Playpower.org aims to introduce the world’s cheapest computer programs to the poor by utilizing the technology of old 8 bit computers. The Apple II computer, which had its heyday in the 1970s in the West, has lived on in the developing world, where its technology is now open source and easy to manufacture. As a result, computers can be sold for as little as $10-12. Many of these systems are currently on sale as “TV computers” in Bombay, Bangalore, and Nicaragua, offering pirated, low-tech versions of games like Mario and Donkey Kong. Like the early home computers sold in the United States, they plug into a TV screen for display, making them an easy access technology. Continue reading “The $12 Computer”
Event: 10-12 Sept 2010, Berlin, Interdependence Day
02 Diplomacy, 10 Security, Academia, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Government, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence
Berlin, Germany 2010
In 2010 Interdependence Day will be celebrated in a dynamic global city and cultural melting pot at the heart of Europe.
> INTERDEPENDENCE DAY
In a world where global interdependence is not simply an aspiration of idealists, but a brute fact of the forces that bind us together— global warming, financial capital, AIDS, telecommunications, crime, migration, and terrorism—many people still think in narrow, insular terms.
Reality is global, but consciousness too often remains local — constrained by town and nation.
In the year 2000, a small group of scholars, civic and political leaders, and artists from a dozen nations met to design a program that might help raise consciousness around the realities and possibilities of interdependence. Their efforts were given impetus by the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and the group created a project that would:
> Make September 12, the day following the memorial of 9/11, an international celebration of interdependence “Interdependence Day”
> Draw up a “Declaration of Interdependence”, making clear that both liberty and security require cooperation among peoples and nations and can no longer be secured by sovereign nations working unilaterally;
> Develop a Civic Interdependence Curriculum that would make interdependence a central concept in Civics and Social Studies programs in middle and high schools in as many schools around the world as possible.
Graphic: “The True Cost of Coal”
01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 10 Security, 12 Water, Civil Society, Earth Intelligence, Graphics, Peace Intelligence, True Cost, True Cost
After two years of collaborative research, storysharing, metaphor crafting, and meticulous illustrating, the bees have completed an epic illustration about mountaintop removal coal mining.
Related:
+ True Cost Meme
+ True Cost T-Shirt
Journal: Colombia-Venezuela Denounce Each Other within OAS–US is the Loser, Cuba Spins Up OAS Alternative Without the North
07 Venezuela, 08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Peace IntelligenceWhile the US watches another CNN story on rape, Latin America has been watching CNN Espanol where the Ambassador of Venezuela to the Organization of American States (OAS), has just delivered a phenomenally detailed, articulate, and persuasive denunciation of the US and its regional allies, particularly Colombia.
Hugo Chavez has then come out, breaking relations with Colombia (with great sadness), while offering Guyana the oil it needs, and calling again for a regional organization, the only thing “missing” in t he Bolivarian reconstitution. He anticipates that the incoming government of Colombia will restore rational and reasonable relations.
Off to the side, Cuba is re-presenting its proposal for an OAS without the US and Canada–a regional organization that goes beyond UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) to include the Carribean and Central America.
What one notices from the South is that nothing has changed in the US between the Bush and Obama Administrations. The Ambassadors are the same, the policies (if they can be called policies) are the same, the military mumblings about Hugo Chavez are the same.
Event: 7-30 July 2010, Ft. Collins CO, International Development Design Summit
01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 04 Education, 07 Health, 12 Water, Academia, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, Peace Intelligence, Strategy, Technologies
The International Development Design Summit is an intense, hands-on design experience that brings together people from all over the world and all walks of life to create technologies and enterprises that improve the lives of people living in poverty. Unlike most academic conferences, we emphasize the development of prototypes, not papers and proceedings. In moving the technologies on the path from idea to implementation to impact we aim to create real ventures, not just business plans. IDDS is part of the revolution in design that aims to encourage, promote, and build more research and development resources that focus on the needs of the world’s poor. We draw inspiration from several current models of innovation, design and community empowerment: co-creation, cross-disciplinary collaborations and crowd sourcing.
