• Actualités de la République Démocratique du Congo in the best Weblog category
• Diário de um Sociólogo from Mozambique in best Portuguese blog

Recently, when Joshua S. Fouts (a.k.a Schmilsson Nilsson in Second Life) who directs the USC Center for Public Diplomacy was interviewed by John Jainschigg for Grid Talk on Second Life, much of the latter part of the talk was spent discussing issues of digital divides with the audience.

Schmilsson noted that among other infrastructure challenges in Africa, “40 countries on the African continent do not have reliable Internet access. Thus, they are not a part of our conversations here. This is a major problem.” The conversation that followed covered a number of the hotly debated issues around the role of technology in situations where food, water, clothing and medicine are pressing needs.

This is an ongoing debate at Uthango’s Virtual Africa project (for more about this see Africa’s Second Life, Our Virtual Reality). Uthango are also coming up with creative ways to connect global virtual communities. They are currently organizing a BLOG CARNIVAL. The Grid Talk discussion on Public Diplomacy indicated there is much interest from Second Life residents in the topic of Infrastructure development in Africa. The blog carnival is an opportunity to connect this conversation to the wider online community and African bloggers in particular. Alanagh Recreant of Uthango explained:

We believe that Africans offer a unique perspective on global issues and all stops should be pulled out to increase their authentic presence in virtual worlds.

The BLOG CARNIVAL topic is: “Infrastructure as an Enterprise Enabler in Africa.” The carnival is managed by the acclaimed blogger Benin Mwangi (currently with African Path and respected writer for Global Voices Online, Africa Ready For Business).

It is really simple to participate by using the little form provided here:

http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_1680.html

Do you have any article or would like to say anything about INFRASTRUCTURE development in Africa? (This could include IT infrastructure or property or any other kind…)

Choose a blog article to share, and note its Permalink URL.
Fill in the other fields (hint: copy and paste!), and hit Submit .

Uthango’s Virtual Bike-a-thon

Uthango Social Investments is blazing the trail for African participation in immersive virtual worlds like Second Life while continuing to work at all levels of community development, on-line and off-line. Part of the registered not-for-profit company’s work include asset-based community development to identify gaps and find resources for adequate infrastructure, such as small business ‘incubators’ and shared community ICT facilities.

Another related ongoing project from Uthango in Second life is the [e]bizikile fundraising drive for a specific Opportunity Center in a Cape Town community for unemployed job seekers. Uthango’s Directors speak about transference from SL to RL and vice versa. They point out the [e]bizikile project could be an example of their attempts to do just that! Real life bicycles are also for sale as part of the project and will be donated to an African family in rural Africa.

“In many parts of Africa, bicycles (and mobile phones) are the appropriate technology to drive the local economy,” says Enakai Ultsch of Uthango.

Second Life residents can purchase virtual African bicycles designed by Shukran Fahid of !BooPeRFunK! for L$250 and next year, participate in a grid-wide virtual bike-a-thon (for more Ambling in Second Life). I picked up my bike at the November 15th launch party.

A road-map for imagining a future and the benefits of virtual worlds was laid out at The Serious Virtual Worlds Conference held in Coventry University, England last week.

In the picture above are David Wortley, Director of the Serious Games Institute (holding the user interface for Guitar Hero) and on the right Dr. Timothy W. Foresman pioneer for the global expansion of the Digital Earth vision.

On Day 2 all the speakers presented wearing the Guitar Hero guitar. Perhaps this was a reminder of Babbage Linden’s warning from Day 1 to beware of making false dichotomies between play and work. But with this in mind and wearing the guitar, Dr. Tim Foresman made a serious call to action for a Digital and Virtual Worlds Commons to address the most pressing needs of the 21st Century.

In an interview with Ugotrade Dr. Tim Foresman gave a prediction for Second Life.

Second Life taps into an element called culture. Culture is that which we have evolved to which doesn’t exist in other species which is the creme de la creme for our evolutionary consciousness. Culture is the key here.

This will be the penultimate statement I am going to give you. The Chinese are not ready for us to watch the Olympics in Second Life. And, we are going to watch the Olympics in Second Life. And, it is going to change the dialogue ‘cuz there are going to be a whole lot of Chinese people sharing the details of Chinese social and cultural evolution within the context of that display. And I am predicting that will be the milestone for 2008 for social shifts and the technologies that impact on them.

There are so many Chinese who can make this happen and so many interested people who have this figured out.

Digital Earth, Virtual Worlds and Our Future

Dr. Tim Foresman’s early inspiration was Captain Jacques Cousteau. Foresman brings a quarter century of experience as a scientist, professor, author, entrepreneur, consultant manager and administrator, and world traveler to imagining a future with digital and virtual worlds. Dr Tim Foresman explained to me the trajectory of his career which has always included working inside and outside of institutions and being active in communities on environmental issues:

to give back what Jacques Cousteau gave to me and to provide inspiration and honesty as to what is going on in a positive way.

He explained how his concern with the environment led to entrepreneurial efforts. He also played a pivotal role in Keyhole Corp. which was bought by Google in 2004 and has become Google Earth.

So once I started realizing the power of spatial tools – when the satellites went up in 1972 – I fell in love with that. ‘Cuz I was out in the field doing research the hard way. And all of a sudden I could use these computers to map what I had been walking and communicate to other people these issues – just mind boggling.

So I started my own company right out of grad school because there were no companies behind me in those days so I started a company. And I have always shown that entrepreneurial spirit. But I have also joined various organizations. I have worked for the EPA, worked for NASA and for the UN. When the time is appropriate and you role is to work within an organization, I have felt it was a good thing to do. So I have worked in all kinds of the positions.

But the constant theme is to really take seriously our role here but also to have fun. ‘Cuz if you are not having fun you’re going to be spending the kinds of hours and time that I do.

I asked Dr Foresman how he became involved Keyhole Corp.

Because I led the Digital Earth program at NASA headquarters when it started in 1998. And I was monitoring all the various groups that were doing these kinds of technologies and actively engaging them and coming together and saying we need to harness this technology to deal with a virtual globe that will make a meaningful difference for the community at large – so there will be free access and we can all share information that is easily accessible and understandable. Because you are looking at the earth you are looking at your neighborhood, it makes sense.

So Keyhole was four young programmers in San Mateo. And, in 2001, I gave them there first contract when I was the chief scientist of the United Nations environment program.

We were able to demonstrate how this would profoundly change the decision making process with which the policy makers are involved with at the UN – 200 nations come together and make decisions about fisheries and forestry. They don’t have the information. This was going to be a different approach. So Keyhole was a wonderful, wonderful way of demonstrating this with our data on that display mechanism.

So Keyhole really only provided the framework, we put the information around it the satellite data etc. Well then Google bought them and now they are Google Earth. They are one of the many that are successful. There is also NASA World Wind which is open source and very good, powerful.

Imagining a Future

I snapped this slide during Dr Foresman’s presentation. It very clearly shows that how we represent data makes a meaningful difference. All the water in the world is shown on the same scale as earth on the left, and all the air in the atmosphere on the right. This puts a whole new perspective on the myth of great expanses of ocean and atmosphere.

The ITC Framework for the Operating System for Planet Earth

This slide is also from Dr. Foresman’s presentation. People working in disciplinary silos will be able to engage in collective environmental, economic and social decision making through a Digital Earth vision. But just as important as the unification of science based knowledge is the active, distributed community enabled by free access to the basic infrastructure.

I asked Dr. Tim Foresman about the role of open source and open standards in creating an operating system for planet earth.

We have to be vigorous and vigilant in all things and not assume that the approach right now is sustainable. I think that is very important. We have to actively engage and ensure that the parts of it we need for public dialogue and good decision making are done in open systems and international protocols for data interoperability – ISO standards – all the good standards for interoperability that we use. We need to be vigorously monitoring that. That is very important.

And are there any threats to that you see on the horizon re this? I asked.

When I see different systems offered for pricing and I realize that there is no policy by Google to keep this stuff free. There is nothing written down. This is just based on their good will at the moment. And corporations and goodwill are two different things. Corporations have to answer to their stockholders. And if they make a corporate decision they could end up saying well we are no longer offering it for free. But the competition will probably keep it out there for free….ArcGIS Explorer, Geomatrix, NASA World Wind.

Google is going to recognize that they have got their spot in the sun now. But it is not guaranteed and if they don’t behave they will be underwritten.

I have posted recently on the Second Earth project by NOAA that merges Second Life and Google Earth. I asked Dr. Foresman if he was aware of the policy of Linden Lab to fully open source Second Life and if he had had discussions with Linden Lab.

Yes I have talked with various members of Philip Rosedale’s team. They came out to Berkeley to our 5th International Digital Earth Conference. And the open source issue was definitely a strong suit. I think Philip would have to move his offices out of San Francisco if he went proprietary. Because that is open source Mecca. It has become a philosophy.

Yes it seems to me they are moving as fast as they can on the full open sourcing of Second Life. I added.

What we find out is that if you are a purist open source really isn’t 100% open. You are always going to find that it is difficult to find code at certain levels. But what it is – is the best that we can do and that is the approach. And by allowing the best that we can do then we can balance that with proprietary systems, interchange standards and that becomes a very effective playground. And that is what we want.

Active distributed community and the networked intelligence of humankind.

Dr. Tim Foresman gave a brilliant and commanding demonstration of why and how a Digital and Virtual Word commons will provide the operating system for planet earth and its inhabitants and fulfill the words of Buckminster Fuller.

Currently Dr Foresman is working with many international institutions and agencies promoting availability of and enhancing access to the scientific information needed by decision makers as well as the planet’s citizens for as sustainable future.

From 2000 to 2003 he served as the director of the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Division of Early Warning and Assessment from the Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya and then as UNEP’s executive science advisor. He gave Keyhole (now Google Earth) their first contract at this time. And in 2001 they were streaming information from UN servers. They zoomed in on Africa and used this system to protect resources and to communicate issues.

Dr Forseman stressed that operating system earth will remain inoperable without us! The networked intelligence of humankind depends on all of us. We need to be involved in designing our future. And Dr. Foresman doesn’t just talk brilliantly, he walks the walk. He reaches out to all including children with the message of concern for the environment. First Editions of his new children’s book “The Last Little Polar bear” are available from Blueline Publishing (see thelastlittlepolarbear.org).

At the end of the presentation I asked Dr. Foresman if connectivity issues presented special problems in Africa. I explained that I have talked to many different people about the potential of Second Life in Africa. But broadband connectivity issues often come up as an obstacle to the idea that Africa should be at the forefront of the paradigm shift in global communications exemplified by the collaborative, immersive 3D experience of Second Life.

Dr. Foresman said that we should be careful of setting up false assumptions. He has lived and traveled in Africa and he explained:

The roads are well paved enough almost every where I have been in the world to where that is not the problem now. I worked in the mid-nineties on a project reducing poverty with women. I sat and listened for two years to how they were using technology. And when I listened from that perspective, I found they are using whatever is available. So it is a continuum.

That was why I was laughing yesterday when I talked to Maggi [Prof. Maggi Savin-Baden presented the Second Life launch of Coventry University Island and experienced lag as many Second Life avatars and "real" life conference goers sucked up the bandwidth]. That is how I experience Second Life because I am on the end of a Satellite dish. You get spoiled here with your bandwidth.

It is a matter of saying no we’ll use the tools and we will use them effectively. But we won’t use them like you see in some of the images in New York City.

The Serious Games Institute – Creating Buildings that are Sexy and Smart

The picture above is of Prof. Lizbeth Goodman (right) and Babak Davarpanah Varnosefadarani from the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute being given a tour of the Serious Games Institute “smart” building by David Wortley.

