld Africa and has moved to take over a small non-profit called Cell-Life where mobile phones are being used in the campaign to fight AIDs.

Peter explained that according to the GINI index South Africa is among the most unequal countries in the world in terms of family income; it has more than seven million HIV patients out of 47 million and cell phone penetration of about 80%, so there are interesting opportunities to use this technology in new ways.  A pre-paid minute costs about one rand/13c (depending on the calling area) and an SMS message is about half that to 3/4 the cost of one minute.

A service that has attracted affluent teen-agers in South Africa is MXit. It's a mobile instant messaging application that works on various phones with GPRS/3G networks and can connect with the Internet (Google talk and MTN) as well. It's much cheaper than SMS because the charges are by the fraction of a megabyte: anywhere from 50c to 2 Rand per. There must be someone doing a thesis on the service because of its popularity and controversy surrounding a child abduction by an adult last year.

Search engine for development

FOCUSS is a new search engine for development using Google Coop. As Google describes Coop, "Create a highly specialized Custom Search Engine that reflects your knowledge and interests."  your being one person or a group working together to tune the search environment by vetting the sites and links.

It seems to be the brainchild of librarian Michel Wesseling of the Institute of Social Studies in the Hague, according to a web log for e-collaboration among Dutch non-profits.There's a short videoof Wesseling explaining the project (in English). I plan to join and try to contribute some sites. I found a lot of non-hits when looking for articles critical of the development industry, but this is a very new project. Let's give it time.

wikipedia article

The September 2006, Atlantic Monthly has an interesting article by Marshall Poe about the evolution of wikipedia. It spends a lot of time on the two main people that helped shape it, how it has grown (the Polish version has more articles than the Spanish version!) and of course the process of discussing wikipedia  philosophy and which articles are appropriate.

In particular there is an interesting section on the flame wars between Sanger, one of the key figures and a volunteer with a lot of time on his hands. It reminds me of countless other online fora where the fights have detracted from the original goal of the list or discussion. In this case it concerned a work that has become very important, perhaps too important if the users who rely on it don't consider other sources as worth consulting.

I say this as a librarian who keeps meeting people who think everything is online and if it isn't it's marginal in importance and not worth consulting. As a side issue, the convenience of wikipedia is in contrast to the effort needed to consult a print source or even stay online and register to use specialty databases that may be free to use in many library systems: school, public, corporate, and academic. Relying on wikipedia alone is like counting on one strain of rice or wheat to provide a population with nourisment.

Zero One San Jose

ZeroOne San Jose

ZeroOne San Jose is a swirling constellation of events that included several self-styled summits, a variety of public art, performances, lectures, and exhibitions associated with the 13th biannual meeting of ISEA, Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts. It began August 4 and ends August 13.

As an outsider I became involved in 2005 after talking with Joel Slayton, the Chair for ZeroOne and the ISEA2006 Symposium. He was planning one of the satellite events, the Pacific Rim New Media Summit, and I agreed to pull together a working group on "piracy in the Pacific" to look at trends, conflicts, and issues related to intellectual property (IP), piracy, sharing, and appropriation. (poster at left)

Gordon Knox, the director at Montalvo Arts Center convened a summit on intellectual property at the center a few miles from San Jose, and invited me to participate August 4th and 5th. Other participants included a film maker, an administrator from Arts Council England, several anthropologists, an industrial designer, two lawyers,  a journal editor and scientist, and a media researcher. The artists were busy preparing for ISEA and did not attend.  The discussions revolved around the best way for an artist to collaborate and work inside a research lab or high tech company environment for a limited period of time. Knox wanted to establish a 'safe place' in terms of IP where the artist would feel free to experiment. James Leach, an anthropologist from Cambridge felt strongly that existing IP regimes were based on narrow views of ownership and collaboration and that we should be looking at other kinds of relationships. The lawyers explained how the laws for IP had expanded, and many felt this inhibited activities and the spread of knowledge. On Monday the group met at Santa Clara University where the movie on piracy was shown, and there was a public forum.

This conflicted with the Pacific Rim New Media Summit which was held at King Library, the unique joint university-public library in downtown San Jose. Slayton's staff and students provided good logistical support before and during the meeting which occupied two full days of presentations and discussions. The summit was meant to encourage international cooperation and collaboration in a number of areas. The working groups included these topics:
-Distributed curatorial
-Education
-Urbanity and mobile media
-Place, ground, and practice
-Latin America-Pacific/Asia New Media Initiatives
-Residencies and symposia
-Piracy and the Pacific
-Invisible dynamics of the Pacific rim & bay area

Leading up to the summit there was an online forum which was never used by more than a few of the many members. Each working group was somewhat fluid, and the chair changed in a couple, and many members did not attend for different reasons: other commitments, lack of money, or visa problems. At ISEA Trebor Scholz whose institute focuses on "cooperation studies", gave a paper about social networks and why people take part online. Though he was part of a working group in our summit he did not attend. 