IDDS is a diverse group of people. We come from more than 20 countries around the world—from Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, and Central America. We are students and teachers, professors and pastors, economists and engineers, masons and mechanics, doctors, welders, farmers, and community organizers. One of the things that makes IDDS a special conference is this richness of backgrounds. It is a conference about innovation, and we believe that innovation thrives in the intersections of disciplines that come from bringing together such an eclectic group.
We believe very strongly in the idea of co-creation: the concept that it is better to provide communities with the skills and tools to become innovators and develop new technologies themselves rather than to simply providing the technologies. We believe that developing the capacity for innovation and creativity is critical for long-term sustainable improvements in the quality of life in a community. It is our goal to demonstrate a model where a user-based community of active, creative designers can invent, innovate and inspire each other to create new technologies.
But not all of our participants are from communities in the developing world. Nearly half of the our participants are students, and we hope to inspire them with the opportunity to interact with field practitioners and to see that inventiveness is not restricted to those with formal education. IDDS also provides a forum where they can meet with like-minded people who are driven by the same desire to make an impact in the world. It is our hope that by creating a diverse global network we can empower individuals and their communities to tackle the tough problems that reside in the developing world.
For this year’s event, the focus has shifted from the creation of technologies to their dissemination. Co-sponsors MIT, Franklin W. Olin College, and Cooper Perkins will be joined by the 2010 host institution, Colorado State University, in developing and implementing the curriculum. IDDS 2010 aims to guide project teams through the process of becoming viable ventures. Curriculum includes key principles from the Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise program at CSU, the D-Lab program at MIT and the Design Stream at Olin College.
Journal: Netanyahu, Israel, Oslo, Playing US
02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Government, Peace Intelligence
The attached very important report is by Jonathan Cook, a freelance resporter based in Nazareth in the occupied West Bank and one of the most intrepid reporters covering the Israel's occupation policies, is — or should be — a long overdue wakeup call to the US people, the US media, and the US government, but don't count on it.
Netanyahu admits on video he deceived US to destroy Oslo accord
Jonathan Cook, Foreign Correspondent
The National, July 18. 2010 1:02AM UAE
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100718/FOREIGN/707179891/1135
NAZARETH // There is one video Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, must be praying never gets posted on YouTube with English subtitles. To date, the 10-minute segment has been broadcast only in Hebrew on Israel’s Channel 10.
Its contents, however, threaten to gravely embarrass not only Mr Netanyahu but also the US administration of Barack Obama.
The film was shot, apparently without Mr Netanyahu’s knowledge, nine years ago, when the government of Ariel Sharon had started reinvading the main cities of the West Bank to crush Palestinian resistance in the early stages of the second intifada.
At the time Mr Netanyahu had taken a short break from politics but was soon to join Mr Sharon’s government as finance minister.
On a visit to a home in the settlement of Ofra in the West Bank to pay condolences to the family of a man killed in a Palestinian shooting attack, he makes a series of unguarded admissions about his first period as prime minister, from 1996 to 1999.
Seated on a sofa in the house, he tells the family that he deceived the US president of the time, Bill Clinton, into believing he was helping implement the Oslo accords, the US-sponsored peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, by making minor withdrawals from the West Bank while actually entrenching the occupation. He boasts that he thereby destroyed the Oslo process.
He dismisses the US as “easily moved to the right direction” and calls high levels of popular American support for Israel “absurd”.
Reference: Lee Felsenstein & Dave Warner Converse
08 Wild Cards, Augmented Reality, Correspondence, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, info-graphics/data-visualization, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, microfinancing, Mobile, Peace Intelligence, Real Time, ToolsConversation Starting Point:
Afghan Self-stabilization from Below – and Above
Who’s Who in Peace Intelligence: Lee Felsenstein
Who’s Who in Peace Intelligence: Dave Warner
Monday 12 July 2010 (Read from Bottom Up)
Continue reading “Reference: Lee Felsenstein & Dave Warner Converse”