David Wortley talked to me about the SGI “Smart building” project. David “aims to make the SGI a thought leader and focal point for games based learning simulation and immersive 3D environments.” He plans to take the concept of “smart buildings” to the next level. Buildings will not only be smart and helpful to people and the environment. They will be sexy – intelligent, entertaining, conversationalists that are fun to be around.

When I talk about “smart” buildings – there is a lot of debate about what people consider “smart” buildings – I think most people consider “smart” buildings as buildings with environmental controls built into them, e.g., the light switching off when someone goes out of the room, or the heating going down when no-one is there, being able to recognize where people are and so on and keep the costs of the building down to the minimum.

I go much further to say I think smart buildings of the future are going to be about how the building represents your organization and adds real value to its stakeholders. So, instead of saying let’s design buildings that keep our overheads down to a minimum, I say let’s design buildings that use technology to increase our income and the effectiveness of our operation.

So if you are a local council you want to make the building as approachable and friendly as possible and suitable for the stakeholders who go into the building. That is why we are trying to embed technology that will allow us to do some really sexy things that will say what we want to say about Serious Games and the companies that are based there.

In this way we will bring business into these companies, helping to develop a reputation for the university, and the West Midlands region. That is why we have invested in digital signage and interactive type displays, and are implementing location tracking so that when people move through the building you can identify where they are and use that in clever ways to deliver content to them based on where they are in the building.

We are also thinking that when someone goes into a building with a PDA or mobile device the location tracking detects that person and creates an avatar in the virtual version of that building. So as you move about through the building the avatar moves about in Second Life and can interact with people in the virtual world as well as the physical world.

The photo on the left is of avatars listening to Serious Virtual Worlds 07 in Second Life. On the right, is a picture I took at the Smart building demonstration, tour and cocktail reception. Roo Reynolds, IBM, (the tall guy with his back to us) manages to keep one eye on the video stream from Second Life and an ear to the conversation in First Life.

David Wortley noted that at the cocktail party some of the ways the “smart” building can orchestrate interactions between first and second life were demonstrated.

In both the “real” and virtual versions of the Serious Games Institute there is a projector streaming video for the people gathered in both worlds. In the virtual reception there was video being shown from the “real” reception:

The thing that fascinated me was the fact that when we got the projector set up and logged on to Second Life where my avatar appeared there was nobody in virtual reception with me. We set the video streaming going and over a period of a few minutes more and more avatars began to appear in the virtual reception sitting down to watch people enjoy the real reception.

David noted that while this was a simple example it was an indication of how compelling interactions between virtual and “real” worlds can be.

Artists are playing a key role imagining a future and the benefits of virtual worlds

I have frequently posted on the vital role that artists, musicians, architects and performers are playing in creating the experience of Second Life. David also noted

One of the things that has come over extremely well in this conference, and is personified by people like Prof. Lizbeth Goodman (who is a dancer and performing artist by profession – so her background isn’t in technology) is that highly creative and passionate people have realized the potential of technology and performing arts to deliver social benefit to people in need – disadvantaged women, disabled people etc.

Hope for the future comes from grass roots people who are doing really clever things with technology

There is a lot of hope for the future for the way that technology can shape our sustainable development and that hope comes from grass roots people who are doing really clever things with technology that technologists don’t imagine.

Two of the stellar presenters that I met at the conference were the awesome Simon Stevens, (a.k.a Simon Walsh in Second Life) who presented “Wheelies – Second Life and disability: a review of the issues,” and Prof. Lizbeth Goodman, “Virtual World Community Applications.” I will meet both in Second Life to continue our conversation

Like Roo Reynolds (see his blog), I was nearly moved to tears (actually I did have to grab a tissue) by Lizbeth’s work enabling severely disabled children to play games and explore and create in beautiful custom-built worlds. And how severely disabled adults with control of only eye movement and a single neck muscle can gain the ability to create music.

The picture above is from the SMARTlab Flickr stream that has many more pictures of their great work. As part of their project “InterFACES: the human face of assistive technologies” SMARTlab has been testing the effectiveness of available tools for using eye movement as a control mechanism for communications by people with little or no other voluntary muscle movement. This picture is of collaborator James Brosnan, the ‘alpha user’ of the system.

Fireworks on Coventry Island

I was fortunate enough to be there for the whole of this superlative event. But if you weren’t the video archive is being made available on Wednesday from http://seriousgames.org.uk/ Don’t miss this ground breaking event! You will also find notes on all the presentations for Day 1 and Day 2 posted on Roo Reynolds – What’s Next? and see Eightbar. And, as Roo notes, there were a bunch of people conference taking photos. Andy Powell grabbed some great screenshots (e.g., picture above) of the Second Life portion of the event when Coventry University cut the ribbon on their Second Life island.

Here are four of the presenters preparing their digital cameras and PDAs for the Flickr and Twitter fray.

From left to right: Roo Reynolds, IBM, who presented on “Virtual Worlds for Corporate Collaboration” and engaged in some serious mo blogging repartee on Twitter with Ren Reynolds (a.k.a RenZephyr) from Terranova throughout the conference. I was sitting right behind them both most of the time. I kept in touch with their conference commentary and humorous backchat through Twitter. It added a lot to the experience of the event much the way IM channels enhance conference experiences in Second Life.

Next right is Christian Renaud from Cisco Systems who gave the keynote “Getting Serious About Virtual Worlds.” Christian is pioneering the creative use of the special qualities of networked virtual environments – the power of these electronically mediated social environments to enhance communication. “It won’t be face-to-face, but it can be richer.”

To Christian’s right is Dave Taylor (a.k.a Davee Commerce in Second Life), National Physics Laboratory, who presented on his innovative Second Health project and the use of Virtual Worlds for informal education and knowledge transfer (see Ugotrade post here).

To Dave’s right is Fabrizio Cardinali, CEO Giunti Labs, chair European Learning Industries, “Innovating learning in a flat, virtual world.”

And although he wasn’t there in person Rik Riel showed up on a slide in Dr. Timothy Foresman’s presentation!

Anshe Chung (picture from Rik Riel’s Flickr stream) spoke live from China at the grand opening celebration for the new Non-profit Commons island in Second Life. Anshe expressed her passion for using virtual worlds to connect globally.

Anshe Chung is SL’s first millionaire, a global metaverse entrepreneur, and donor of the island and buildings that house the NPC. Anshe described some of her own early experiences in virtual worlds and the power of the immersive social experience. She has seen virtual worlds and the internet enable people, previously forgotten and disconnected, to become connected to a global economy, and to meet other people on a more even footing. She talked about how people isolated from the world economy use rural internet cafes in China to socialize globally and make things of value in in virtual worlds.

Anshe, through her own portals on Second Life and other ventures, has been responsible for getting a vast number of people involved virtual worlds. She explained that she hoped the Non-profit Commons in SL could extend this process of finding new ways to connect technically, socially and emotionally to the members of non-profits.

Connecting Virtually: What makes the experience in Second Life so compelling?

Christian Renaud of Cisco uses the term “networked virtual environments” in the blog description of Cisco’s new Virtual Worlds Blog saying:

We believe that these environments offer an excellent new tool in our collaboration toolbox, alongside established technologies like IP Telephony, Web Collaboration, and Telepresence.

And, in my view, the time is just around the corner when “networked virtual environments” will be the tool par excellence for global collaboration and much more. This is one of the founding inspirations of the Ugotrade blog.

SuezanneC Baskerville, makes a fascinating comment to Christian’s post drawn from her recent post Virtual World moguls meet across shared Surface in Metaverse Poker Room. She suggests “that it would be interesting to see Linden Lab link it’s San Francisco and Boston offices using Cisco’s Telepresence system.” Christian’s Renaud’s response to her comment is also a must read. He notes his own experiences with wall sized video conferences, “bumping into colleagues in our break-rooms in our Technology Center offices in Raleigh and San Jose…..”

But, of special interest to me, is Christian’s comment on one of the key aspects of virtual worlds or “verses” as he likes to call them.

The “serendipity” of virtual worlds is a key part of the paradigm shift that Second Life has brought to “over the network interaction.” Christian explains:

One of the areas that we are constantly striving to improve is how you make an ‘over the network’ interaction as valuable and signal-rich as an ‘over the desk’ interaction. One of those variables, which is a key attribute of virtual worlds (or ‘verses, as I call them), is serendipity. I can’t very well bump into you on a telephone call, or (other than your example above) on a Telepresence call, however I can bump into your avatar in Second Life easily. How do we facilitate this serendipity, perhaps even nudge you in the direction of someone with shared interests? Food for thought.

“The Serendipity of Second Life”

And, just to press home a point on this “magic of Second Life,” I had a serendipitous encounter on SL only minutes after reading Christian’s comment. I bumped into a rising Japanese Electro/techno/house star, Shingo, on Virgin EMI Music Japan.

Risso Little is new to Second Life. I had gone to Virgin EMI Music Japan to follow up on some interesting posts on Japanese sims by my friend Al Kronos. While we were chatting an earthquake struck Tokyo, and my new found friend’s eighth floor apartment started to shake. I had just gone to his My Space. And, I was listening to one of his excellent tracks when this happened. (Click here to listen)

Well to make a long story short, Rizzo and I were very relieved when the shake up was over. I offered to take him shopping (yes, I know, what was I thinking? “I shop therefore I am”). But, nevertheless in a few short hours Shingo gave me an introduction to some Japanese areas in Second Life. And, I took him around some of the American and European sims. Here we are chatting with a group of Japanese fashionistas waiting to earn Linden dollars modeling dresses in panels. Later, I connected Rizzo Little to Nat Mandelbrot (of Cruxy Player fame) who is pioneering new ways for musicians to extend the experience of their music in Second Life.

Thinking on a global scale – Second Life is not “empty space.”

The casual drop-in approach to Second Life taken by some main stream journalists, and their resulting cursory view from afar, has created a lot of misunderstanding in recent months about how Second Life works to connect people globally, in completely new ways, for business, pleasure and social change.

Story Geek recently wrote an excellent post pointing out that stories in “Wired and the L.A. Times have deemed Second Life (SL) a failure because of it being empty” misunderstand this new virtual landscape that appears empty to a casual glance even though it is actually teeming with life and economic activity.

Story Geek gives an excellent analysis of why a high level glance at a virtual environment misinforms the observer much the way such a high level glimpse might in the real world perceive Canada as empty. And so, Story Geek quips, “Maybe all businesses should pull out of Canada also.” Story Geek points out some of the specific ways that Second Life’s teeming economy and bustle of activity might not be apparent to a drop in observer. And, he points out:

by understanding the mechanics of the world you get a clearer picture of how the residents exist, inter-relate and consume.

Reflexive Architecture: Experiencing People in the Global Reaches of Virtual Space

3D Experience architect Keystone Bouchard is currently engaged in exploring through reflexive and responsive architecture new ways for people to experience other people’s presence in virtual space. As Story Geek noted, mis-perceptions of emptiness can arise in virtual environments for many reasons, e.g., because Second Life is an open 24/7 space with people arriving from multiple time zones at different times of the day.

In a Gallery of Reflexive Architecture, to be exhibited as part of the new Library Gallery exhibition on Info Island by the artslib group, Keystone is showcasing some of his work with scripter Fumon Kubo. Keystone has posted a video composite of several machinima pieces each describing a different installation in the gallery, such as Rippling Prims, Prim Decay, Sudden Space, Restless Spheres, Carvable Prims, Visible Traces, Moving Tiles, Interactive Glass, and The Cacoon. Some include sound as an integral part of the experience, which is best experienced first-hand (SLurl … subject to change).

The picture below is of Sudden Space.

