Crossposted: Euforic Blog

3 October. OneWorld, the international network for global justice, is launching a social networking space for climate change that will act as a ‘Climate Facebook’ to inspire people to take action to protect the planet.

“OneClimate.net is a mass collaboration space dedicated to global citizens gathering and distributing solutions to climate change,” says Anuradha Vittachi, co-founder of OneWorld and instigator of its climate initiative. “It shows what people and organisations all over the world are doing, and offers a response to the question, ‘Why should I go green if no one else is?’”

OneWorld is known for innovating media platforms for eradicating poverty – like OneWorld.net, the world’s first portal on global justice. Vittachi points out that climate change is set to be the greatest creator of poverty and suffering the world has ever known, undermining the good work done by development workers for decades. “There can be no global justice,” she says, “without climate justice. Do we really want to be the generation that ended life as we know it for hundreds of millions of people?”

OneClimate.net is supported by Cisco Systems. Adrian Godfrey, Director of Corporate Affairs at Cisco, says: “We are delighted to be supporting OneClimate.net as a global initiative that brings together Cisco’s commitment to tackle climate change and to utilising the power of the human network to make a difference.”

OneClimate.net links directly through to OneClimate Island, built by OneWorld within the 3D virtual world of Second Life. Since opening to the public in June 2003, Second Life has grown explosively and today includes 100 universities, including Harvard and Edinburgh.

OneClimate Island was soft-launched by OneWorld on 16 September 2006. “OneWorld was the first NGO to use Second Life for dealing with serious global justice issues, as well as creating its first space devoted solely to tackling climate change,” says Peter Armstrong, OneWorld co-founder and Innovations Director.

“It will come into its own when the United Nations meets on December 3-14 to hold its Climate Summit. We will be opening a virtual window on events in Bali for anyone in the world who can access Second Life. But unlike its Real Life equivalent - and appropriately for a climate change conference - it will produce no travel-related carbon emissions.”

(cross posting from internet.artizans blog)

Shaking the hype out of Web 2.0

A big shout out to the organisers of the Web2forDev conference in Rome. They’re shaking the hype out of web 2.0 and wrestling it in to relevance for the world’s poorest and most marginalised.

Connectivity, Innovation, Censorship

If I’d had a chance to contribute to the conference, I’d have stepped back from the real issue of rural connectivity and looked at the less examined issues of innovation and censorship - the good and bad futures for the social web in the developing world.

The dark side of web 2.0

The bad news first - as soon as social media starts to make a real social difference it will be subject to some form of repression by those who favour the status quo. The downside for web 2.0 is that, under the wrong circumstances, its social networking side could become an engine for privacy invasion and surveillance. We must learn from places where social media survives and thrives in the face of corruption, military might, and the intimidation of opponents. Embedding human rights in social media requires eCampaigning for Internet Freedom.

Innovation - the disruptive fruit of participation

The real powerhouse of web 2.0 for dev will be innovation, the disruptive fruit of all architectures of participation. Charlie Leadbeater’s book We-think starts with the example of the Barefoot College before going on to show how examples like Wikipedia are the herald of a new era of mass collaborative innovation. His wide global analysis of the new era mashes silicon valley with social innovation - as he says about a peer-to-peer AIDS support network “Low-cost, self-organising networks might be the height of organisational fashion on the US west cost but they are a matter of life-and-death in places like Mbuya Parish, Kampala“.

Web2forDev HowTo

So where do we find guiding values for the development potential of web2.0? If I’d been at the web2fordev conference I’d have plagiarised the Res Publica Report ‘Prospects for e-Advocacy in the Global South’ and proposed this set:

• Work within Movements: Working within a movement means that all the talent of the various members can be brought to bear in creating solutions and the lines of communications within the network can be used to quickly disseminate new methods.
• Worship the Power of the Network: Through networks we aggregate our knowledge, amassing insight that is greater than the sum of its parts.
• Bring Technologists and Advocates Together: Innovative solutions emerge when technologists collaborate with advocates, working on a specific campaign problem or network goal.
• Build Innovation Systems: Rather than think of innovations as pieces of hardware or even creative ideas, it is better to think in terms of “innovation systems,” combinations of hardware, social structures, and economic models that solve social problems.
• Promote Independence not Dependence: Seek to empower, and explicitly address sustainability.
• Engage with Youth: In almost all societies, young people are most likely to adopt new ICT methods. They are more familiar with ICT because it has been present for most of their lives.
• Cultivate the Fringe: The boldest new ideas often come from far outside the
  mainstream.

I applaud the organisers and participants at the web2fordev conference for their global fusion of social media and social impact. The scale of that impact will depend on how well mass creativity can challenge the status quo. As the APC’s Anriette Esterhuysen says “The key is NOT to think of social networking tools (or Web 2.0) as a completely new set of tools/applications. … but as representing significant changes to power structures that characterise the creation and use of content on the internet“.