[wsfii-discuss] Economic Sustainability of Community Wireless

Fri Apr 20 02:39:01 UTC 2007

Marco, Horst, All

The key thing to keep in mind is that despite all the hype there is
truly something revolutionary out there can help us to work together in
new and exciting ways. It's a matter of bringing what is out there in
here.

And of course it is not so much about the technology but how people use
that technology to develop new ways of getting things within the
emerging information economy.

Finally what we see now is not anything like what the long term picture
will be. We are in transitional phase. To better understand the dramatic
changes and their possible consequences you might be better off reading
a William Gibson novel than in say listening to what the tech sages are
saying.

The point here though is to consider the thesis or hypothesis or
synthesis that we can from all this information, technology and
networked human resources use technology for grassroots empowerment and
in that process manage the role of corporations/top-down players so that
they have opportunities but within a clearly defined playing field. 

If we can create such a dynamic in our networks then it is at that point
when we can be sure that the hype will start manifesting into reality -
OUR reality.

Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: wsfii-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org
[mailto:wsfii-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Horst Krause
Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2007 8:24 AM
To: Discuss list on the World Summit on Free Information Infrastructure
Subject: Re: [wsfii-discuss] Economic Sustainability of Community
Wireless

hello marco + wsfii-discuss-list,

with great interest i follow this *sustainability*-thread.

> when we want to have an economical sustainability FOR THE PEOPLE, we
> will need tools designed for exceptionally this goal. these tools
> already exist. certain types cooperatives belong to these tools as I
> believe.

i think about the impact, 'development' has into a weakend society,
and the reasons and circumstances that drive self-declared developers.
because, i recognise a large gap in realisation/discussion between:
- high expectations in/for *III./IV.-world*-countries, and
- the low success to overcome digital-divide inside rich societies. 

many reports seem to me too positivly tinted, for example:
opportunities,
capacity/comunity/democracy-building, potentials, synergy, ect.,
or the hardbreaking foo of those, planing to sell a chicken,
would be empowered to search the i-net to maximise cash flow ;-)

shure only a part benefits from this shifting, the social-divide will
deepen,
and, first of all and ever, digital fences will be put up by this
evolution.
so called development is much based on media-hyp, tech.-talk,
nerdism-egos,
figures+numbers, progress-myth, futur-hopes, ect., to call some, only
little reflected missionairic, colonial, touristic, western vallues.

everbody's darlings like to talk about targets, forces, tasks,
successes,
but it makes me supicius, that many of these so hailed solutions,
do NOT work fine, or got under critics; even under developed conditions,
or refer unconsciously and narrow-horizonted to nothing else but
- some akademic-sky-watcher-blub and their media-campaigners,
- the developments of the (soft-)develope(r,d) and
- their developing-world-successors: micro-telcos +  net-shop-owners,
- bruised IT-omnipotence-fantasy, now to be compensated in a
  once-again + far-away - attempt in africa/asia.

are there some critical, serios, competent field researches about 
social, cultural, environmental side-effekts of IT-connectivity?
but deeper than usual win-win-game of self-portrayals by embedded media.
please recall to me some links i read diagonal earlier @ this list.

bye, horst krause, berlin
offlinehorst at web.de

On Fri, 06 Apr 2007 18:38:24 +0200
marco <marco.pompe at web.de> wrote:

> jeff buderer wrote:
> > Marco,
> >
> > I think we need your perspective to bring this process forward at
least
> > in Ghana so please do continue to engage those people you mentioned.
> >
> >   
> my general opinion is, that it is very possible to deal with even big
> companies, when have good idea of how to play the "game". we have to
> consider the arguments of vickram crishna very well, to get that kind
of
> good idea about it ...
> 
> i do think, that we can create a space, where in we can set the rules
to
> a certain extend. we have to have a look at how the market and its big
> player work, how ecomical, social and psychological processes are
> shaping the world in order to capital investment and profit
maximising.
> if we understand what will stab in our back and what will benefit the
> community in the end, we have the basics to deal with corporations.
also
> i want to point at the several ethical investment facilities we have
in
> US and Europe ... the conditions are fantastic (compared to SERO). its
a
> matter of collective WILL in my eyes ...
> 
> when we want to have an economical sustainability FOR THE PEOPLE, we
> will need tools designed for exceptionally this goal. these tools
> already exist. certain types cooperatives belong to these tools as I
> believe. NGOs can help as well. loose networks as well.
> my suggestion is to focus on the founding of a half global / half
local
> hardware supply cooperative and a similar ISP-cooperative. i wonder if
> we should go in details ...
> 
> grts, marco pompe, berlin
> 
> 
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