Danny Butt (Place, Ground, and practice) was the chair and only attendee from his group, and though he claimed he had failed, he presented a good summary of their activities leading up to the summit, including a significant and intimate gathering in New Zealand which could not be duplicated in this venue. (photo: Danny at the podium)

One chair thought he was coming to work together for two days mainly with his group, and like me, he met them for the first time shortly before they were due to present. My own group did not work that much together before, but they all helped me a great deal as I was preparing a short video "Piracy in the Pacific" for a DVD project Leonardo had hoped to publish. Once we met the afternoon before the presentation we were able to find some common disagreements to discuss during the summit.  Piracy and copyright is very, very contentious, and I assembled a CD-ROM of videos, rants, white papers, books, and proceedings that covered a spectrum of views from anarchist to Hollywood and law enforcement. We handed this out to everyone present (about 45).

The organizers suggested we might want to have statements to take to ISEA, or perhaps a manifesto, but this did not seem to happen. I think there were some good connections made, and some working groups planned to carry on with other projects. I  wondered what the summit would have been if it were the main focus in San Jose rather than the much larger ISEA meetings and exhibitions.

The always reclusive and secretive Raqs  Media Collective flew in  from an undisclosed location and arrived on the second day in order to comment and provoke us with interesting questions which needed a third day for discussion. They used metaphors of sea voyage, dead reckoning, and maritime language. A rare photo is at the left, but their faces are pixellated in order to protect their valued anonymity. They were last seen a couple of days later entering a black stretch limo outside the exhibit hall.

Next: ISEA 2006

   

  

ZeroOne San Jose

ZeroOne San Jose is a swirling constellation of events that included several self-styled summits, a variety of public art, performances, lectures, and exhibitions associated with the 13th biannual meeting of ISEA, Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts. It began August 4 and ends August 13.

As an outsider I became involved in 2005 after talking with Joel Slayton, the Chair for ZeroOne and the ISEA2006 Symposium. He was planning one of the satellite events, the Pacific Rim New Media Summit, and I agreed to pull together a working group on "piracy in the Pacific" to look at trends, conflicts, and issues related to intellectual property (IP), piracy, sharing, and appropriation. (poster at left)

Gordon Knox, the director at Montalvo Arts Center convened a summit on intellectual property at the center a few miles from San Jose, and invited me to participate August 4th and 5th. Other participants included a film maker, an administrator from Arts Council England, several anthropologists, an industrial designer, two lawyers,  a journal editor and scientist, and a media researcher. The artists were busy preparing for ISEA and did not attend.  The discussions revolved around the best way for an artist to collaborate and work inside a research lab or high tech company environment for a limited period of time. Knox wanted to establish a 'safe place' in terms of IP where the artist would feel free to experiment. James Leach, an anthropologist from Cambridge felt strongly that existing IP regimes were based on narrow views of ownership and collaboration and that we should be looking at other kinds of relationships. The lawyers explained how the laws for IP had expanded, and many felt this inhibited activities and the spread of knowledge. On Monday the group met at Santa Clara University where the movie on piracy was shown, and there was a public forum.

This conflicted with the Pacific Rim New Media Summit which was held at King Library, the unique joint university-public library in downtown San Jose. Slayton's staff and students provided good logistical support before and during the meeting which occupied two full days of presentations and discussions. The summit was meant to encourage international cooperation and collaboration in a number of areas. The working groups included these topics:
-Distributed curatorial
-Education
-Urbanity and mobile media
-Place, ground, and practice
-Latin America-Pacific/Asia New Media Initiatives
-Residencies and symposia
-Piracy and the Pacific
-Invisible dynamics of the Pacific rim & bay area

Leading up to the summit there was an online forum which was never used by more than a few of the many members. Each working group was somewhat fluid, and the chair changed in a couple, and many members did not attend for different reasons: other commitments, lack of money, or visa problems. At ISEA Trebor Scholz whose institute focuses on "cooperation studies", gave a paper about social networks and why people take part online. Though he was part of a working group in our summit he did not attend. 

