This informative panel showcased the stories of each participants perhaps more than any other today.
Moderator: Susan Kennard
Sandra Dammeto
Sandra Dametto, a video-artist and documentarian at Girl At Work Productions, entitled her mini-presentation "DIY," the title carrying the clear message that "Do-it-yourselfers rely on networks." That might not make sense to someone making a chair with a chainsaw, but for video production it makes sense.
Sandra briefly recounted her early days at MITE lab where collaboration held the effort together. Amiga computers, Video Toaster and the like. Very different from the G5 Labs with 8 Gigabytes of RAM I'm accustomed to at BCIT.
Mervin Jarman
Mr. Jarman, a previous speaker at BNMI gave us a very moving recounting of his Container Project, a fascinating story of Technology used to improve social status.
Repatriating Technology
Empowering our Community
- The Container Project
He describes himself as having been "elevated from the Slums to a New Media heaven." In 2003 he returned to Jamaica in the spirit of repaying the blessings he had received in his professional life and the Container Project was born.
The titular Container is the converted structure that became the center of a community, housing the computers and the ideas that galvanized a disenfranchised people. I'm not making this stuff up either.
The audience was truly entranced by his unique story. Check it out.
Ben Jones and Fee Plumley
The next two panelists continued in the theme of community empowerment through technology. Rather than focusing on technology though, their goal is foremost about networking people.
Their presentation focused loosely on the theme, "Profit vs Grassroots." Are they mutually exclusive?
One of their earlier projects they covered was the-phone-book.com, a short fiction project delivered by WAP.
Business Model? No charge for submissions, pay on publish.
No themes, no restrictions – that's what made it succesful but, no business model. The challenge comes in generating income without sacrificing one's morals.
Their next project was artones.net where artists from the UK are commissioned to create "mobile phone art in the sms era." These art pieces are for sale and the profits are shared with the artists.
Lot's of attention was garnered but that mostly returned more seller interest. Once again, that business model needed tweaking.
Another project they covered, the Campbell Town Hip Hop Crew was of particular interest. This project was a community driven education program funded by a grant from Arts Council, the main idea being, allow the artists to concentrate what they're good at.
This workshop focused on a Hip Hop enamoured group of youths with a lot of creativity but no way of being heard. This time they used Wikis to get the kids sharing their ideas and creations.
Ben recounted a precious anecdote that I can't do justice. It was about a young man who just "got it" when the words he created were instantly beamed half way across the planet to appear right back on Ben's cell phone next to him. The young person in question instantly scrapped all of his previous, half-hearted efforts and proceeded to enter in a book full of his original lyrics.
It's rewarding when we get to empower clients with technology, but it's truly rare when that impact is real in an emotional context.