--- On Mon, 12/8/08, Danny Ayers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: Danny Ayers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Re[4]: The next Internet giant: linking open data, providing open access to repositories To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: "Shavkat Karimov" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Kingsley Idehen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "semantic-web" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "public-lod" <[email protected]> Date: Monday, December 8, 2008, 12:03 AM
Please expand on these bits (in the language of your choice) : > incidentally is what the joined project our organization with Ekolibrium proposed for sustainable development worldwide, is all about. Ekolibrium and Rainbow Warriors propose to build a combined infrastructure for accessing information and tools needed by stakeholders worldwide. The only other project that comes close on the internet is the WiserEarth web site (www.wiserearth.org), but it does NOT cover health and quite a few other issues. In the Johannesburg 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development a cluster of interrelated themes called WEHAB, short for Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Bioversity and the Millennium Development Goals were defined as priority areas for action on a global scale. Agenda 21 in its last chapter in particular (see http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/english/agenda21toc.htm) speaks of information for decision-making. This is the area in which the least has been accomplished, in particular making information (in the semantic sense) available to stakeholders. What Ekolibrium strives to build is a community driven web portal where information can be found by any stakeholder in sustainable development on any issue in sustainable development. Our part in the infrastructure is to build web portals which include a "forge" for open source software tools for sustainable development, an NGO directory which combines features found in Facebook, LinkedIn etc. with additional features, and specialized information portals on WEHAB and Millennium Development Goals issues for two geographical areas of the world, the wider Caribbean and the Pacific oceans, where most of the Small Island Developing States are located threatened by climate change and sea level rise. and > What is important not to overlook is the fact that ICT project funding for non-profits is on the rise and soon some of this funding could rival the R&D budgets of major IT companies in specific areas of technology. where does one find ICT funding? A good starting point to start looking is the Foundation Center web site, and thanks soon to the new Certification guidelines by the US IRS, soon foreign non-profits certified as IRC Section 501(c)(3)equivalents, will be able to tap into the billions of dollars from US based grant makers. Another source of ICT funding is the European Union. A third source is the corporate IT sector, where it has been a long standing tradition to encourage non-profit use of IT by making available hardware and software to the academe and also non-profits. Milton Ponson