Keystone explained to me:

One thing I’ve struggled with is the idea that people think sims are ‘always empty’ just because there wasn’t someone there the instant they visited. But in actuality, these places are flooded with people flowing through them. The difference is, we’re on a global scale now most websites are ‘empty’ most of the time too. So, I wanted to build in a system that illustrates that you’re not alone, a relatively low-impact way of measuring how spaces are used as well.

Keystone took me through the reflexive 3D experiences he has created. Here is a short selection of some of the comments he made.

Visible Traces

Each one of us should have a different color and they follow our trails. Right now I have them set to last 2 hours so, we can see visible traces of people who have been here before us. I can already see in the first day this has been here that some of the corner installations are overlooked, so, its meaningful feedback

Rippling Prims

I’ve wondered how this one will behave with many avs present so far, its only been tested with 2 but, its created a nice little space for us where nothing was before.
On Demand Architecture = Prim Ripples.

Carvable Prims
This explores the idea of avatar movement gradually ‘carving’ the architecture. Every time an avatar appraoches, the ‘wall’ elements move a slight bit away so, over time, the high traffic areas become larger.

It was based on a conversation Theory Shaw and I had a while back one of those monumental ‘What If?’ conversation

Keystone and I discussed how reflexive 3D experience architecture will take on new value and meaning when it can be laced with data from the real world. The potential of virtual world/real world intergrations to provide a doorway to a sustainable future is a key theme on Ugotrade. And, I have discussed this many times, including here, here, and here in some depth.

We are on the cusp of virtual revolution that will shift the world away from models of communication, representation, and production that emerged in the industrial age.

In Second Life we are beginning to see Global initiatives like EOLUS One put together the kind of global collaboration that will make virtual environments the stage for planning, designing and managing real life buildings and cities in new collaborative and participatory ways. And once built, these cities will stream back into Virtual Worlds as data that is responsive to our needs and the needs of the environment.

Then 3D experience architecture will emerge as not only a beautiful expression of a new era of global communication and collaboration, but as a a tool par excellence for benefiting communities and people, and creating a sustainable future.

Thinking Globally: How Can Developing Countries Benefit from Virtual Worlds?

An important question that came up at the non-profit commons launch was how non-profits in developing countries can utilize virtual worlds. This is a topic I discussed with Alanagh Recreant of Uthango Social Investments in this post. Also see this interesting article on Uthango’s work in the South African national newspaper Cape Argus. And, please see Uthango’s new blog, Africa’s Second life , Our Virtual Reality, to learn about the first event of Uthango’s African Round Table Initiative, in Second Life, Aug 24th.

These are exciting times for Non-profits on Second Life and the fact that facilitating developing countries participation in virtual worlds seems high on the agenda is very encouraging.

MacArthur funding a non-profit track (see press release) at the SLCC convention which Rik Riel will be blogging.

The Grand Opening of Non-profit Commons on Second Life

There are some excellent blogs on the non-profit commons launch. Ruby Sinreich live blogged it. And, Rik Riel has posted some great pictures on his blog and more here. Susan Tenby (avatar Glitteratica Cookie) talked about TechSoup’s work in Second Life – 300 group members and thousands of avatars have come to their weekly meetings. Coughran Mayo from Preferred Family Healthcare spoke (via Skype), and Glitteractica Cookie (Susan Tenby of TechSoup), Jeska Linden (NP liaison for Linden Labs), and Anshe Chung live from China.

Evonne Heyning (avatar In Kenzo) elaborated on some of the specific ways the Non-profit commons on Second Life will be a portal bootstrapping the non-profit process on Second Life with efforts like, an “office in a box,” to help non-profits get up to speed fast on Second Life. Go visit nonprofitcommons.org on the web and in Second Life:
slurl.com/secondlife/Plush%20Nonprofit%20Commons/130/125/22/ to find out more.

After the panel there was a tour of the 32 nonprofits who have offices at NPC. Here I am at Yehoodi, the swing dance society run by Rik who is DJing real time. The swing music was great. And, I didn’t have to wait long before I landed a very dashing dance partner -Dore Junot (film maker Salvador Luna in RL) who I gather was the video guru for the mixed reality panel (photo below of the live event, “Jeska and Susan in two worlds,” from net2photos flickr stream)

Last week, Philips Design presented their real life strategic philanthropy initiative, “Philanthropy By Design,” in Second Life, begging the question: What role can Second Life play in corporate and community collaborations for: “Promoting social empowerment through knowledge sharing, creativity and co-design?”

Host PhilipsDesign (picture above) presented and led a discussion on The Chulha Smokeless Stove project.

The Chulha Smokeless Stove is a low tech stove “that would tackle the respiratory problems affecting the health of millions of people (especially women and children) in the developing world who still cook indoors using biomass fuels.”

The aim was to design, develop and test an appropriate solution to local cooking habits in rural and semi-urban contexts of India. The goal was to provide a wood-burning solution that is easy to access (easy to distribute-install-use-maintain) locally produced and distributed low cost for replication and scalability able to reduce indoor pollution

Key to the concept of strategic philanthropy, and The Chulha project, is design co-creation “involving people who will benefit from the result of what is being created. ” ARTI (Appropriate Rural Technology Institute), self help groups, local entrepreneurs, and potential users joined the Philips team as “stakeholders” in a concept definition workshop.

Working with “stakeholders” – a new model for co-creation

The Rivers Run Red’s press release back in December described Philips Design’s goals in Second Life to “gain feedback on innovation concepts, engage residents in co-creation and gain a deeper understanding of potential opportunities in this virtual environment.” And, Mark Wallace 3pointD, astutely commented:

At least we’re moving from a time when companies took no outside input at all to a time in which they’re actively seeking it. It’s arguable whether they’ll need to start paying for this kind of feedback, but for the moment it makes for a very interesting experiment. I look forward to seeing results.

Well Philips Design have been paying participants for their feedback with the recently completed, “My Second Life” Research Project. Now they are looking to expand their network and have issued a call for Second Life free lancers, builders, scripters and other Second Life creatives.

But, the Philanthropy By Design initiative suggests a new approach to co-design, one that separates itself both from unequitable farming of free labor, and direct pay, by working with co-creators who are also “stakeholders.”

the program channels [Philips] design talent to develop meaningful and sustainable solutions that can contribute to a better future for all. It also opens up new perspectives in co-creating value through cooperation with public bodies and social players with complementary expertise and values.

Second Life residents input on Philanthropy By Design

The presentation on The Chulha project, a well developed real life example of “stakeholder” collaboration, drew an attentive Second Life audience (that included Pathfinder Linden) into a lively debate, and raised some interesting questions, on how a model of “stakeholder” co-creation might work both within Second Life development projects, and in projects that link Second Life to Real Life.

Alanagh Recreant of Uthango Social Investments who is an active participant in social investment projects on Second Life helped me cover the event. Alanagh is pioneering SL’s role as an enabling platform for social innovation, taking the visionary extra step of including Second Life in their strategies for poverty relief, crossing digital divides, and economic/social development in Africa (please see my previous posts here and here).

And, Sonja Finney, also from Philips, thanks for passing on the chat log and your story. Sonja is from a different department of Philips. She met the Philanthropy By Design team on Second Life. When she discovered the asimpleswitch.com initiative, she created her own way to spread their message/initiative through Second Life. Sonja explained to me:

A dear friend from Philips Design [Yel Oh] made a energy saving lamp for me, with the url attached to it. And, since July 6th I give it to people I meet and who are interested in it, a light bulb. A new way to create awareness.

Thanks Alanagh and Sonja!

Some highlights from the discussion:

First up were questions on basic concept of “strategic philanthropy” described by Host PhilipsDesign as follows:

Rather than giving money to worthy causes, an increasing number of companies are choosing to help communities by donating their products or expertise to special projects while supporting the company’s objectives to enhance brand image, strengthen employee engagement, increase trust and customers loyalty, and even develop new ways of working and innovative solutions. Known as ‘strategic philanthropy,’ this approach is driven by the desire to combine social responsibility commitments.

Llanddewi Taurog energized the debate with a series of friendly, but provocative, challenges to which Host and Yel responded:

Llanddewi Taurog: Just to play a devil’s advocate here: although strategic philanthropy sounds all very noble, it can also seem like a pretty sleazy way to penetrate new markets. what do you think about that?
Host PhilipsDesign: Of course it is nice to create new businesses but to reach this group of people you really need to design something they can afford and want to buy.
Llanddewi Taurog: Are you making money out of it?
Yel Oh: no we are not making money out of it…….. and we have given away the designs to local entrepreneurs

And, an interesting discussion was initiated by Alanagh Recreant on “the supply chain between the manufacturer and local entrepreneurs” and how local NGO’s (ARTI in this case) are actually getting involved in manufacturing and distribution. And, “How do local entrepreneurs get started without micro-finance?” Also….

Cor Laval: How do you avoid that these local entrepreneurs make more profit and not meet the primary role of the design: as cheap as possible for as many people as possible?

There was no specific answer to this question but a consensus formed on the idea that basic market forces -especially in poor areas – would determine what was viable.

Product Life Cycle management was a hot topic of discussion. But, no-one speculated much on the role that Second Life might eventually take in collaboration, design co-creation, and product life cycle management. Or, how RL/SL integrations like the EOLUS initiative might facilitate Philanthropy By Design projects in Second Life. This is an interesting topic for future discussions!

Second Life residents were enthusiastic about Philips’ real life strategic philanthropy and eager to hear more.

Llanddewi Taurog: Maybe we could work together [in Second Life] on a real life project with philanthropy by design someday?

Alanagh Recreant: It is not often that you find a company that works closely with NGOs and uses their local connections. That is what I really admire….It taps into the heart of civil society in a way that respects community linkages.

Also, Philips Design’s current plans include an impact study that will run from October 2007 to October 2008 to verify the benefits the Chulha Stoves claim to deliver as well as their limitations.

The complete Second Life meeting will be summarized by Philips Design, and transcripts of the chat distributed to members of the Philips Design Friends group and also made available at the Co-creation experience . The first Philips Design presentation, in Second Life, “Designing experiences together with people”, will also soon be made available.

Bringing Philips’ Co-creative Model to Second Life

After the presentation, I discussed the Philip Design’s goals in Second Life with HostPhilips (Wendy) – who has a background in product design and is now a full time innovation consultant with Philips Design focusing on virtual worlds, especially Second Life; and, Yel Oh, also from Philips Design, an innovation director with a background in interaction and experience design who has been running real life creative processes for over 12 years.

In Second Life the idea of global cooperation and collaboration for a sustainable future is being picked up in many quarters and the role of virtual worlds in eco-sustainability is being advocated and debated (see Earth2Tech).

Recently, Jonathan Fanton, President of the MacArthur Foundation, and Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab, appeared in Second Life to talk about the future role of philanthropy in virtual worlds (also see Jonathan Fanton’s post).

And, EOLUS One Initiative (see here and here) is initiating RL/SL integrations and energy management projects that bring Second Life into the forefront of a vision fo a sustainable future. And, Uthango Social Investments (here and here) has many exciting social investment projects in development. And, these are just some of the stories I have covered on Ugotrade. There many other initiatives taking root in Second Life.

Inspired by the audiences’ response to this presentation, Philips Design is currently considering dedicating a future co-creation session in Second Life to Philanthropy by Design. Yel Oh explained they see SL as the perfect place to develop a co-creation community with so many creative people converging in an immersive 3D environment. And, indeed, at the end of the talk a number of participants expressed interest in working on a real life product with Philips. Members of the Philips Design Friends group are automatically kept up to date of upcoming events or you can check the events and activities board at the Philips Design Co-creation experience on Virtual Holland 3.

Some of the events Tara5 Oh attended in Second Life last week!

