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Comments & Criticisms
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Mar 31st, 2003 - 13:08:34 |
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Greetings from Sucre, Bolivia. I am a young Canadian
working in technology here. If you feel you need to
read an introduction on me before you read this you
can find it at the end. Otherwise, if you're like me,
you can continue reading until the point at which you
get bored and then move onto accomplishing something
else... (personally, I find introductions boring and
quite often self-serving)
I decided for a while to observe and watch the posts
(or lack of them) in this group since I have just
recently joined something like this for the first time
and it's all fairly new to me. However after watching
and considering this all, I must say, I have no idea
what you're trying to accomplish with all of this.
For the most part, everyone seems to be quite happy
with themselves and their goals to improve the
developing world through technology through your
little discussions here. Well sorry if I change that,
but I thought I'd offer a different opinion (which may
promote some more active responses).
First of all, and this may come as a shock to all you
geeks out there, but technology isn't everything or
even the most important thing that 'marginalized
groups' may need. Do the people of the poor
communities in Bolivia that I work with here really
need internet access when they don't even have clean
water yet?
My second and more important point is that what you're
trying to accomplish is much too broad. Your topics
and goals are pathetically vague and general. Trying
to personally ensure "The Information Society" is
developed in any certain manner would be next to
impossible in your own city or country, much less the
whole world. Besides, the concept of making sure it's
controlled in a way that's "just", "democratic" or
with our personal "values" is contrary to the organic
way that the internet and technology has developed on
it's own. No one controls it, and no one should
control it using any of their personal values.
Because of the vagueness of the topic you may have a
bunch of people who want to contribute but don't know
how or why they even should. I may not be giving the
forum much of a chance, but the remainder of the
topics look to me to be more of the same uselessness.
If you're lucky enough to get a bunch of submissions,
how are you going to measure what you've really
accomplished with it all?
My suggestion is this. Why isn't there an investment
into more concrete practical discusions that can
actually make a difference for a few people instead of
trying to change the world. For example.. 'The phone
company in Thailand is charging the local street kid's
centre too much and they can't afford internet
access', or 'This school in Bolivia has no computers,
let's talk about how can we get them some'? Why not
highlight projects like this on the forum and then use
the ideas and resources of young Canadians to resolve
them?
Well that's all for now. If you have any comments or
criticisms I'd be happy to reply.
Jon.
I am a young Canadian, originally working here in
Bolivia as an intern through a well known Canadian
NGO. My local NGO promotes human rights, access to
information and standard of living of the people that
work in the countryside of what is said to be South
America's poorest nation. The organization has four
offices (among 3 cities), 2 radio stations and roughly
100 to 200 people employed. I am basically head of
technology for them, and typical tasks include
administering the local networks, connecting them
together, building and administering their database
system in SQL Server, group training and on-going
support of the users.
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