Phi Beta Iota: Researcher Berto Jongman is a disciple and most respectful student of the work of Alex Schmid and more recently, the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) practices of Researcher Arno Reuser, who leads one of a handful of military OSINT teams that are truly on the bleeding edge of accomplishment and global access (analog & unpublished as well as the obvious).
Together with C. K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks), this book redirected my life. Although I have been an intelligence and operations professional all my life, and spent the last 20 years kicking doors down all over the world to get secret intelligence communities to focus on the 96% of the information they could get legally, ethically, and generally free or at very low cost, I was lacking a strategic frame of reference.
This book literally blew my mind into smithereens. Starting with the fact that LtGen Dr. Brent Scowcorft is one of the last adults still standing with his integrity intact, I was moved to the core of my being by the following list, which is in priority order:
I cannot under-state the force with which this list hit me. In combination with Prahalad's book, which makes the point that capitalism is focused on the billion rich with a one trillion marketplace, while the five billion poor represent a FOUR trillion marketplace, I suddenly realized that the Panel had delivered one side of a strategic matrix for creating a prosperous world at peace.
These two books led to my decision to sell my for-profit, OSS.Net, and create, with 23 other co-founders, the Earth Intelligence Network, a 501c3 Public Charity, and to commit myself to being intelligence officer to the poor for the remainder of my life.
I will just list the twelve policies and the eight humanities below, all other information is at EIN, and I do not want to distract from other reviews. This book, this list, is the single most important first step in empowering the collective intelligence of the public to the point that we can eradicate corruption, protect our commonwealths, and achieve a prosperous world at peace.
Twelve policies that must be harmonized at the budget level across all Nations and corporations and foundations, and organizations (this is important because governments are organized as stovepipes–it is lunacy to use up water we don't have to grow grain we do not need to create ethanal with food instead of sugar cane, bacteria, or algae):
01 Agriculture
02 Diplomacy
03 Economy
04 Education
05 Energy
06 Family
07 Health
08 Immigration
09 Justice
10 Security
11 Society
12 Water
The eight humanities (this is important because nothing the US or EU do unless we create, within seven years, an EarthGame that helps these dominant demographics avoid our mistakes:
01 Brazil
02 China
03 India
04 Indonesia
05 Iran
06 Russia
07 Venezuela
08 Wild Cards (e.g. Congo)
There are so many books relevant to all of the above I must point to my lists, but want to list just a couple of future-oriented books here, the last being the first by EIN (free online, but lovely here at Amazon):
Global Knowledge Partnership and the Global Knowledge Summit are a uniquely Malaysian initiative and offer some interesting views that are all the more valuable for their seeming ignorance of the World Information Summit, which we speculate has lost credibility among those who wish to move more efficiently and purposefully.
We speculate that Malaysia, which has also been a pioneer in seeking to establish a global Islamic information sharing and sense-making network, to include an Islamic Press Service, sees itself as the natural leader for the Islamic Caliphate (Extended) in relation to modern information communication technologies (ICT) where it excels.
We include this organization and its events in the UN/NGO reference category in part because of the UN representation at GK3 and in part because it appears to be operating with the proper spirit of embracing as many stakeholders as possible for the right reasons.
Below are the headlines alone from the original document. Click above to see the original online, and on the Frog below for a printable paginated document.
A. Our Common Vision of the Information Society
B. An Information Society for All: Key Principles
B1. The role of governments and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development
B2. Information and communication infrastructure: an essential foundation for an inclusive information society
B3. Access to information and knowledge
B4. Capacity building
B5. Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs
B6. Enabling environment
B7. ICT applications: benefits in all aspects of life
B8. Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content
B9. Media
B10. Ethical dimensions of the Information Society
B11. International and regional cooperation
C. Towards an Information Society for All Based on Shared Knowledge