Sky’s Blog @ The Dalai Lama Foundation — Spreading the word in a networked world

Every once in a while I look back at resources that I’ve created and/or blogged, and suggest that you take a look at them.

The AirJaldi 2006 Summit, held in Dharamsala, India, was a several-day sequence of presentations, panels and then a week of workshops, dealing with Wireless infrastructure and how these can be used to further the development of the world into a place where veryone can live a healthy, happy life. The meeting was attended by social activists of many sorts, all of whom had an interest in using communications technologies.

Here’s your action item for today: The Video page for Airjaldi I would recommend that you take a look at what’s available there.Here are two of my favorites:

Dr. Rodger Downer, keynote speaker, and President Emeritus of the University of Limerick (Ireland), A Global Perspective on Sustainability {28 minutes running time}

Dr. Richard Stallman, keynote speaker, On free software, human rights, development and GNU. {52 minutes running time IMPORTANT NOTE: the camera was not rolling until shortly after the talk was underway}

Everything else on that page is worth viewing! Just a reminder.

You can find all of my articles on AirJaldi here in my blog. I tried to blog the conference in real-time, since we had wi-fi available in the hall, but it was really a challenge. It’s hard to estimate how much bandwidth, and how many routers, to provide for so many tech-literate participants. So I ended up writing blog entries each evening, and then posting them during the day. This set off an inquiry into offline blogging tools (like MarsEdit and Ecto) which I use to this day. And an overview of blogging tools. And it continued my series I’m a Turtle about how I carry my “home” (computer) on my back(pack) everywhere I go (cyber-nomadics).

A couple of weeks ago I prepared an exhaustive retrospective of my Pervasive Interactive Technologies, which I then presented to a group of professionals down in Monterey.Our digital media approach in Project Happiness was included as a current example of how many of the pervasive techniques are playing out in yet another a real-life project.

Next Monday, November 19th, 4pm to 5pm at MediaX (Wallenberg Hall, Stanford University campus, Palo Alto CA), we’ll be conducting a presentation and deconstruction of the ideas behind the media approach in Project Happiness. To attend, please locate Wallenberg Hall in the Stanford map, and join us by 4pm. We will start on time, as our use of the media-rich room is strictly limited. If you’d like to join us, please let us know and we’ll reserve a place for you. Read more and see the video… (more…)

The $100 laptop @ ISDE5

The International Symposium on Digital Earth was an opportunity for a few hundred experts and other interested individuals to get together, see and discuss ways in which online information systems are making it possible to explore our planet.

The most obvious, to me, being Google Earth. But there are lots and lots of others.

As I walked into UC Berkeley to register, I stumbled across Ed Cherlin, who I’ve known for a few years as a knowledgeable and good-hearted promoter of the Simputer (Simple Computer). This time he was wearing a volunteer staff shirt for ISDE5 and carrying an XO (the “$100 computer”) in his hand. Hmm, an XO. Time to talk to Ed I think! (more…)

You may not think about this too much, but the corporate I.T. folks think about it a lot and since I’ve been there before, I do too.

I’m not talking about death and taxes here.

It’s the “make vs buy” decision, but slightly camouflaged.

Most of my readers are not corporate I.T. geeks with lots of resources available to them. Right? Isn’t that your situation? You probably operate on a small budget, and you’re probably affiliated with a nonprofit, and your salary, much like your employer’s budget, is probably a bit slim. So any time you can get an online service free of charge, they’ve got your undivided attention. Well how do you make the decision to use a free tool when the functioning of your enterprise is going to rely upon it? [read on...]

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