Cube Inada at Star Base C3

Last week, I attended a SciFi Trivia contest at StarBase C3. And, I had a long chat with Cube Inada whose has been believing and working in the 3d web experience for 20 years. I hope to include some of this conversation in a future post that will look at the past, present and future of the 3D internet. Cube has a very interesting museum displaying his two decades of work on 3D experiences. Cube offers quite different perspective on the future of Web3D from the one I usually present. Second Life is my focus because its unique emphasis on user generated content offers possibilities for technosocial innovation that auteur developed virtual worlds cannot, even if such auteur or developer built virtual worlds become linked via the web.

But, please visit StarBase C3 where you will have fun in a highly developed 3D experience that Cube, a professional game developer, has ported to Second Life. You will see virtual worlds from a perspective not usually shown on Ugotrade. And, you can buy a spaceship to travel around Second Life in style.

Getting in the conversation with ESC and Millions Of Us

On July 19th, Satchmo Prototype (a.k.a Chris Carella from Electric Sheep Company) on the left in his low prim avatar discussed with panelists Beth Coleman, MIT, Robin Harper, LL, and Susan Wu, Partner at Charles River Ventures, “Togetherness: what drives the virtual human connection?”

John Swords has posted the audio stream http://sc8.spacialnet.com:17524].

And, on the same day, I caught panelists, Celebrity Millionsofus, Eric Rice (a.k.a. Spin martin), Jeska Linden and Ziggy Figaro talking about how voice will affect marketing in Second Life, at the New Globe Theater, Milions Of Us. The picture on the right is Eric Rice playing with his avatar.

Millions Of Us Offers Land for Cool Ideas

And, check out the Millions Of Us, You Have Co0l Ideas, We Have Land offer: See the Millions Of Us blog for details of the offer:

Social media is all about participation, right? In that spirit, Millions of Us will be opening up land on several of its sims in order to host the coolest projects you can come up with. We own 8 perimeter sims, clustered around the central eponymous sim — and that’s where we invite interested and motivated residents to help us fill those sims with fantastic Second Life content.

BlogHer Conference on Second Life

And, I attended the BlogHer conference on Second Life. On the left is 57 miles of metaversed on a panel about blogging from SL. He was a brave lad to talk about blogging at BlogHer.

Second Life Relay For Life

KK Jewell of arcspace (pictured here left) gave me a window into the world of architecture on SL in several wonderful chats – the topic of another post. And, we both attended the American Cancer Society’s Second Life Relay For Life.

Barnardo’s On Second Life

Please see Veejay Burn’s post on his excellent blog Mindblizzard to read more about Barnardo’s efforts of Second Life.

Through our good friend Aleister Kronos Veejay and I were tipped that BBH (Bartle, Bogle, Hegarty ) and RRR (rivers run red) are bringing another Charity 2.0 event to Second Life.

Peter Rogers from the Ad Agency BBH let us know that each year BBH is sponsoring a good cause, and this year it’s Barnardo’s, which is a charity organization that stands up for children in need.

I met with Alanagh Recreant (a.k.a. Dorette Steenkamp) from Uthango Social Investments, on Virtual Africa in Second Life. And, while Uthango’s Virtual Africa initiative has barely begun yet – terra forming is first on the agenda – there is already a very special feeling of possibility, and great things to come. Uthango has already put out tender to all the listed developers on the Linden Lab website. And, many of Second Life’s top developers, PR companies, marketing experts, and consultants have offered services, as well as pro bono work.

The core of the USI strategy for poverty relief in Africa does not primarily revolve around Second Life. But Uthango uses Second Life as an enabling platform for social innovation. By doing this, they are taking the visionary extra step of including Second Life in their strategy to make an impact in the lives of the people they benefit.

A participatory social media convergence bringing mobile, Web 2.0 and Second Life together for community engagement, is happening now and will – in itself – make the first steps to addressing the exclusive nature of 3D-platforms. And, USI is determined not to let the digital divide that is exasperated in Africa by expensive, inadequate/non-existent broadband coverage (for now) widen any further. While significant moves are afoot to bring broadband to large swathes of Africa, often known as the “missing link,” because of the lack of connectivity, access is still a big problem for all but the most privileged.

Uthango’s concerted effort to tackle inequality and social injustice in South Africa goes beyond advocacy for connectivity to other divides – economic, educational and access to opportunities as well.

Investment is our passion – to draw attention to investment opportunities for people in Africa.

But, Uthango is pioneering the inclusion of participatory new media and advocacy for connectivity in their vision. And, while broadband remains prohibitively expensive in Africa, they are preparing the way with projects utilizing mobile connectivity. Mobile phones have become a powerful tool for creative economic development in Africa (see African Uptimist). Uthango has a participatory social media initiative in the works that will link three very diverse communities – two with 65% unemployment and lack of resources, and the other an affluent sea-side community with better infrastructure.

We plan to institute an inter-cultural and civil engagement program across these communities, using video-blogging, mobile, and upload to a central server, and link it up to Google Earth. There will be a community portal, initially linked to computers at the schools and library and ultimately with an upload facility from mobile phones – a mobile magazine linked to the portal with community events. Ultimately, this extensive and integrated social network will be linked to Second Life. Meanwhile, innovation from the more inaccessible SL will be channeled back via the more modest communication framework in real life. This RL/SL convergence for social gain will be a unique example of an integrated ICT approach to development.

Uthango are working with partners and professionals in Second Life to explore the commercial value for companies and individuals and the social benefits for institutions such as universities and schools, in their preparation for Virtual Africa. A key initiative on Virtual Africa will be a Bottom-of-the-Pyramid Innovation Center (see ‘Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid’ by C.K. Prahalad). Uthango are serious about seeking ways to bring community voices into Second Life while broadband issues are addressed.

But the plans for Virtual Africa also include creating one of the most sophisticated ecosystems on Second Life that will extend to the wildlife to ensure an exciting, educational experience: Eagles swooping, lions hunting, zebras reacting and mirroring wildlife patterns as closely as possible whilst highlighting endangered species and indigenous cultures. The vision of Second Life/Real life integrations possible for Virtual Africa goes well beyond educational and immersive goals into a vision that includes health, travel, adventure, e-commerce, environmental monitoring, and even disaster management.

Virtual Africa will be a key place for Uthango to bring attention to their Real Life work in poverty reduction, and collaborate with others on the goal of social investment in Africa. There are many initiatives already planned that will both bring in the Second Life Community to Uthango’s work, and make connections to Real Life projects – including concerts, a Second Life Bikeathon, publishing parties, and much more.

A new global market is emerging. The sellers are intelligent, energetic and pragmatic young African leaders with innovative projects in their respective fields. The buyers are equally intelligent, energetic and pragmatic young Westerners yearning to apply pragmatism to their idealism. The market place is new media, where stories are told, opportunities are elucidated, connections are made, and action is taken. (Joshua Goldstein, African Path)

From the Blogosphere, to Twitter, to Facebook, to Second Life!

I first met Yee, who is from Jinjiang, China and a recent graduate with a Business Diploma from HELP College University, in the blogosphere. Yee’s blog caught my attention and I linked to him in a post, “Bridging On Line Off Line Worlds.” And, Yee’s comments on my post re the task of bridge blogging were so wise that a connection was born.

Then we became friends on Twitter where I followed the obstacles Yee faced keeping his blog open to world despite the GFW (Great Firewall) of China. Then last night Yee joined Facebook. We instantly struck up a messaging exchange that covered everything from the role that religions played in American culture to how participatory media, blogs, social networks etc. could play and important role in intercultural communication. This is what Yee had to say on this topic.

There are many many English language learners in China. But a large number of them just take this language as a means to pass the exam or a “certification” for better job occupation, once they achieve these goals some of them will probably stop learning, in a word, they do not treat English as a tool for two-way communication. So you can see there are many many translations of English-to-Chinese blogs in China. But, there very few Chinese-to-English blogs.

To encourage participatory media in China, I think it’s important to help Chinese English learners realize that English is not only a means for graduation or better jobs. It’s a tool for communication! In addition, they must have confidence to use it properly

The obstacles: According to my experience, all Chinese people welcome the behavior of translating their posts or profiles or business documents into English. They have a strong desire to be understood by the world. However, things are not always so easy, as our logic and mind and culture are quite different from foreigners. And, culture conflict happens from time to time and sometimes conflict leads to bigger misunderstanding. Besides, on the internet, there is a Great Fire Wall which was founded by the Chinese Gov to block “sensitive info” from abroad.

I had asked Yee a little while ago if he had ever explored Second Life. I said I would love him to write about his experiences in SL for Ugotrade. Well in a matter of minutes after our Facebook exchange Yee had logged into Second Life for the first time. And so I met his avatar Yee Heron on Scope Cleaver’s sim.

It is hard to describe the excitement of meeting Yee for the first time in Second Life. The gulf of culture and geography and even the GFW of China seemed to dissolve as his avatar materialized in world.

Here is a picture of Yee, Scope Cleaver, Miko Omegamu (Scope’s right hand!), and I greeting Yee only minutes after he logged on and got his Second Life Avatar.

There were a few obstacles to getting Yee’s avatar fully rezzed. And, whether it was due to network connection issues, or the need for more memory on his lap top, chat was lagging and SL was taking a while to rez for Yee. Yee did mention that HiPiHi will not let him log in and was giving a message that he has not enough memory. Interesting that it was easier to get in SL from China than HiPiHi. But, we managed despite the technical obstacles to show Yee some of SL, including Scope Cleaver’s awesome virtual furniture store in Second Life, EOLUS One, and where to shop for cool clothes! And, here is a snippet of our chat as Yee saw Scope’s work on Second Life.

[23:29] Scope Cleaver: This is the office furniture building
[23:29] Scope Cleaver: I seel modern furniture here for Second Life residents
[23:29] Scope Cleaver: sell*
[23:29] Yee Heron: wow,so cool
[23:31] Scope Cleaver: the building looks empty but it’s only to hold all the production and hard work I’ll be doing on the coming months hehe
[23:32] You: Yee Scope is what they call a metabrand
[23:32] Scope Cleaver: in the making
[23:33] Yee Heron: IS Miko your partner, Scope??
[23:33] You: scope makes products and architecture just for the virtual world
[23:34] Scope Cleaver: Yes she is Yee
[23:34] Scope Cleaver: Been working in SL for a bit
[23:34] Yee Heron: cool, you do your business just as real
[23:34] Scope Cleaver: Yes indeed
[23:35] Scope Cleaver: You’ve been here less than half an hour and you look better than I do.
[23:35] Miko Omegamu: lol
[23:35] Yee Heron: are you a full time SL business woman?
[23:35] You: I know it is amazing Yee!
[23:35] Scope Cleaver: Should I work on my AV?

Yee stayed on Second Life for a couple of hours or more. And, we talked until the time difference meant I really had to leave to sleep. Welcome Yee to Second Life! We all look forward to seeing you again soon. And, as Scope Cleaver said:

[23:43] Scope Cleaver: Good luck Yee, and give SL a chance and it will reward you

Today, I had what felt to me like a ground breaking meeting with Alanagh Recreant on Second Life (a.k.a. Dorette Steenkamp in Real Life). Dorette Steenkamp is Executive Director of Uthango Social Investments, Cape Town, South Africa. Uthango is the first African-based NGO with a presence in Second Life.

You can visit Uthango’s newly established offices on Second Life here! SLurl: Uthango in Second Life.

Ginsu Linden, Linden Lab, told me earlier this month there was interest from Africa in the Linden Lab Global Provider Program. So, I was very excited to meet Alanagh in person, or rather in the pixels, and hear that an initiative to create an access portal and community for Africans on Second Life was actually underway.

“Not exclusively [for Africans] but with the exclusive aim to promote access to virtual reality.”

Uthango have just begun establishing their presence in Second Life. Their current offices are a first base from which to address the digital divide. But, please watch for more news about Uthango projects on Second Life to be announced shortly!

