Linking Citizens. Spreading Knowledge. with support from
Update 4 September - December 2011 BarCamp: How the Internet Changes Our Reality by Ole Wintermann From #solidarity to #occupy, we’re seeing the power of Internet-enabled political action all around us. Individuals can organize quickly, they can unify around ideas, and they can find and spread information (and misinformation) with lightning speed. It’s obvious that virtual platforms can have real-world impact: from the Maghreb to Main Street, Benghazi to Boston, to Syria to Wall Street—pick whatever you like best. The use of Internet-based tools as catalysts for political activism is well established, and its momentum is growing. On November 28 we hosted an all-day BarCamp in Berlin to debate the questions: How can we use these new forces in our global society to address humanity’s chronic problems? What are the limitations of these tools and movements? How can decision-makers and others use these new tools to cope with our future challenges? Where do the Internet and “real world” communities intersect and share concerns about the same issues? How are non-EU countries addressing this issue? Barcamp participants led seven sessions that featured debates on crowdsourcing, democracy and governance, the Internet and the global economy, and managing online data.
Photo: Alexey Sidorenko
The keynote speaker was Dr. Franz Josef Radermacher, head of the Research Institute for Application Oriented Knowledge Processing in Ulm, Germany. He is also president of the Economic Senate e.V. (Bonn), vice president of Eco-Social Forum Europe (Vienna) and a member of the Club of Rome. He spoke on visions of how technology will influence and shape the future. Update 4 • September - December 2011