Danny Butt (Place, Ground, and practice) was the chair and only attendee from his group, and though he claimed he had failed, he presented a good summary of their activities leading up to the summit, including a significant and intimate gathering in New Zealand which could not be duplicated in this venue. (photo: Danny at the podium)

One chair thought he was coming to work together for two days mainly with his group, and like me, he met them for the first time shortly before they were due to present. My own group did not work that much together before, but they all helped me a great deal as I was preparing a short video "Piracy in the Pacific" for a DVD project Leonardo had hoped to publish. Once we met the afternoon before the presentation we were able to find some common disagreements to discuss during the summit.  Piracy and copyright is very, very contentious, and I assembled a CD-ROM of videos, rants, white papers, books, and proceedings that covered a spectrum of views from anarchist to Hollywood and law enforcement. We handed this out to everyone present (about 45).

The organizers suggested we might want to have statements to take to ISEA, or perhaps a manifesto, but this did not seem to happen. I think there were some good connections made, and some working groups planned to carry on with other projects. I  wondered what the summit would have been if it were the main focus in San Jose rather than the much larger ISEA meetings and exhibitions.

The always reclusive and secretive Raqs  Media Collective flew in  from an undisclosed location and arrived on the second day in order to comment and provoke us with interesting questions which needed a third day for discussion. They used metaphors of sea voyage, dead reckoning, and maritime language. A rare photo is at the left, but their faces are pixellated in order to protect their valued anonymity. They were last seen a couple of days later entering a black stretch limo outside the exhibit hall.

Next: ISEA 2006

Complore

Complore is a beta version of a collaborative research network where students, faculty and others can share links, notes, lectures, and papers. It incorporates Google Scholar search, and so far the topics being posted are tagged and highlighted at the right part of the main page. It was opened to the public just one day ago, so it may have to aggregate a lot more to seem useful to you.

Collaborative Forecasting

The Institute For The Future  has traditionally worked for corporate and government clients and has offered workshops and consulting focusing on forecasting developments in fields as varied as consumer electronics, health, food supply, and library services. Recently they have opened up some of the processes to outsiders and associates who take part in monthly meetings called Future Commons. The electronic component of this group is a Google group and a wiki.

This week I attended the second iteration of “collaborative computing” led by longtime facilitator and IFTF partner named Bob Johanson. As well as leading the discussion he explained how he employed small (or large) group techniques to engage those participants. Long ago he led encounter groups here in

California, and he attached a lot of importance to nonverbal cues from the audience as well as recognizing and affirming the accomplishment and qualities of the person he called on for comment.

We broke up into small groups to talk about the six subjects which had been discussed online and in a previous meeting. My small group discussed “third world mobile computing” which had been about the $100 computer from MIT and a similar device from AMD. I will be making changes to the wiki to reflect our discussion.

Democratizing Innovation

Last week I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts to meet the co-CEO of a non-profit called Design That Matters

They were a finalist in the 2005 Tech Museum Awards. They had designed a very low cost LED projector which was being used in literacy programs in Mali.  Neil Cantor and Tim Prestero are co-CEOs, and their office is a small room which is part of a technology incubator which provides meeting space, secretaries, etc.  Neil and I talked about the challenges of his projects, one of which is getting enough publicity and support to scale up production of the projector (or any other piece of equipment they might design.)  As you read their web site, you will see that many people contributed to the design of the kinkajou projector .  This week Tim and Neil are visiting ideo.com in Palo Alto for a brainstorming session.

Down the block from their office is the MIT Press bookstore where I found a new title that relates to the efforts of Design That Matters,  Eric von Hippel's "Democratization of Innovation."  He's an MIT professor and has posted the full text of this book (I'll review it later) on his web site. It's a 1.4 Mb pdf file.

USAID Advisory Group Meeting

There are many nonprofit and for-profit organizations that contract with USAID on development projects. The Academy for Educational Development (aed.org) has worked on many ICT project over the years, and I have consulted with them off and on since 1998 in Paraguay, Guatemala, Uganda, and served on an advisory group which held its last meeting yesterday in Washington.

The purpose was to reflect on the past five years of projects known collectively as the dot com alliance (www.dot-com-alliance.org). It included presentations on policy reform, educational projects, telecenters, with a strong emphasis on public private partnerships.

Those present included all sorts of people from the development industry: academics, consultants, project managers, and policy analysts.  In  policy sector, Sarah Tisch of InterNews talked about the importance of working with regulators, ministries, private sector, media and 'civil society'  She had a good list of why policy is so important and how it relates to the daily lives of citizens and consumers.