Uthango is an investment company specializing in finding and creating sustainable programs – connecting corporate/government with communities through collecting local intelligence and translating it to the business sector. But, “we only work at the invitation of communities. We are a relationship broker and bridge-builder between diverse interest groups to create mutual benefit.”

Uthango is serious about access for all. They will be working in parallel at establishing internet hubs in communities. And, they are seeking partnerships with mobile telecoms on mobile applications for Virtual Africa, and to develop links between mobile space and Second Life.,

They are putting together an Uthango Global Advisory Board that will be an innovation team both socially and commercially – to put out and receive ideas concerning producing a viable Virtual Africa Platform.

It is so exciting to see the first steps towards realizing a vision for a Virtual Africa being taken by Uthango. This group is deeply experienced at working on the ground with rural communities on sustainable development and poverty relief. And, they are expert at creating commercial partnerships with social value.

Uthango won the Centennial Award from Rotary International for Sustainable Projects in Communities in 2005, for District 9350, and The National Impumelelo Innovations Awards in the same year for Innovation in Private/Public Projects for their micro-enterprise project affecting a community of 45000.

I am especially impressed with how Alanagh, while very committed to expanding the possibilities for mobile technologies in sustainable development, is equally committed to the idea that Africans should not be excluded from high quality internet connectivity, access, and the potential that Second Life, as an immersive virtual world, has for Africa.

These are exciting times for African innovation!

Tags: Second Life | Virtual Africa | Africa on Second Life | Uthango Social Investments | Web 3.D | Linden Lab | Linden Lab Global Provider Program | Sustainable Development | Digital Divides | Poverty Relief | African Innovation | Africa Sustainable Development | Ginsu Linden | Alanagh Recreant | Web 2.0 | Dorette Steenkamp | mobile phones in Africa | mobile phones and sustainable development | mobile space and Virtual Worlds | Mobile Phones and Second Life | Metaverse | Virtual Reality | Virtual Worlds | World 2.o | virtual realities |

Fizik Baskerville (a.k.a Justin Bovington) says:

“Web + TV + Print + Virtual Worlds = Powerful”

This week Virtual Life and World 2.0 entered a new era with Destroy TV and virtual lifelogging in full swing, and the opening of the Sky News sim on Second Life. Sky News launched with a live event and live simulcast from the Guardian Hay Festival. Sky News has partnered with Rivers Runs Red on this watershed project for Second Life. And, the impressive Second Life replica of the real life Sky News headquarters was packed for the launch.

Web 2.0 is a mindset that leaves behind the negative forces of monopolies, and one-way communication. Web 2.0 is not a new version of the internet but the coming of age of the original vision of the internet to serve the interaction and cooperation amongst people (see Daniel Orsolic). And, it will be very interesting to see how Sky News develops 2.0 concepts, e.g., citizen journalism, user generated content on Second Life. For a good round up of a range News 2.0 phenomena see, “What is news 2.0 to you?” It is very exciting to see mainstream news media beginning to explore the collaborative potential of Second Life.

The 2.0 view has now been expanded to all aspects of our world – you can google news 2.o, sex 2.0 (I didn’t actually check the links on this), and enterprise 2.0 – lots of buzz about that (and if you want an inside view on what enterprise 2.0 is about check out IBM on Second Life). And, then there is World 2.o to encompass all the 2.0ed phenomena.

The 2.0 movement can be understood as a drive to revise the world into something better (Orsolic). And, part of the magic of Second Life is that the social and immersive qualities of SL are the quintessential expression of the 2.0 principles of user generated content, community, and collaboration – the heart and soul of 2.0 culture.

I was fortunate to log on, Sunday, at almost the exact same moment that Fizik Baskerville (a.k.a. Justin Bovington), CEO and Executive Creative Director of Rivers Runs Red, arrived in Sky News on Second Life after a 5hr road trip back from the live event (picture above). And, despite being, “at it for 48hrs,” he took the time to talk to me. Also, I saw on my Twitter stream that he even visited Destroy TV later! As the live event was held in the morning, UK time, I missed it. I am a New Yorker, and while virtual worlds herald the death of geography, I am not ready yet for the end of sleep!

But, Epredator, Andy Remblai and Aglernon Spackler from IBM (see Eightbar ) were all there, and three Lindens. And, you can catch up with what happened at the event on Second Life on the
Eightbar blog. Also see a very good post on MindBlizzard, and Sky New’s own advert/machinima for the event. The video grabs below are from this. On the right is Justin Bovington.

Rivers Runs Red now has a team dedicated to Sky News 24/7. Justin explained to me:

a dedicated content team will be on hand for updates – just like breaking news it need to be a 24/7 approach. We’re going recreate scenes when needed. We could in the future reproduce courts etc. Augmented reality – we are really into that. We have partnered with Sky News because they want to explore it too…..adding value, as in Second Life compliments, not detracting from another medium.

We can now step into the news room as it happens. The headlines are specially updated 5 times a day. Future events like the Hay Festival will also be incorporated, plus a lot of surprises to come. Sky News is very excited you just had to watch Sky News over the weekend to see the enthusiasm for all this [also see Adam Boulton’s Weblog].

The Level Playing Field and The End of Geography

On Thursday of last week, I went to hear Mitchell Kapor (avatar on the right) and Philip Rosedale speak about The Level Playing Field Institute and Second Life. Philip Rosedale described how:

He was lucky enough to find Mitch at a time when no-body really would have gotten behind what we were doing – the idea of Second Life itself was something that was just outright crazy at the time that Mitch first made his investment in Linden Lab. And, for several years to follow, when Second Life was but a few hundred people using it, Mitch and a small group of angel investors that he inspired were the ones who believed.

Philip Rosedale spoke on the role of Second Life in creating a better world.

Second Life is changing the world, at least in part, by lowering the barriers to doing things for a lot of people around the world. There are people who are able to learn new things, and make new careers for themselves, to change their lives fundamentally because they have access to this environment in which the costs of doing things are reduced to almost zero. And, the barriers between people and the kind of reasons and judgments that people make about each other are virtually eliminated. And, we are left in this new world in which we all have the same opportunity. And what we are seeing in Second Life is that if you give everybody the same opportunity everybody does well. And that’s something that is very exciting and maybe surprising to some people out there in the world to see. But, it isn’t surprising at all for me. And, I really know it isn’t surprising for Mitch, and for The Level Playing Field Institute.

Mitchell Kapor spoke on the “death of geography”

We have lived under the tyranny of geography for all the millennia of human history. And, if you wanted to get together with people you really had to be in the same room. I am in a room full of people and I am part of an event on Second Life………..this is the future that we are making together. You are all pioneers in how we will make this new world.

Then, via IMs to Brainy Aleixandre of the Levelers (the LPFI’s Second Life group), Mitch Kapor fielded questions about the work of The Level Playing Institute. To learn more, please go to the web site. Mitch Kapor presented an open invitation for dialogue and collaboration. Also, see The Levelers blog.

In response to a question that came in from Real Life from a student in SMASH (see picture below from Smashcast blog), “What was the spark you saw in Philip?” Mitch made some interesting comments. Some things he mentioned were:

passion, determination and creativity …… and in addition [Second Life] has never been just a business, never been just about making money, building something bigger, or being successful. Integral, and we saw this very early on, was that it was about making a difference, about making a better world. And, we also see that from our students [in SMASH].

SMASH (Summer Math & Science Honors Academy) is one of the innovative projects to come out of The Level Playing Field Institute.

World 2.0 and Virtual Life

The virtualization of life – the joining of physical and virtual space in meaningful ways – begins to manifest the full possibilities of a 2.0 world. Something that is quite unexpected to some people is that this, the linking of the virtual and the physical, is the key to creating a sustainable future.

Bruce Sterling imagines how computers can help us find a way out of an industrial society that is not sustainable and is thoroughly inequitable.

The Emergence of Virtualized Communities

Many projects are still in the research stage. See Ian Hughes’s report on his visit to Tweakfest, and the IBM Zurich Lab, for some interesting examples of research into linking physical and virtual space. The work of Jeffrey Huang and his Swiss House project seemed particularly interesting to me.

The aim here to connect swizz ex-pats with their home country and fellow swiss in other countries. This ‘house’ is in Cambridge, MA between Harvard and MIT. The aim is to create a physical space but have the presence and linkages to other spaces, not by one video conference screen but lots of types of walls, projections, virtual/real world tools.
There are some pictures here of the sort of space created.

Uber Lifelogger

Then there is MyLifeBits, the ultimate lifelogging project from the legendary computer scientist Gordon Bell.

For the past seven years, Bell has been conducting an audacious experiment in “lifelogging”–creating a near-total digital record of his experience.

For an excellent report and a guide on How To Build Your Own MyLifeBits see Fast Company. And, if you really get inspired, you can follow some links in earlier posts on Ugotrade that will give you clues on how you could virtualize your data on Second Life in meaningful ways!

Virtual Space is the New Infrastructure:
Africa Pioneers Mobile Banking.

The development of mobile banking in Africa is showing that economic obstacles created by lack of physical infrastructure and difficulties with currency exchange can be overcome by innovative use of the mobile virtual space. Trading in minutes is so successful in Africa that major banks are setting up m-banking divisions (thanks Neil Caudwell for this link).

GigaOM writes:

While, most in the developed world fret about developing elegant and complex mobile transaction systems – folks who need mobile banking figure out things on their own. Using a little bit of common sense.

Read the full story over on iAfrica.com

Enterprise 2.0 meets Sports 2.0 for a Virtual Tennis Match

As Tara5 Oh, I went to IBM 7, Monday morning, where I met Andy Remblai, Laronzo Fitzgerald (builder and scripter), and Iorek Rasmuson – a tennis fan interested in technology who said he’d come to watch another Second Life first:

I’ve used the IBM online scoreboard for Wimbledon before and I guess this is the next generation.

Andy and Laronzo were working on the build which is open to the public, but still in an early experimental stage. Iorek and I were enjoying virtual tennis despite the appalling weather at Roland Garros. And, it was very interesting meeting the IBM virtual architects (see the IBM on Demand Scoreboard here).

Ian Hughes, who has pioneered this tennis project with others at IBM, sent me a message from Second Life earlier, in response to my questions about when tennis on Second Life would open to the public:

The tri board has schedule, completed matches and matches in progress, the main court will be showing live current match (all being well) or a replay of a match some videos and other things around. We are doing this quite gently as its the first tennis one we have gone public with.

Ian Hughes now has a post and video up describing Tennis in Second Life – Roland Garros. And, 3PointD has an interesting interview with Epredator (Ian Hughes). Virtual journalist, Walker Spaight, does some participatory exploration. Epredator invites you to come on over and take a look.

I mentioned earlier in this post that if you want experience enterprise 2.0 from the inside you may want to visit the IBM sims on Second Life. The IBM Impact 2007 SOA (Service Oriented Architecure) conference (see my earlier post) was an extraordinary example of the convergence of enterprise culture, 2.o thinking, and virtual worlds. SOA is particularly interesting re an understanding of Enterprise 2.0. SOA might be described as IT solutions with a Web 2.0 attitude. Although, there are convergences and divergences between SOA and Web 2.0 as Dion Hinchcliffe explains.

Be there!

The Destroy Television project continues, and it seems anything can happen and does. I dropped in this weekend and found out that hanging with Destroy seems to be a good way to meet interesting people.

