Blog Entries by Siegfried Woldhek

The NABUUR Camp has come to an end. It has been an extraordinary and productive event thanks to the 25 participants who came from different corners of the world (13 nationalities present) to jointly move NABUUR forward. Three participants missed the event due to difficulties with visa and flights.

Bringing together different users and developers into one space proved to be very effective. Much progress was made with improving pages and processes on the site under construction. Posts from other participants will show the progress made. Had there been more developers matters could have been taken even further.

And there was more going on than the valuable building of pages. Now that there no longer is a central staff, it was key for the maintenance and further development of NABUUR that several concrete tasks are picked up by volunteers. We’re pleased to report that hey have been. 7 teams have formed, to:
- Organize the selection of qualified board candidates before June 1
- Organize users platform for regular solicited & unsolicited advice to the board
- Organize maintenance of infrastructure: webservers, security upgrades, spam protection, etc, etc
- Website group: organize the further development of the site in close cooperation with the users, testing, migration, launch
- Quality: organize mechanisms that make sure that the villages or projects indeed exist, that the lively villages and projects are shown on top, as well as the most productive Neighbours, experts, documents, lessons learnt, etc
- Social media/news/project/launch: organize the connections of the site with the many other important sites out there
- Support / helpdesk/ welcome team: organize the care for the lost souls

Every group needs to make sure that the task gets done rather than trying to do it themselves with an undersized team, most groups will therefore welcome new members to share the burden of the work. New working environments will soon be set up, for now you can join us on http://nabuurcamp.org .

Most if not all participants felt that it would be useful to have more camps in the future. This would need a separate group willing to identify an agenda worth coming for, to find the organizers, to set up the process, etc.

Many thanks to all the participants!

Related posts:
"Oh the Sexy Goats pictures..." - A snapshot of Nabuur Camp weekend

Join the BarCamp to bring NABUUR to the next level! Febr 13-14 in Amsterdam

Three Ways You Can Help Build The Future of NABUUR

The development assistance sector faces a crisis. Criticism swells, from the man in the street, from politicians as well as from developing countries. It should be more effective and more efficient. It should perhaps stop altogether. Threatening as these opinions may be for the sector, they also offer opportunities for a radically different and complementary approach that uses the new possibilities to deal with poverty via the internet: International Cooperation 2.0

The pace of the developments on the internet is breathtaking. It is hard to realize that Flickr and Facebook were only launched in 2004; that YouTube and Kiva started in 2005 and Twitter in 2006. These new opportunities for cooperation already proved to be of crucial importance in reporting street violence in Kenya, bringing the 2008 China earthquake into the open and helping Barack Obama get elected.

Even in the least connected parts of the world people now use mobile phones to pay one another, to make videos, to find healthcare information and to exchange the latest market prices. They are no longer excluded. This is fantastic news, because exclusion is of an important source of poverty. Exclusion from expertise, economic means, political systems or financial services makes it extra tough to improve your own situation and of those around you. A strong connection with the rest of the world gives people the chance to leave poverty behind. During the past 5 yrs we’ve witnessed a phenomenal growth in the ability to share and cooperate, at a scale that was unthinkable only 5 years ago.

Isn’t that a bit idealistic or vague? Ask Paul Bulenzi, taxi driver in Jinja, Uganda. He spends all his free time to increase work opportunities for the handicapped people of Jinja. With the help of online volunteers in Uganda, England and the Netherlands he researched the possibilities to set up an internet café as a source of income. A business plan was made and the conclusion was clear: the high connectivity costs ruled out profitability for the time being. Paul then decided to start a basic computer course. A school in the Netherlands supplied 20 used computers and printers. Someone raised 1100 euros in a sponsored run, which was partly used for the transport of the computers. Via the internet a person was found in Kampala who helped get the necessary software.
Five handicapped Dutch volunteers travelled to Jinja to assist with the creation of the network, the refurbishment of some PC’s and painting of the building. Trainees of the energy firm Essent looked at issues around the energy supply. In the meantime 30 handicapped people successfully finished the first computer course and a second group of handicapped volunteers travelled to Jinja to set up a service centre where the graduates can gain some work experience. For those handicapped that are illiterate a hairdressers training and a carpenter’s course are being set up. Without the internet all of this wouldn’t have been possible. It isn’t vague; Paul Bulenzi now has new, concrete possibilities at his disposal to improve the future of the people around him.

In fact, the cooperation architecture that has developed over the past few years on the internet offers fantastic new opportunities to connect and collaborate directly, person to person, across the globe. It shifts the control from the institutions into the hands of the individual. But it is far from perfect. The problem for people who want to cooperate in the South as well as in the North, is that all the wonderful opportunities sit on hundreds of different sites and systems. Organizations try to embrace the new internet possibilities by building them into their own sites. This leads to isolated silos of information, contacts, stories, etc. Exchanges between the silos is difficult due to technical and legal barriers. The people in developing countries and the constituencies of these organizations need seamless connections between these cooperation possibilities rather than isolated platforms.
The exciting news is that most of the tools needed for better cooperation between individuals around the globe already exist. All that is needed is the development of technical and legal standards which would allow the free flow of information between the participating platforms. It would create a global free service for all: for the villages in developing countries as well as individuals around the globe, for development assistance organizations, corporations, funding institutions and governments alike. One would only have to sign up once in order to have access to all the contacts, experience and stories in all participating sites. The relevant information would pop up automatically. It puts the control into the hands of the people in developing countries. They can decide who they would like to work with and on what terms.

We have already begun. Our separate sites facilitate direct contact between villages in developing countries and people elsewhere, SMS services, twitter style reporting, video reporting via mobile phones, online marketplace for financing projects, opportunities to broadcast the local stories, etc. We now begin to build connections between our sites in order to identify and remove legal and technical barriers. Over time it will become easier to exchange information between our platforms, giving the users a seamless environment. It is the beginning of a much larger network that with the following characteristics: demand driven, person to person, transparent, bottom up, open source and wide open for new participants and new developments.

Such a system is most powerful when it is developed jointly, with minimum restrictions, without organizational constraints. If offers lots of opportunities for the constituency of every organization that uses it. Above all, it is much more effective for people in developing countries, who are locked out until now.

NABUUR, Siegfried Woldhek
1%CLUB, Bart Lacroix
AfricaInteractive, Pieter van Twisk
TexttoChange, Hajo van Beijma
GlobalVillageMedia, Peter van Lier
Akvo, Peter van der Linde
Nivocer, Rolf Kleef