An interesting meeting was held at the Info-Activism Camp 2009 on Tuesday afternoon, with techies from Kenya and the Philippines taking the initiative to form a global bridges -- even if small ones for a start -- between techies and civil society groups and movements who need their skills.
There were diverse points of view emerging as to why this gap arose. Was it due to: - Lack of a central point to exchange information about skills and needs? - Bureaucratic approaches by civil society organisations? - Extreme gaps between the two? - Simply a lack of awareness over talent needed, and what this could be deployed for? - A mix of the above.... It was felt that bridging the gap, through whatever means, was crucial. To do this, a number of means were suggested. Like hanging around on IRC, or Internet Relay Chat. Setting up a Facebook network (since set up, please join at http://tinyurl.com/dmpcg4 ) and more. This initiative was moderated and launched by Kenyan techie Kipp John [email protected] and Rick from the Philippines [email protected] Experiences of what was working in Kenya and the Philippines made for interesting studies. It was felt that techies supportive of this apporach could take part in tech events, to spread the idea of how their skills could be effectively used and volunteered. For instance, the http://foss.in event (held in Bangalore in December each year), invites tech people to offer talks. Selected talks are invited at the organisers' cost, and such opportunities could help to build awareness about the need for tech-volunteers-for-a-cause. Other plans included: - Built a list of available resources - Case studies of collaboration that works - List of upcoming tech events, so that the CSO/NGO/movement need for tech help could be highlighted - Looking at the possibilities of barcamp/social camp/ tech4change Please send in ideas, suggestions, discussions... *Harakati is a Swahili word to mean movement (or process). This network is an attempt to build links out of the Information Activism Camp 2009 (Bangalore, India), in a way that helps techies and civil society to bridge the gap and work together for positive social change.* -- FN * http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com M +91-9822122436 P +91-832-2409490 http://twitter.com/fn On Facebook: http://www.new.facebook.com/people/Frederick-Noronha/502514643 Vince Lombardi - "Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing." # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]