Tags: Virtual Reality | Augmented Reality | Mixed Reality | Second Life | Virtual Worlds | Web 2.0 | Enterprise 2.0 | News 2.0 | Sports 2.0 | World 2.0 | The Internet | Sky News | The Hay Festival | Philip Rosedale | Mitchell Kapor | Gordon Bell | SMASH | The Level Playing Field Institute | Destroy TV | Lifelogging | Business 2.0 | Virtualized Reality | Virtual Life | Virtual Communities | Virtual Banking | Mobile Phones in Africa | m-banking |

My friend and partner in many R & D adventures, Otto Leichliter, veteran of Ericsson’s Messaging R & D team, 3D vision, robotics, special effects for film and television, and system development, will be helping me lead a discussion, “Metaverse and The Mobile Space: Intersection or Inclusion” at MobileCampNYC .

We will talk about how the standard pipeline of WiFi will transform cell phones, from the “mashup consumers” they are now, into true interface engines that open up the relationship between real and virtual worlds. And how, as the metaverse meets the mobile space, 3D printers/fabricators may be both the killer app. for virtual worlds and sustainable development.

But, the topic is wide open. And, if you would like to help us lead this discussion, please add your name to the wiki page.

A Fab@Home Model 1 Fabber. See PopSci – The Desktop Factory

Roboticist Hod Lipson wants you to stop shopping and use his portable 3-D printer to make your own stuff.

I hope to see you at MobileCampNYC, if you live in the Metropolitan NY area. Please add your name to the wiki now if you want to attend as there is a limit of 100 people! MobilecampNYC is a BarCamp:

BarCamp is an international network of unconferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies and social protocols. The name is a playful allusion to its origins, with reference to the hacker slang term, foobar: BarCamp arose as a spin-off from Foo Camp, an annual invitation-only unconference hosted by open source publishing luminary, Tim O’Reilly.

A BarCamp in progress in Chennai, India. Original image at Kiruba’s Blog.

WiFi to link Virtual and Real Worlds

The difference between WiFi and all the various cell phone protocols currently in use is the equivalent to the difference between public access and pay per view.

WiFi is based on the TCP/IP networking communication standards and not some oddball proprietary standard that only Telcos provide.

TCP/IP is the network standard and must ultimately become the mobile phone standard as well if cell phones are to become true linking engines between virtual and real worlds. Otherwise phones will continue to be (as they are now) consumers of (costly) services, that are regulated and restricted and far from open source or user friendly.

WAP, 3G , GPRS, WAP (Wireless Access Protocol), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service)?, 3G, GSM, EDGE, TDMA, CDMA – don’t worry if you don’t know all these – the point is that WiFi can leapfrog them all with direct access to the internet, and that includes internet telephony and (with the resolution of bandwidth issues) access to virtual worlds like Second Life.

People used to talk about service anytime, anywhere – it shouldn’t matter if that’s a real or a virtual anywhere.
Zygmunt Lozinski, IBM

And, as bandwidth obstacles diminish, there will be, increasingly, a natural interaction between virtual and real worlds. And, our experience of virtual and real mixed mode events, and augmented reality events e.g. Second Life HUDs (Heads Up Displays) integrated with Real Life events will not, of course, be limited to qwerty keyboards and monitors.

The integration of virtual and real worlds in the mobile space has significant implications for developing countries and sustainable development (see several earlier posts on Ugotrade on role of mobile phones in developing countries, and also see earlier post on Bruce Sterling and Splimes).

Building Bridges Between Virtual and Real Worlds:
It doesn’t have to be all headsets and Sci Fi.

Bridge building between virtual worlds and real worlds via the mobile space is not merely in the realm of speculation. Last Friday, I was fortunate to spend time with Ian Hughes (a.k.a Epredator), Metaverse Evangelist, Senior Inventor and Innovation Catalyst and Consulting IT Specialist, with about 17 years in IBM. My inspiration to do the discussion on “Metaverse and The Mobile Space: Intersection or Inclusion,” at MobilecampNYC came from this meeting with Epredator on Second Life.

I met Epredator on one of the many IBM islands on Second Life. And, he took me to several locations during the interview. However, IBM’s presence on Second Life is far to extensive to cover in one post, so I will come back to other aspects of IBM’s exploration of virtual worlds and Second Life in later posts.

It was very exciting to have this opportunity to meet one of the pioneers of the merger of virtual and real worlds. Ian Hughes brought Wimbledon to Second Life and this project is an outstanding proof of concept demonstrating how real data can be gathered pumped to the web and to Second Life, and also to Real Life to produce a mixed reality event.

On Eightbar Ian Hughes describes a number of different ideas that were demonstrated by bringing Wimbledon to Second Life. He explained to me:

We gather the real data and pump it to the web, pump it to SL, and also to real life scoreboards on-site……so if someone wants to see the hawkeye replay, or overlay the line call, we have all the data. And, with a WiFi network we can merge the two.

It doesn’t have to be all headsets and Sci Fi. I could hold my mobile phone up and use the screen as a viewer through which to superimpose the data.

Mobile – “anywhere you need it” in virtual and real worlds: overcoming patchy connectivity

IBM caused quite a stir at the recent 3GSM World Congress where Zygmunt Lozinski showed off a service button that calls someone in Real Life and patches them in to Second Life. In an interview to BBC Click Online, Mr Lozinski said:

So for example, you can make your avatar ring a bell, like in a hotel lobby, and that would send a message to the owner of that area, to their mobile phone, to say ‘there’s somebody who’s interested in talking to you’. Because obviously you can’t spend your entire life in a virtual shop hanging around waiting for someone to stop by and buy something.

You can then see a photo of the avatar who’s calling you. You can then record a video with your mobile, and send that back so your potential customer can see that video being played to them on a video wall in the virtual world.

In effect, IBM’s model removes the need for people to exist within a virtual world.

If you’re traveling you may not always have good enough connectivity to interact with people in a virtual world, even if you need to. People can communicate irrespective of whether they’re in the virtual or real worlds.

Helping people link to virtual worlds despite patchy connectivity will have significant implications for the role virtual worlds can play in positive global development.

“3D printing is a real killer app. tacked on the side of Second Life,” says Epredator

Epredator stood for a capture session in SL, and then received a parcel from Michael at fabjectory containing “this excellent Epredator potato figure straight out of a 3d printer,” (see eightbar for more great pictures).

In my interview with Epredator, he brought up how important local manufacturing elements, 3D printers and Home “Fabbers” could be for sustainable development.

We spend a lot of time shipping products around, packaged to travel. [This could be avoided in many cases] if we rezzed them in the real world at the point we needed them from basic raw materials.

If you want to buy a product from a website and you have local 3D printing we only have to ship the model information.

Well as you you can see, my chat with Epredator left me with a lot to think about. There was so much ground covered that I will have to come back to these ideas in later posts.

As I mentioned in my previous post, and see eightbar, at IBM, Hursley, they are dreaming up the internet of things at every opportunity they get!

I do hope, if you can, you come to MobileCampNYC to discuss some of these ideas about blurring the lines between virtual and real worlds and linking the Metaverse with The Mobile Space.

MobileCampNYC is bringing together mobile enthusiasts, explorers and professionals from the NYC metropolitan area to share the current state and their visions for the future direction of mobility. MobileCampNYC hopes to support the many voices helping to unlock the potential of a truly digital life. Topics may include – but are not limited to – mobile gaming, entrepreneurship, social mobility and presence, near field communication, physical hyperlinking, mobile storytelling, the importance of open standards, protocols, and platforms, linux based devices, and mobility on other continents.

Tags: Second Life | Web 2.0 | Web 3.D | Metaverse | Virtual Worlds | Virtual Reality | Augmented Reality | Barcamp | MobileCampNYC | IBM | IBM on Second Life | Zygmunt Lozinski | Epredator | WiFi telephony | open standards | internet connectivity | 3D Printing | home fabbers | 3GSM | fabathome | home fabber | fabjectory | Wimbledon on Second Life | digital divides | social entrepreneurship | positive global development | sustainable development | internet telephony | internet of things | splimes | Bruce Sterling | mobile innovation |

A recent story in World Changing, about Free Internet for Conservation Efforts in the Amazon led me to have a long conversation with Marcelo Fortaleza Flores. We discussed how the arrival of internet access in remote areas of the Amazon could be empowering to indigenous communities. I will go over the the major points of this conversation later in this post.

Marcelo has been teaching photography and film making (Digital Media) to Amazonian indigenous peoples as well as to disenfranchised children in Africa since 1995. The photograph above is of Yanahin Wauja filming in Xingu Park, Brasil. Yanahin is an indigenous photographer and cameraman who is co-directing a project with Marcelo about the Wauja mask dance and its representation in Western cultures.

Anyone who has read Ugotrade before will know that the central question I am asking on this blog is:

How can we bring the social and economic benefits of Web 2.o and the rich collaborative, multidimensional potential of the next generation of internet development – virtual world development (aka Web 3.D) – to all communities across the globe?

The premise is that, this time round (the development of virtual worlds and Web 3.D ), the inequalities of the digital divide must not be replicated or made worse by high end access coming only to a privileged minority. Access to the coolest and best technologies should be for all, but especially for communities who missed out on the first round of the internet revolution, to open a new door to peace and prosperity .

Every post on Ugotrade looks at some aspect of this aspiration. So, if this is your first visit, you may want check the archive for the evolution of this discussion.

The conditions to break down digital divides have arrived!

Closing the Digital Divide, “is not a job for business or government but both……..not about bottom-up vs. top-down efforts but both (Digital Divide.org).”

Attitudes towards positive global development have changed as the New York Times noted yesterday. And, issues of sustainable development are on the corporate agenda, at last, see – “Businesses Try To make Money And Save The World.”

NYT describes Altrushare a brokerage firm “whose mission it is to support struggling communities with our profits.”

like hundreds of new businesses starting up around the country, it is both. Altrushare is an example of the emerging convergence of for-profit money-making and nonprofit mission.

“there is a whole generation of people who’ve become extraordinarily wealthy as a result of the technological revolution and are now asking themselves if they can create change in the world” (R. Todd Johnson).

Metaverse Evangelists, Designers, and Architects

Are you sheep electric?, originally uploaded by Ian Hughes/Epredator from IBM and turned into a fake Wello Album, “a stern talking to/the storm was last year,” by wellohorlds. To learn more about, “the real life of a metaverse evangelist” go to epredator’s blog.

Virtual worlds are fast proving themselves the killer app. of broadband. Justin Bovington of Rivers Run Red, an advertising and events company that works in Second Life writes:

“I think one of the things is that the collaborative space [of virtual worlds] is so social and creative…..In addition there’s no doubt that broadband has been looking for its killer application.”

Virtual worlds have caught the attention of people and businesses around the world. There are not only new kinds of business model emerging from large enterprise corporations like IBM and Xerox as they begin to move in. But, new kinds of companies like Beta Technologies and the Electric Sheep Company are emerging from virtual worlds themselves.

And, futurists, and meta thinkers are introducing us to new ways of thinking about their possibilities. See Bruce Sterling’s talk about his visionary manifesto, “The Internet of Things,” on the Google campus. In “The Internet of Things: ‘What is a Spime?” Bruce Sterling explains Spimes and the role they play in solving the world’s greatest problem and need for sustainable development.

Last Friday, I went to a Real Life Meet Up with the Electric Sheep Company and friends held at Barcade, Brooklyn, New York. And, before Barcade became so completely packed with Brooklyn hipsters that I could no longer hear the names of people I was introduced to, I got to see just how interesting being around an emerging metaverse company can be.

I have already blogged, Jerry Paffendorf’s, ROA/Return On Awesome – the antidote to the habit of using outmoded concepts like ROI when thinking about virtual worlds. Paffendorf notes: “The currency we are using doesn’t know how to quantify what we are making.”

The Barcade meet up with The Sheep and friends was an opportunity to meet some of ESC’s metaverse friends, evangelists, architects, designers, developers, machinima makers and meta-thinkers in person. And, they are an interesting bunch.

