A new years message to Globalvillagers

 

                "We are the ones who still seem to be figuring out...

                ....how to be the ones we've been waiting for."

                Tom Atlee, http://tom-atlee.posterous.com/are-we-the-ones





A happy new year 2011 to everybody, be it via the mailinglist or other channels !



I have not written to the communit(ies) for quite a long time and want to give an update on many points… Continue

This post goes -identically - to the members of the NING Group 'Global Villages Network' and to the members of the yahoogroup 'globalvillages'.



This is going to be a rather lengthy letter with many messages overdue - and therefore it makes sense to start right away with a table of contents:



thank you for the effort to read this!



Franz



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Top News

1. State of Global Villages Network, NING… Continue

Recently our friend Gleb Tyurin organized a high level meeting on innovative ways in rural development in the Region of Vologda (between Moscow and Archangelsk). A group of experts and local and federal policy makers awaited dialogue with external participants via videobridge. To my bad surprise, Gleb seemed to be very nervous in the morning when the conference started. We could only connect shortly and… Continue

I have gained some attention in Russia after writing to the governor of Archangelsk about an opportunity to support sound rural development with the help of a Global Villages Network. This network is supposed to be a network of experts and innovators all around the world that cares about the future of Villages.



I need to make some clarification before going on with this matter. It is very interesting that there was a generally receptive attitude to the existence of such a network,… Continue

Thank you for inviting me here Franz. I have many stories to tell and many links to share so this may happen over time. I have been using the concept of "Digital Villages" for a while but it's really a metaphore for something more concrete. You may recall Franz that when you visited Teesside I used the concept of "Rivers" to describe where you were in the world and how my heritage and mindset was focussed by the three main rivers that define my region in the North East of England.



My… Continue

The following will be pubished in Michel Bauwens P2P blog and I also post it here:

"That is the opportunity that the development of Africa presents. Rural Africa missed out on the industrial revolution that raised the living standards of the industrial nations. It is a fresh canvas where we can paint a new picture of development. We can work together, learning from the mistakes of the past, using the sustainable technologies of the present, developing the technolgies of…

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