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Happy Birthday: St Britto's, which is 60 years old. Celebrations at St
Jerome's Church Mapusa 11 am on July 30, 2006. Football match Loyola's
vs. Britto's 11 am on July 31, 2006 at the school grounds.
http://bmxgoa.com
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GOA'S OWN CYBER-BALCAO: LESSONS TO LEARN ON THE INTERNET SUPERHIGHWAY
by V. M. de Malar
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I had Goa in mind the very first time I logged onto the
Internet, more than 11 years ago. The news media was full of
reports about this big new thing, this World Wide Web that
could potentially link up all the computers in the world to
create something called the "information superhighway."
But only a fraction of the world's personal computers were
hooked up when I first logged on and entered a world of
painfully slow dial-up connections, unreliable modems, and an
online sub-culture peopled mainly by computer science mavens
and university students.
It was a parallel universe, a "virtual reality" quite unlike
the flesh-and-bones world. And I looked for Goa immediately,
not expecting very much but curious about what might lurk in
the depths of this new medium.
That's when I discovered Goanet, (now at
www.goanet.org); it was already active when I
joined the mailing list in early 1995.
There was great novelty in being connected to other Goans, so
many of us were totally isolated in the diaspora without any
sense of others in the same predicament.
This pioneering list served first of all as a simple
networking tool for young Goans, most of whom lived in the
UK, Australia and North America.
But as we felt out the Internet, and connectivity spread like
wildfire, the true potential of the medium started to become
clear. Eddie Fernandes came online, the veteran librarian had
access to superb search engines and posted news articles from
around the world with relevance for Goa. And so Goanet became
the best one-stop source for Goa-related international news.
Fred Noronha came online at the same time, the Saligao-based
journalist fed Goanet with locally generated news and views.
And bolstered by these miraculously free services that
materialized on your desktop almost instantaneously, the
membership of Goanet soared from a couple of score to a
couple of thousand.
Goa's pre-eminent contemporary historian, Dr. Teotonio de
Souza joined the network from his university in Portugal.
Writers like Victor Rangel-Ribeiro and Philip
Nazareth, distinguished scientists like Santosh
Helekar and Helga do Rosario Gomes, technologists
like Samir Kelekar all joined the network, and the
forum became convulsed with stormy debates about
religion, colonialism, 1961, and all the topics
that get Goans hot under the collar whether on the
Internet or off.
In time, the network has grown and expanded further. The
messages still fly fast and furious, and we are seeing a long
overdue demographic correction as more and more Goans in Goa
are finding their way to this venerable discussion list.
Goanet needs to be commended for running a strictly
transparent, strictly inclusive organization that has
consistently maintained very high-minded standards.
It is this Open Source motivation that is the key to its
success and longevity, and provides an excellent model for
newcomers to the Goa niche of cyberspace.
As our state prepares to roll out broadband right into the
villages, we will be bringing tens of thousands of new
subscribers online, and a host of new Internet-based
companies and services will be born. They should all take a
long look at what has kept Goanet alive; it's an
uncomplicated formula that will yield results.
This month marks twelve long years since Herman Carneiro
launched Goanet, the teenager expected to keep in touch with
a few friends and now manages a list encompassing more than
6000 members.
Fittingly, this week also marks the fifteenth anniversary of
the World Wide Web, the launch of the first browser software
written by Tim Berners-Lee at the CERN physics lab in
Switzerland.
Everything has exploded since then, many like to compare one
year of Internet development to seven or even ten years in
"meatspace."
Certainly, we have gone from one lonely discussion group for
Goans to a couple of dozen websites and even more mailing
lists.
But as we look ahead to the broadband opportunity
that has the potential to remake Goa all over
again, and to a far more wired future, it's fitting
to take a moment to register where we've come from
and what it took to get here. Happy Anniversary to
the Internet, and especially to Goanet, our very
own cyber-balcao.
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VM de Malar is one of the early Goanetters, and is currently
based in Goa, where he writes for the local and outstation
media, mostly contributing think-pieces and well-written
features.
GOANET-READER WELCOMES contributions from its readers, by way
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please send in your feedback to the writer. Our writers write
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GoanetReader welcomes your feedback at goanet@goanet.org
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