Go to WelloHorld to see this “electric sheep company flickr photo annotated with mouse-over namey and roley goodness.” The digital divide of gender common to much of the tech world doesn’t seem as evident in the Sheep world. Among the Sheep and their many interesting metaverse friends I met at Barcade were Becky Carella (SL: Digi Vox), software developer and Sunny Cerchi, Virtual Architect/3D Artist (SL:Endira Udal), Rick Panganiban of the Click Heard Round the World who is also the author of, “E-democracy and the United Nations,” and Frank Dellario, Director of Machinima Production, Electric Sheep who was also involved, earlier in his career (like me), in commercial film production and special effects.

Ugotrade is part of a growing community of advocates for the role virtual worlds in positive global development in general, and developing countries in particular (see also Africa and Second Life, Zim Daily.) Up to now issues of broadband connectivity has been the biggest obstacle. But, increasingly, there is encouragement re issues of connectivity. (See Wiring the next Billion, connecting East and Southern Africa to the global broadband infrastructure, and now this free internet initiative by the Brazilian Government in the Amazon ).

The Explosion of Edtech on Second Life

As Andy Carvin, Internet activist, author, Edtech expert for learning.now points out edtech enthusiasts have started moving in Second Life in a big way. Carvin notes with excitement the launch of the Center for Advanced Virtual Education, or CAVE. In fact, there are so many educational initiatives in Second Life, I cannot begin to cover them in one post. But, there will be much more on this in future posts. And don’t forget the Second Life International Education Conference, May 25th, 2007.

Carvin has chosen an unusual avatar on SL. He is Abdi Kembla, who is modeled on a former child soldier from Somalia: “I choose to experience SL through Abdi’s perspective because I’m interested in seeing how others perceive an African character in a world where everyone is usually white or some mythical being.”

But, things are changing fast in the demographics of Second Life. ComScore reported May 4th, “That ‘Second Life’ has a Rapidly Growing and Global Base of Active Residents,” and only 19% of residents come from North America, where Second Life started.

And, with the recent launch of Second Life Brasil, the arrival of Second News! Brasil, Europeans may not be majority (61%) on Second Life for long. Recently, I noticed that Capoeira clothing was already being sold on SL. And, I assume we will be seeing more of Capoeira – the African Brasilian martial art/dance/culture on Second Life Brasil. This liberation culture that originated in Africa and remained outlawed during slavery, and until the late 1950s, has become immensely popular in Brasil and around the world. To see a video of the two legendary Mestres (Joao Grande and Joao Pequeno) playing the traditional form of Capoeira Angola in Real Life go here and to see a clip of Mestre Joao Grande in Sidney Pollack’s. The Interpreter here.)

The Internet in the Amazon as a Channel For Culture.

The Brazilian government recently announced that they will make free satellite internet available to native Indian tribes throughout the Amazon region as a way to enhance monitoring, management and conservation efforts.

World Changing asks will the Internet “strengthen tribal culture,” or “undermine the chances of cultural survival in the Amazon.”

a piece on the new development suggested conflicting views over whether networking tribes through the Internet would strengthen tribal culture by interlinking previously isolated people and allowing widespread environmental education, or whether the presence of technology and the Internet would undermine and ultimately degrade the chances of cultural survival in the Amazon.

But, in our phone conversation, Marcelo Fortelaza Flores explained his experience working in the Amazon leads him to believe such fears of the Internet undermining Indigenous culture may be ungrounded. Rather, internet access in remote regions, as well as contributing to environmental conservation efforts, could be a an important channel for indigenous culture. Marcelo pointed out:

Most of the communities that would be part of such an initiative in the Amazon have been using wireless radio and other technologies for several years. The problem has been typically that the technologies that reach these areas have been outmoded versions of what is available in more developed parts of the world.

This picture by François-Michel Le Tourneau is of Paulo Wakalitesu Nambikwara at the top of tree, getting reception for text messaging on his cell a village a hundred miles away.

Internet Access could bypass unscrupulous intermediaries in local economies

Even in remote areas of the Amazon, Indigenous people are already relating to world economies in order to sell their craft products and because of a world wide interest in watching indigenous culture and ritual. But, because there has been no way to participate in a wider economy without leaving their communities, up to now, traders from indigenous communities, like the Xingu, have been forced to leave their homes for long periods and travel to major cities like San Paulo. Not only do they have to deal with many often unscrupulous intermediaries. But, such trips are expensive and take them away from their families for long periods. And, these long absences, not only disrupt village life, but as the cities are expensive, they eat up what little cash is earned. Also, collectors use strategies to manipulate prices by keeping Indigenous people waiting in town without buying to get them to sell at a low price because they can’t afford to stay longer.

Cultural Activities and Rituals Cost Money.

Indigenous people are already in relations with regional economies but often little comes back to the community from a lot of effort. If more resources came back to the villages, and some of the unscrupulous actors could be avoided, indigenous communities would be in a better position to fund cultural activities and rituals that cost money to put on. Marcelo also pointed out that these rituals are often broadcast around the world on pay per view channels with indigenous communities making nothing or next nothing from their performances.

The Internet and Self Empowering Community Based initiatives

The “free internet for Amazon conservation” initiative can bring many benefits for indigenous communities in the Amazon if internet development is incorporated into self empowering community based initiatives. Marcelo pointed out how Indigenous communities in the Northern Amazon in particular, and increasingly in other regions, are very well organized. All communities have their own associations with different generations represented. These indigenous organizations are patterned after NGOs and have been working since the early nineties to link the complex politics of village life into the wider frame of government and civil society in Brasil.

Marcelo mentioned to me that as soon as connectivity allows, he will be working with these community organizations to set up virtual self-empowering, community based initiatives on the ‘net in the Amazon.

Tags: Second Life | Web 2.0 | Web 3.D | Amazon | Amazon conservation | Indigenous communities | metaverse | virtual worlds | virtual reality | digital divides | metaverse evangelist | global development | indigenous media | sustainable development | 4th sector | for benefit corporations | internet access | Xingu | Electric Sheep | Rivers Run Red | Return On Awesome | indigenous culture | Nambikwara | Brasil | Second Life Brasil | Capoeira | Mestre Joao Grande | Capoeira Angola | Virtual Education | Edtech | internet activism | Spime | Spimes | The Internet of Things | broadband | Altrushare |

Virtual Worlds will change the nature of who we are. This type of experience changes you, makes you demand change in the real world that is so easy to change in virtual environments…..this technology ends up changing us as people.” Philip Rosedale, Virtual Worlds 2007.

I found this drawing on the Clear Night Sky blog. Igor Gasowski saw this picture by a second grader at an art exhibit at one of his kid’s schools. To get a feel for the possibilities for change please take the, “What You Want Machine,” for whirl. Gasowski suggests:

Just pour yourself a drink, light up a cigar and ponder the implications of the “What you want machine.” Can you even imagine how your life [and the world] would change?

Gasowski also notes:

I also want to compliment the artist on the user interface. Given the benefit it delivers… It’s an exercise in restraint.

I agree with Gasowski on the elegance of the user interface. The only possible downside I see is the “What You Want Machine” will miss out on all the brand loyalty an arcane user interface produces with a good old fashioned hazing.

Thought experiment #1: Try out the “What You Want Machine.” (And, read to the end of the post to see #2 and #3!)

“Real Life” Development Stories in the News This Week.

Ecocity in China

These pictures are from Rizhao, China. The March/April 2007 issue of World Watch published a one-page article titled “Rizhao, China. Solar Powered City.” In a letter to the editor of the HJNews, George Hargreaves summarizes the report:

It is a city of nearly 3 million inhabitants and a climate similar to that of North Carolina. In the city’s central district, 99 percent of the houses use solar heating. Six thousand houses have solar cooking facilities and 60 greenhouses use solar heating.

Hargreaves concludes, “China has made an inventory of the wind potential for the country. We in the U.S. can learn from China.”

And, so we must. But, the lessons will not always be easy or unidirectional. Boing Boing reported from a post on the Wired News blog Threat Level that “shareholders ask Google to counteract foreign ‘net censorship.

In recent years, American internet companies have swooped into booming foreign markets and, occasionally, cooperated with repressive regimes seeking to crack down on free speech and democracy. The NYC Comptroller’s proposal attempts to limit Google’s ability to forgo internet rights that most of us take for granted.

See previous posts on Boing Boing for the full story on Google, China, and genocide: web censorship and Tibet. Also see, Preserving Tibetan Culture: A Digital Cultural Library For All.

Legacy of Enron Orgy in India

These pictures are of the Dabhol power plant in India which was closed down five years ago in the Enron debacle. “Nothing quite captures India’s dilemmas ['fast growing but energy poor'] like the sorry tale of the Dabhol power plant,” wrote Vir Singh in IEEE Spectrum. It was announced recently that after years of problems (see timeline for Dabhol tangle) that India’s Dabhol plant will “run full throttle by Nov,” althougn only yesterday there was a report of the possibility of yet another delay.

“Many energy companies have invested in closed or repressive countries — arguing that their investment would help develop the local economy and thereby improve the human rights situation. But in this case, Enron has invested in a democratic country — and human rights abuses there have increased. Enron hasn’t made things better for human rights; it has made things worse.” (Human Rights Watch, 1999)

These stories caught my attention this week because they show that complex development issues don’t always lend themselves to chirpy optimism in real or virtual worlds.

Real Dreams for Emerging Worlds

It is early days for virtual worlds, and as a metaverse evangelist (a job description that IBM has given cache to!), unless you are an Ostrich, you cannot be unaware of reports of griefing, and corporate misunderstanding of how to participate in the developing economies of Second Life, and other issues of connectivity, stability, scaling and social instability in virtual worlds.

I am reminded how advocates for developing economies in “Real Life,” e.g., Benin, from Africa Ready For Business, and beninmwangi work with the negative perceptions that arise from real and imagined obstacles to development. Benin writes about Africa in “What Do Investors Think?”

I am torn here, because on the one hand what the Economist says here is true. I mean, although there are some countries on the continent which have made some tremendous gains over the last decade, as a whole the continent has a long way to go-politically and economically. However, on the other-hand, I ask myself why would potential investors and business people think any differently about Africa if this type of ambiguous reporting about Africa is all that they hear? Sure, the risk may be higher in a country like Ethiopia or Nigeria, but there are still some companies that do extremely well there-in spite of all of the other things that go on there.

African American/African New Media Collaboration

These pictures are from an African American internet entrepreneur, Patrick Gorham, who is pioneering a collaborative new media project called Africa Writes. The Africa Writes crew don’t let the challenges of developing environments keep them from realizing their dreams.

Patrick writes:

Nearly a year ago while filming near the border of Liberia in the deep forested mountains of Guinea, the AfricaWrites staff and I were honored to witness the Kissi ritual known as the Hiowolan, the dance of the Yokia (see video here). Although performed by the young males of the community, who were not of age or ordained Yokia, it was an impressive display of animal mimicry, acrobatics and defensive capability. Luckily, our low powered batteries held up during the incredibly dusty shoot.

“Real Action” in “Virtual Reality”

The mission of Ugotrade is not just to talk about innovative uses of technology in developing “real life” countries. I have decided to make a leap and treat virtual worlds as developing “countries.” I make this coupling, not just because I think virtual worlds have an enormous potential role in human development. But, also, because I think looking at some of the “real life” development dilemmas through the lens of virtual worlds will be helpful, and visa versa.

On Ugotrade, I follow the development of virtual worlds in general, when I can (see Croquet). But, I pay particular attention to Second Life. This is because, at present, Second Life’s open, persistent, genuinely user generated environment, vibrant community and economy gives the best glimpse of what a global metaverse might have to offer humanity in the future. (See my post, and “Onder’s big three,” for more elaboration on the specific qualities of Second Life in relation other virtual worlds.)

