some ideas & works behindMekong ICT Camp 2

presented in Nu-Substance Festival 2010July 20, 2010 @ Centre Culturel Français de Bandung

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Art (bact’) Arthit SuriyawongkulBackground in software industries, open source and localization. Now working with social enterprise, digital rights groups, activists,

and academics. Curriculum designer for Mekong ICT Camp 2.

twitter, follow @bact

Mekong ICT Camp 2 June 7-11, 2010BarCamp Chiang Mai 3 June 12, 2010

Chiang Mai, Thailand

hackers, journalists, social workersmake a space, let them work togetherchange (destroy) the world

Photo by Keng Susumpow. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License www.fickr.com/photos/kengz/4701351918/

hackers, citizen journalists, health workers, government offcers, social theorists, activists, in one room!

I, C, & T workshops for software developers, hackers, media activists, community health practitioners, civil

society, etc. in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and connected places*

* There’re people from other regions working inside/for the Mekong region, like people from Australia in Cambodia, from Burma in Hong Kong, from South Korea in Bangkok, we include them.

We do engineered the participant groups.We did made some relatively open-minded offcials in, let them

experience themselves what it’s like working with civil society people.

co-organizers:Thai Fund Foundation

Opendream

* Thai Fund Foundation is established, has network of trusts with organizations in many levels, including grassroots and funders. Opendream has network of ICT expertise, including open source community.

(Thai Fund) inspiration/base:

AsiaSourceopen source software/ICT4D workshop

(Opendream) inspiration/base:

Bicyclemark’s*“journalists & hackers of the world united”

* at 26th Chaos Communication Congress (26C3) in Berlin 2009. Search YouTube for “bicyclemark”.

“Hacking here means to destroy, format, manipulate data and the systems of sites considered to be hegemonic. As activism, it is more

creative than destructive.”– from the cover of Esai Tentang Seni Video dan Media Baru /

Essays on Video Art and New Media: Indonesia and Beyond by Krisna Murti (IVAA, 2009)

forked/mixed/mashed-up/hacked:

Mekong ICT Camp→ 1.0 (2008) → 2.0 (2010) →

source: information and communication technology→{ punctuation magic }→

hacked: information, communication, and technologies

InformationCommunicationTechnologies

Information-ManagementCommunication-AdvocacyTechnologies-Infrastructure

Information-Management-PolicyCommunication-Advocacy-Movement

Technologies-Infrastructure-DIY

Now I have some loosely connected ideas, but I can’t think detailedly in everything.

{ Press [F1] } HELP!

I know loosely about the WHY.I don’t know yet the WHAT and the HOW.

But I know about the WHO.(or know about the WHO who should know about the WHO)

I discuss my friends about the whole idea.Sometime ask people I never know before.

Just try.

JUST TRY.Experimenting.

Freedom to Fail.(and rights to get more chances)

In the end I have these cool WHOs who trusted me (or trusted a friend of mine),

and committed to do something together.

From this network of TRUST, I got:

Media ecology and P2P theorist, Government chief information offcer, Electromagnetic

engineer, Media and cultural studies researcher, Journalist, Photographer, Software engineer, Wireless network engineer, Curator, Media activist, Information security expert, User

experience designer, Web developer, Educator, Social media expert, … some of them are actually later selected from participants

Next slide is WHAT we have together ...

Governance 2.0, Open Public Data, Information Policy, Awareness and Risk Assessment in the Digital Environment, Citizen

Journalism, Reporting Mekong, Piracy, Net Neutrality, Privacy, SMS for Agricultural Applications, ICT for Volunteer Management, Photo-documentary, Information Visualization, Public-Private

Partnership, Universal Access Design, Web Accessibility, Disaster Management System, User-oriented Design, Running a Cause Using Social Media, Online Fund Raising, Public-access Media Movements, Making a Civil Society Organization Financially

Sustainable, Video Activism & Digital Mobilization, Open Everything and P2P Production, { hey, more … }

OK. I got the content, the WHAT.What about the format, the HOW?Hehe, I don’t really know (again).

Keynotes & Policy talks.Forums & Discussions.Hand-ons workshops.

And unconference (BarCamp) at the end.

Two new elements, in 2010 Camp:Policy talks – to think more about WHYUnconference – for more participations

Discussions & workshops: 3 parallel tracksKeynotes & Forums: before lunch.

Policy talks: before dinner.

And those are only loose categories.Details in practice are up to the resource people, and interaction from participants.

Facilitators came up with innovative ways of co-learning. From role-playing to mini-

unconferences within the workshop.Things that the ‘curriculum designer’ can’t really imagine alone by himself.

Photo by Keng Susumpow. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License www.fickr.com/photos/kengz/4700670923/

Participants from FOSS Asia, Vietnam

Photo by Keng Susumpow. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License www.fickr.com/photos/kengz/4701326876/

DIY track / Community Wif mesh, Low-power Radio transmitter, SMS gateway

Photo by Keng Susumpow. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License www.fickr.com/photos/kengz/4700701715/

Pete Tridish from Prometheus Radio project

Photo by Keng Susumpow. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License www.fickr.com/photos/kengz/4700768783/

Low-power Radio Transmitter

Photo by Keng Susumpow. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License www.fickr.com/photos/kengz/4701236412/

Social media, Read/Write Web

Photo by Keng Susumpow. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License www.fickr.com/photos/kengz/4701241752/

Policy talk: Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet and Society, on Piracy and Privacy

Throw in open-minded creative people in to a room. Provide them freedom. May be guide them a bit with some loose themes.

It will be OK.If not, that’s a lesson learned.And that’s already something.

(Report guideline from one of funders)Highlights of main activity, 3-5 bullets.

Brief description, accomplishments and results.Challenges and how they were overcome.

Lessons learned or best practices.Noteworthy outcomes/observations.

Seeking for and listening to feedbacks.Tell everybody (and funders) about it.

What works, what’s not.

Funders are not only funders.They are also partners.

We share some common goals, right?

Without some structures(guidelines, themes, schedules, etc.)

it’s diffcult to work.

But, stick too much with structures,you self-censored yourself.

No innovation, new ways for doing things.

Open and Flexible Structure.Space to Work.

Freedom to Innovate and Participate.(so we can solve things together)

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Art (bact’) Arthit Suriyawongkul

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