Ethan Zuckerman gave the keynote speech on the final day of the Web2forDev conference, held at FAO in Rome, 24^th-27^th September 2007. Ethan is the co-founder of Global Voices, the world’s largest aggregator of media in the South. The Global Voices Forum brings together bloggers from around the globe.

Here are some quotes from that speech today:

Zuckerman on our new interest in old technology:

‘Email preceded the Internet… blogs are ten years old, and Wikis have been around since 1995… If most of this stuff is twenty years old, why are we talking about it now? Because it’s not about the tools, it’s about the people.’

‘The reason that it matters now is that we are experiencing a seismic shift – it’s about who can be brought together with these tools.’

Zuckerman on mobile phones:

‘When we think about participatory web, it’s not about laptops and high bandwidth… it’s about mobile phones. There are 3 billion handsets worldwide, and its estimated 80-90% of people in the developing world can access a mobile phone if they need to. This is a level of penetration of technology that changes the rules of the game. We need to broaden our thinking beyond the Web.’

‘For example, Interactive Radio for Justice gives people, particularly women, the opportunity to send questions via SMS to very powerful people. No, it’s not Flickr; no, it doesn’t have tags, but it’s back-and-forth participatory, it’s appropriate to the people it’s trying to reach.’

Zuckerman on Wikipedia:

‘Get smart about Wikipedia. It’s the ninth most popular site in the entire world. This it literally the biggest bang for the buck you can do.’

Zuckerman on why you should blog:
‘Think about who you’re trying to reach and how… if someone just signs a petition and says, “this is important to me”, it’s not enough. We’re looking for participation here… This is the reason to blog: links. Blogs are full of links and Google loves links – the more links you have, the higher up the search engine results you’ll appear. It makes sense to look at this as an eco-system approach. You have to link to figure out how to participate.’

At the Web2forDev conference, everyone has been saying that it’s not about the technology – it’s about the people. It’s about what people can do with the technology – and what ‘mash-ups’ of tools and approaches are appropriate and really working.

I came to this conference to find people who are really doing participatory web – not just using the technology, but facilitating real empowerment and positive change. Our plan at IIED is to co-publish with CTA a special issue of the Participatory Learning and Action series on participatory web for development – so I needed to find real examples.

Well, yesterday I was lucky enough to see Ednah Karamagi give her presentation, Enhancing Knowledge Sharing in the Rural Community through Adoption of Web 2.0 tools.  

I felt like I had found a magic bean.  Ednah works for a Ugandan NGO, Busoga Rural Open Source & Development (BROSDI). It’s a not-for-profit organisation that works with government and civil society in improving rural livelihoods. Within BROSDI is a project called Collecting and Exchanging of Local Agriculture Content (CELAC).                       

Both BROSDI and CELAC project make extensive use of Web 2.0 approaches. But it’s a real combination of Web 2.0 and grassroots participation. For example, CELAC is almost entirely populated with locally generated content. As Ednah says, ‘We are sharing information from our great grandfathers that we are losing in our generation.’  

Essentially, it’s a great combination of the online – Blogs, Google Maps, Wikis, online documentation, chatrooms – and the offline – a weekly mobile phone SMS farmers’ information service, village knowledge brokers, monthly farmer forum meetings, village meetings, radio, and hard copy documentation. They are even developing an e-learning tool for primary school children. 

Ednah is candid about the challenges they face. ‘The Internet is expensive, and needs power,’ she says. ‘It’s a problem in a country where access to electricity is intermittent.’ There is also the issue that people need to change their attitudes towards sharing information, rather than ‘hoarding’ it. And sometimes the technology doesn’t work – and is abandoned. ‘We did have a Wiki,’ Ednah says. ‘But the staff rejected it, as it was too complicated. But we plan to have a new Wiki for developing training material so that we can all comment and add to it.’ 

Ednah was a real inspiration. There was a long list of real life examples – not just the different technologies – but how the technology has made a real, positive change to people’s lives. My favourite was Cissy and her turkey farm. Ednah told us, ‘She learnt how to rear turkeys on SMS!’

This morning, I overheard Dr Hansjorg Neun of CTA talking to Ednah Karamagi. He asked Ednah, ‘Why do you think you have been so successful?’

Ednah’s reply was, ‘You have to use as many methods as you can to reach your community.’

Well, BROSDI are doing that in style. Let’s hope they continue to get the support they need to keep this pioneering organisation going from strength to strength.    

Report back - Anti Social-Computing: Indigenous language, Intellectual Property Rights and Digital Video 

A presentation by Tim Kulchyski and Jon Corbett 

This was a fascinating presentation about a project initiated by the Hul’q’umi’num’ Treaty group in Canada. Like Kado Muir’s accounts of the Ngalia people in Australia, this is another inspiring example of how First Nations communities are revitalising their culture and language using Web 2.0.The Hul’q’umi’num Elders approached the University of Victory in Canada and asked them to collaborate with them on a project. The Elders had identified language as a key element in strengthening their culture and cultural identity.They wanted to use participatory video within their community to record songs, stories, and skills. In Tim and Jon’s presentation, we saw many photos of Hul’q’umi’num community members engaged in ‘everyday’ activities, such as storytelling and weaving cedar bark. But as Tim explains: ‘It was about bringing it back into people’s everyday lives – they’re things that we’re losing, these activities are becoming extinct.’The key thing though, was the carefully developed process involved. All material generated within the community was overseen by Elders Advisory Boards – and in particular, to protect and preserve sensitive cultural information.Essentially, many Web 2.0 processes are often referred to as ’social computing’, about sharing information with the rest of the world. But here, the information generated is closely protected within the community. So it is, in fact anti ’social-computing.

Why? ‘There is a need for caution,’ co-presenter Jon Corbett observes. ‘Caution about what information goes online, and who has access. There has been really significant knowledge expropriation for generations – so what remains, the communities must have control of.’ 

Corbett continues: ‘Imagine a pyramid. Data is at the bottom, information next, then knowledge – and only wisdom is at the top. Social computing is a good way of sharing information, but less so knowledge, and certainly not wisdom.’

Essentially, what this means is that the learning and growth of community wisdom that is perhaps the most significant indicator of success.

‘It’s not the final product that’s important, it’s the process,’ Tim Kulchyski says in conclusion. ‘Like a dictionary, it’s never really done. If we’ve learnt something from it, to me that means the project has been a success.’