Tag Archives: hardware

#Mozfest pt 1: The politics of making the future

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We attended Mozfest this weekend – and as we still do not even have anything web-related to show (hopefully next year) – we were there to gain inspiration and really push our thinking forward.

The Mozilla Festival is a radically “open” geek paradise, where hundreds of people from around the world came to co-create and share ideas and tools, including online media, gaming, educational tools.

Photo of Joi Ito by Flickr user Paul_Clarke used on a CC license

We left really challenged to build a truly open community (which we will get to in our second post), but we also left with some lingering disquiet with blindspots in the “politics” of the community.

This post is intended to be a contribution to the “writeable” society and intended to start a conversation, so please read on and let us know what you think. Continue reading →

#Firstworldproblems

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This project originated from discussions at the ICT4D meetup in London. ICT for “D” (d meaning development) is a term that started gaining momentum in recent decades, although people have been using communications technology for development since the advent of smoke signals.

Ugo and I have both worked extensively in places where communications technology can make a massive difference – where simple mobiles can often literally save lives in everyday situations. And we’ve seen that people’s relationship with gadgets and technology is completely different in most of the places we worked. I often give this example, but even a simple ballpoint pen would have never been discarded in the provincial Mozambican office I spent time in.

What was troubling us more and more was not actually the “underdeveloped” places we worked in, but in fact the attitudes and behaviours of people here back in our northern homes.

Continue reading →