David Braden said:

"When I had finally earned enough money to put my kids through college, I started thinking about ...Which brings me back to the original question. What to do - what to do?"

Hi,

I'm new to this board. I found these thoughts to be very similar to my own, though I could not hope to express them so succinctly. I share the same concerns about the poor and the environment. My hope is that technology can lead the way to new directions and new solutions. Unfortunatly, it seems as if technology has been misused and misunderstood when it comes to giving a hand up to people who could most use it. Maybe we are only beggining to see the potential of technology and its ability to do good in the world? Or maybe it will continue to hurt, not help?

I get depressed when I see a vast "digital divide" making life so easy for the very few. But then I'm encouraged by potentially beneficial developments, like open-source, Linux, cell phones, the Net, solar, microfinance, digital cameras, compact fluorecent lights, satellite photography, immunization, composting, indigenous technologies, micropublishing, wireless access points, etc. I think we'll do better by focusing on these tool to help people empower themselves, though it won't happen all by itself.

David Maurer said: I get depressed when I see a vast "digital divide" making life so easy for the very few. But then I'm encouraged by potentially beneficial developments, like open-source, Linux, cell phones, the Net, solar, microfinance, digital cameras, compact fluorecent lights, satellite photography, immunization, composting, indigenous technologies, micropublishing, wireless access points, etc. I think we'll do better by focusing on these tool to help people empower themselves, though it won't happen all by itself.

David, c'mon over to God's country, the Digital Divide Network! Not that the DDN is a panacea, but you'll find out about a lot of individuals, groups, and projects that are systematically addressing this problem.

By the way, the genius behind the Digital Divide Network is Andy Carvin, a fellow O.Net member.

Thank You ! What a great site ! I've just registered and already there is much for me to read about. Thanks again !

Deborah Elizabeth Finn said:

David, c'mon over to God's country, the Digital Divide Network! Not that the DDN is a panacea, but you'll find out about a lot of individuals, groups, and projects that are systematically addressing this problem.

David,

I checked out your site, www.selfhelpcorp.com and you've got some great ideas here. You've got enough here that you'll have no problem filling the next thirty years of your life. No more worrying about what to do!

I felt a flashback when reading your discussion about networks. I took a year off of work at HP and traveled around the world and I was really chasing that big "IT" of my life. Once I found IT everything was going to fall into place. I would experience that moment of clarity and then I would know what I am going to do for the rest of my life. I wrote furiously in my journal and IT was always just around the next bend. Yet so so close. Finally one day while in Stockholm I just abandoned everything and stopped thinking. It was one of the best days of my life. Somehow everything was just right and the sun hit the world at the perfect angle.

I have my concerns about finding the IT when it comes to how we can network groups and get them to use the world's resources equitably. Have you seen the movie "the corporation". I also have a website I put together after Peace Corps (http://whereintheworldiscindy.or g/Frame%20Main.htm) which shows a bit about my state of mind then. I am interested to learn. I seriously still believe that America provides the "wasty" model for much of the developing (and devolving) world. There is a devastation that happens somewhere else, someone in South America lives next to a deforested hell hole and I drive happily away in my forester listening to NPR using petrol that came from that other place.

I think of these connections which are so complex. I'd like a way forward. Having worked and lived in villages I am skeptical about digital divide stuff. I know that a coffee cooperative who does much of their work by hand should be able to build locally some simple "machines" to do the work faster, and that it shouldn't mean the expensive 100,000 dollar one that has to be imported. There is an evolution that is necessary that builds capacity.

I like the full belly project's ideas: http://www.fullbellyproject.org

Sorry if I'm way off in tangent land here but that is purely my nature. Cheers and good luck on what to do.

Abraham Lincoln: "And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

I have found my "IT." My "IT" is helping consumers with their consumer issues and complaints in a positive fashion as well as promoting positivity and my Be Positive Do Something Positive Day, March 1, each year. That is my "It" and what I live for. It is what puts the life in my years!