The education (dot-edu) organizations, led by EDC, talked about the 25 countries where they worked. One of the most successful has been Macedonia where all the schools now have connectivity (460 schools) and with 5000 computers donated by the Chinese who rewarded the Macedonian government for not recognizing Taiwan, more than 2500 teachers have received training.  I was pleased that they are also using IRI --interactive radio instruction--in places like Sudan and Somalia, and cell phones in Zambia to support a distance learning program.  Most places have critical problems of electricity, and in Uganda a battery run thin client lab was set up because the main grid is so unreliable.  They frequently referred to the ineffectiveness of 'equipment dumps' where vast number of machines are deployed without support or training.

the dot-org projects were in 23 countries. Mike Tetelman talked about one failure, a smart card project for tourists entering Kenya national parks. the smart card code programmer left the country , and with the code left unmaintained, a cracker began making fake smart cards and sold them to tourist agencies in the country at a steep discount.  He talked about the Mali CLIC projects (essentially telecenters) where the U.S. embassy chose the sites, many of which probably don't have the resources to keep the centers going, but others have proved to be sustainable.  In Mongolia they are using voip wi-fi phones to provide phone service in underserved areas. UPS is working with AID in building a training center on the Polish/Ukraine border in order to facilitate cross border trade in that area.

Of course the eternal problem is replication of successful pilots, and most agreed that this was a problem that was 'profound and still unsolved.' 

I said I had not heard much discussion of how to work with other bilateral or intl. agencies or foundations, and some said it was a time constraint while others replied that there were some collaborative projects in education. 

Eliot Maxwell, an advisory group member, said that the issues of openness (in more than software) was a useful way to look at problems and solutions. He has written a paper on this topic.

Bernie Mazer who heads the USAID office of infrastructure and engineering--the internal IT shop which now handles the ICT programs as well--spoke about the new direction for USAID.  Sec. of State Rice has announced big changes in her department, and besides reassigning a lot of diplomats to large cities in Asia, there will now be a closer alignment of goals and program with USAID and Department of Defense.  This article details some of the problems--which are easy  to imagine if you have been trying to run "soft" projects to use a military term.

The goal now is not 'sustainable development' but 'transformational development'  Mazer was very critical of what he observed at wsis in Tunis, but he was not specific.

In a dot-org breakout session Nancy Hafkin talked about the problem of dealing with 'externalities' in a project: a coup, drought, electricity, civil unrest, and others said some problems you could plan for but not something like a tsunami.

There was a great deal of discussion about how hard it is to share information and what I called lessons not-learned. Mike Nelson of IBM said you needed an array of artifacts: from white papers, videos, sound bites on down to a bumper sticker with a couple of key words (but not too many syllables!)  In spite of the Internet it does amaze me how much people in this industry don't seem to have the bandwidth to absorb all the info/knowledge/hype being disseminated from all these projects.

Incommunicado reader

In June the Institute of Network Cultures hosted a conference. I wrote a report following the meeting. They have a reader (print/CD) which is available online.  You may also request a free hard copy though the ones I received yesterday had no CD-ROM included. There is a wide variety of topics covered: info development, open source software in Brazil, urban issues in Bangalore, piracy, international remittances. The download is 17.5 Mb as a single file.  Well worth the time, but the printed version is easier to read.

Here's  The Table of Contents

Geert Lovink and Soenke Zehle,  Incommunicado Glossary
• Jan Nederveen Pieterse,  Digital Capitalism and Development:  The Unbearable Lightness of ICT4D
•  Bernardo Sorj and  Luís Eduardo Guedes,  Digital Divide: Conceptual Problems,  Empirical Evidence and Policy Making Issues
•  Lisa McLaughlin,  Cisco Systems, the UN, and the  Corporatization of Development
•   Shuddha Sengupta,  Knowing in your Bones  that You’re Being Watched (Transcript)
•   Roy Pullens,  Migration Management: Export of the IOM Model
•  Alexandre Freire, Ariel G. Foina,  and Felipe Fonseca, Brazil and the FLOSS process
•   Kim van Haaster, The University of the Future:  Software Development in Revolutionary Cuba
•  GovCom.org,  Digital Cartogram
•  Scott S. Robinson,  Diaspora Incommunicados - IT,  Remittances and Latin American Elites
•  Glen Tarman,  The Biggest Interactive Event In History?
•  Ravi Sundaram,  Post-Development and Technological Dreams
•  Nnenna Nwakanma,  The mirage of South–South cooperation in  ICT4D: Reflections from African Civil Society
•  Loe Schout,  Why Civil Society is not Embracing FOSS
•  Heimo Claassen,  Formatting the Net: Trusted Computing  and Digital Rights Management to Accelerate  the Proprietary Seizure
•  Steve Cisler,  What’s the Matter with ICTs?
•  Solomon Benjamin,  E-Politics of Urban Land
•  Maja van der Velden,  Cognitive justice:  Cultivating the diversity of knowledge
•  Jo van der Spek and Cecile Landman,  Info-Solidarity with Iraq