Also, CEO, Philip Rosedale is unequivocal and passionate about opening up every piece of software, every line of code, “right down to the filesystem formats,” so that SL can become the basis for a 3D platform that could become “as ubiquitous a platform as the web is to us today.” (from speech on Second Life at the Life 2.0 convention, May 1st, see Metaverse).

Virtual worlds have a huge role to play in positive global development – again see my earlier posts, if you are wondering how I arrived at this view.

Yes, virtual worlds as social spaces face many of the familiar obstacles to development that “Real Life” developing countries do – problems with instability (see recent open letter to Linden Lab and LL’s response, with a promise to address the grievance in full. And, another ongoing democratic movement that NWN says will impact SL just as much, if not more), accusations that they are poorly governed “dictatorships,” (see, Can You Be A Citizen in A virtual World?), and questions about their fitness for for business and investment (see the 4th of Gartner’s 5 Laws for Virtual Worlds, and the cautions: “Be prepared for interruptions that can range from strange behavior from new residents to vandalism (Gartner).”

But, my interest in coupling the development of virtual worlds with positive global development in “Real Life” is about something more awesome than the obstacles both face. The closest I have found to a way to frame the enormous potential of developing environments, virtual and real, is the Electric Sheep futurist, Jerry Paffendorf ‘s meme, “Return On Awesome.”

Jerry explores ROA of life logging with his Nike

Click here to view.

I asked Jerry to give me a short history of “Return On Awesome.” And, his reply confirmed my instinct that ROA is an idea good to think with:

The short story is I first used ROA/Return on Awesome to describe the spirit I wanted to see come out Sheep Labs, the beta and R&D site that’s been bubbling up out of The Electric Sheep Company. Since it’s more of a sandbox space we need the freedom to pursue interesting ideas and ROA more than immediate ROI. When it popped into my head, I remember hearing someone somewhere present what I thought was a very poor idea which was defended because it would ‘provide good ROI’. Worse than defended, I could tell it was a very poor idea *because* they were starting from the POV of ROI. Not unusual, but it really made me think Gross! There is not ROI [return on investment] without ROA [return on awesome]!

ManorMeta Mashup: SING by Dresden Dolls
Click to view video.

In my exploration of Second Life this week, I met and talked to a few of the many Second Life pioneers who explore ROA (not sure whether they would all call it that themselves, yet!)

I chatted with Second Life visionary In Kenzo, Creative Director of Amoration – a new media nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a culture of conscious compassion. You can see an excellent profile of In kenzo, Dave Pentecost, Technology Director, Lower Eastside Girls Club of New York (Avatar: Usu Ventura), and Barry Joseph, Director of the Online Leadership Program, Global Kids, (Avatar: Globalkids Bixby) on Tech Soup. Tech Soup describes how these three organizations use Second Life to “Change the World by Working in a Virtual One.”

I hope to get updates from these three groups and talk to Sue Stonebender soon. Also, I will follow up on Infinite Vision Media’s Social Responsibility Initiative that “offers high-end services to Second Life bound non-profits” (see story on Business Communicators of Second Life).

I met Sibley Verbeck, founder of The Electric Sheep Company right at the end of Virtual Worlds 2007. We were both too exhausted to talk! But, he kindly got back to me. And, Sibley will be doing an interview for Ugotrade on positive global development with an ESC perspective.

Thought Experiment #2: Think about Return On Awesome and take the “What You Want Machine,” for another spin.

There is not ROI without ROA

Click on these pictures to find out more about Open Architecture Network.
OAN asks the question: “How Can You Improve the Living Standards of Five Billion People?”

This week, I talked to two digital marketing agencies, Clear Ink and Converseon who unlike say The Electric Sheep Company, Millions of Us and Infinite Vision Media, do most of their work outside of Second Life and other virtual worlds. But, both of these agencies have put up pro bono builds that impressed me (and Clear Ink more than one – TED Island, and Capitol Hill). Capitol Hill has been the site of much activity including, Rep. George Miller (CA) and Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi joining Joanne Colan of Rocketboom there, anti-war protests in February, and gatherings of Obama supporters in March). Clear Ink seems to be right in the ROA groove.

Clear Ink works with Sun (see 3pointD for news on Sun’s new 3D ebvironment) and Autodesk in Second Life (sim opening today). But, I was prompted to visit Clear Ink Island this week mainly because I noticed they had streamed the recent TED conference into Second Life, and were responsible for the construction of TED Island (to be publicly announced this month).

When I met Kiwini Oe, co-founder, EVP and chief strategist for Clear Ink inworld, I was very excited to hear they are discussing streaming Global TED, June, 2007 in from, Arusha, Tanzania, Africa.

Clear Ink also organized a live audio discussion in Second Life with Cameron Sinclair, 2006 TED Prize winner, Executive Director of Architecture for Humanity, co-editor of the book ‘Design Like You Give A Damn‘ and contributing writer for Worldchanging.com and Sun Microsystems founder John Gage. They discussed:

collaboration and participation in 3D environments, as well as the newly launched ‘Open Architecture Network‘ – which represents the fulfillment of Cameron’s 2006 TED wish. The event will feature a virtual version of the ‘Porchdog‘ and the Global Village Shelters – both of which are contributions to the Open Architecture Network.

The Arch writes (for more about Wikitecture see here):

Given the open and collaborative nature of this initiative, I think Second Life provides a perfect platform for visualizing, co-designing and brainstorming future contributions to the Network. Perhaps architects and designers from all around the world could gather virtually and collaborate on real-time relief solutions in the wake of an unforeseen disaster.

On the left is the Porchdog home. Real-life construction is part of Architecture for Humanity’s effort to provide housing relief and redevelopment in post-Katrina Biloxi, Mississippi.

On the right is another of my favorite projects from Open Architecture Network, An Edible Home For Humanity.

Reforestation through Second Chance Trees

I spend a lot of time on this beautiful build last weekend – a collaboration between Converseon and Plant-It 2020. For the price of 300 lindens (roughly equivalent to US $1), visitors to Second Life can purchase and plant one of 10 species of trees on a designated island in the virtual community.

Converseon payed for the build, and the island maintenance so that every tree here results in a tree in the real world. The planting of a tree in Second Life will trigger Plant-It 2020, a non-profit organization founded by the late singer John Denver, to plant the same species of tree in the endangered rainforest to which it is indigenous. The virtual island is accessible online at: Second Chance Trees. Luna Bliss - a virtual environmental designer, built Bliss Gardens, a huge seven sim nature reserve. Bliss Gardens provided the location for the Earth Day Hub.

Luna Bliss writes: “We offer a unique perspective in SL – nature comes first and the buildings follow.” The beauty of the Second Chance Trees build may be a big part of its remarkable success. While I have no hard data, it is evident just by walking through the planting areas that many, many trees have been planted in only a few short weeks since the build opened. In fact, after I had planted my Tamarind tree, I couldn’t find it amongst the many other trees. But, one of the community of Crimson Star “furries” that support the sim, Idris Heroin spent a long time searching the note cards to help me find it again.

I had a very interesting discussion on “immersion or augmentation” with Idris while we did this. I have been giving more thought to the “Augmentation versus Immersion debates“ – another post! And, when I returned the next day to talk to LLPlatypus, from Converseon, the “immersion” discussion continued with Skunk Spatz.

Awesome!

A two decade veteran of the UK music and game industry, Laukosargas Svarog has built a functioning ecosystem in Second Life. For the more on this story see New World Notes.

Laukosargas Svarog’s island of Svarga (direct portal here).

“If I was to turn off the clouds the whole system would die in about six hours,” she tells NWN “Turn off the bees and [the plants stop] growing, because nothing gets pollinated. And it’s the transfer of pollen that signals the plants to drop seeds. The seeds blow in the wind, and if they land on good ground according to different rules for each species, they grow when they receive rain water from the clouds. It’s all interdependent.”

Xerox and Customer Led Design in Second Life

I visited Xerox Innovation Island again to talk in depth with Jonas Karlsson, aka Poinky Malaprop, a researcher for Xerox, Webster New York and Karen Arena, Xerox PR. Xerox is one of a growing number of major league corporations who seem to be giving virtual worlds their full attention.

The conversation began on the issue of stability of virtual worlds. Poinky was going through something a bit beyond feeling a little green on an ordinary bad hair day!

my eyes keep falling out of my head, and my body leaves little pieces of itself when I move, so stability is something I look forward to…

Xerox, and the PlayOn group at PARC (Bob Moore and friends) has been studying Second Life, and avatar interaction in particular, for a while. But now Xerox is starting to look at what applications they can develop for internal use as well as for external.

Karen Arena later sent me this article from Business Week , “Xerox New Design Team Customers,” which gives a pretty good idea of what Karen meant when she said:

We’re looking to explore ways in which Xerox can engage in the community as well, learn from the community……..

More on this at the Xerox Thought Leadership site from Sophie Vandebroek, Xerox Chief Technology Officer, (and a Second Life video).

And Jonas added:

Rather than trying to target the right people or everyone, you setup a space so that the right people find you. ………One idea we are exploring is this notion of bringing customers into environments like these and exploring what new technologies they would like to see to solve their problems. These environments are so useful for interaction, so taking advantage of that and making the interactions easier and more valuable is very interesting.

Here I am cruising around on my Nu-Ness bike inspired by the Xerox Nuvera digital printing systems. It is a specially commissioned 9-foot-long, black-and-white, chrome-covered custom motorcycle designed by Arlen Ness – one of the world’s most innovative customized bike builders.

When I asked Jonas about some of the cautionary tales about Second Life that circulate. He responded:

I’m not that concerned with the cautions listed by Gartner and others because I think the community understands how to deal with most of those issues. A lot of people cite instability, only being able to have 40 avs at an event, and adult or other disruptive content as reasons to be cautious. But, in day-to-day SL activities and events, I see those things being handled in various ways. So, I think we’re at the point (and Sibley and Reuben said this at VW07) to seriously start thinking about how to use these tools in an integrated way with our business and create value.

But, there is pretty general agreement of the need for business to integrate into virtual worlds. Steve Nelson (aka Kiwini Oe) of Clear Ink noted, “One of the main things for corps to remember is they have to be in-world more than they think they do. They can’t just lob brands in over the wall.”

A piece of wisdom in the Gartner Report to enterprises who may not have the established research and innovation teams that Xerox has. ““Find enthusiasts within your enterprise and support them.”

In an earlier post, I mentioned Seven Digital Divide Fallacies from Digital Divide.org. Three of these fallacies may be as good to think with in virtual worlds as they are in real worlds.

Three fallacies of digital divides that seem to apply to virtual worlds.

1) It is not a job for business or government [or "Gods" like Linden Labs or their equivalent] but both.

2) Not about choosing open source software over closed systems but both.

3) Not about bottom-up vs. top-down efforts but both.

The amazing statistical presentations of Hans Rosling brilliantly illustrates how skewed and erroneously pessimistic many of the myths about global development are. I haven’t seen the equivalent kind of analysis done for virtual worlds. But, I am sure such a look might debunk many myths about development in virtual worlds too.

Thought Experiment #3: Use the, “What You Want Machine,” to imagine a map of the online communities of Web 3.D, 2011.

Here is the great map of the World of Online Communities in 2007 Kroosh posted that inspired me to think about this.

Tags: Second Life | Virtual Reality | Virtual Worlds | Metaverse | Web 3.D | Web 2.0 | What You Want Machine | Rizhao | China | Ecocity | Enron | Dabhol | Metaverse | Metaverse Evangelist | IBM | Xerox | Xerox Innovation Island | Xerox Thought Leadership | Xerox Parc | Global Develoment | Digital Divides | Return On Awesome | |