Andy Carvin is an international multi media social justice activist who has worked with a wide variety of organizations, most recently the Digital Divide Network. He is a prolific video blogger, podcaster and advocate for implementation of both mediums in developing countries. He also assisted in the creation of some of the most dynamic web based tools for responding to a series of recent international natural disasters.

Andy’s forthcoming book, published by Canada’s International Development Research Center, uses photography to demonstrate the similar goals amongst different types of Community Technology Centers around the world.

 

 

Table of Contents 

You can click on any of the links in the following table of contents to skip to that section of the interview. Your browser’s back arrow will return you to the table of contents. Photography is from Any Carvin’s Flickr album.

 

1. About the Digital Divide Network
2. Adoption of Mobile Phones and Computers for the Net in the Developing World
3. Inspirational Examples of International Work
4. Telephony and Multi-Media in Developing Countries
5. Taking Conferences Global
6. Disaster Response 2.0
7. On Video Blogging
8. Web 2.0 vs. Clean Water?
9. Culturally Appropriate Technology Transfer
10. Telecentre - The Book and Call to Action
11. Conclusion

 

About the Digital Divide Network

 

Marshall

How would you describe the impact of Digital Divide Network and its work?

Andy

I think DDN helped raise the digital divide's profile as a major policy issue...

and created a platform for like-minded people and institutions to seek each other out, forge partnerships and identify solutions to the divide.

Right now we have just under 9,000 members in around 140 countries.

When we redesigned DDN in 2005 we changed the editorial model so that it focused more on giving members the ability to host their own blogs, discussion boards, and post their own content; previously we were very centralized with staff doing most of the heavy lifting.

Marshall

And who are those members? Do they come from every walk of life or are there some occupations that are most engaged?

Andy

Every walk of life, definitely, but there are some key constituencies: community technology activists, nonprofit activists, educators, including k-12 and higher ed., policy makers, some journalists, some private sector people, and random concerned citizens.

One thing we've tried to do is keep it nonpartisan - so we have people of all political persuasions.

Marshall

In your blog you recently discussed the threat of digital walmartization of previously analog, local and intimate social functions.

How does the DDN or your work in particular deal with this issue?

Andy

Good question...

In some ways it's an area of the divide that doesn't get discussed much, which is why I posted it...

One of the concerns we have is that new tools be made affordable and easy to implement, so that you don't have a situation where only elite, well-off institutions can implement them.

We're very supportive of smaller businesses and institutions adopting new tech practices, but at the same time worry about what happens when they're left in the dust.

A few years ago the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights did a study of civil rights orgs and the adoption of technology.

They found that most small civil rights orgs were lagging behind, and often their leadership didn't use technology effectively. So this made it harder for community civil rights groups to be effective in a new media landscape.

Marshall

Do you feel like this is changing at all?

Andy

Hard to say; I don't think any followup studies have been done. Plus most of my work in the last two years has been more internationally oriented.

 

Adoption of Mobile Phones and Computers for the Net in the Developing World

 

Marshall

What general observations do you have about the pace of adoption internationally?

Andy

There's been incredible adoption when it comes to mobile phones, particularly in the developing world...

This has led some people to argue that we should focus less on providing low-cost computers and more on Internet-ready mobile phones....

While others are arguing the opposite...

Marshall

What's your take on that question?

Andy

Personally, I take the position that you need to adopt whatever technology is most appropriate for a particular circumstance, rather than proscribing a top-down policy in which everyone gets mobiles or everyone gets laptops. Each development circumstance is different, whether its e-government, public health, public education, etc.

The World Bank made a major stir last year when they argued for greater focus on mobile phones, saying the computer digital divide was less relevant...

And I think that did some damage to the movement.

Marshall

Because some groups or projects really do need computers and not phones?

Andy

Yeah.... Some people have argued that people should be able to do everything on an Internet-ready mobile phone...

But try locking up your computer and using a phone for all your computing needs. It's fine for email and occasional web browsing, but not very practical for more complex tasks.

So whether you're a student or a nonprofit worker or a small business owner in the developing world...

Chances are that a real computer with Internet access will be more productive for you in the long run.

Marshall

Presumably some would say that's all well and good, but if phones are what's most realistic then some access is better than holding out for ideal access?

Andy

But that's not to say we should discourage mobile phone penetration - far from it.

I wouldn't say that we should hold out...

It's just that we shouldn't abandon other policy efforts to increase computer and broadband access just because people can SMS over their phones.

Marshall

What are some of the key indicators that the need should be filled by one or the other?

Andy

Different devices are suitable for different purposes, and no policy wonk should tell a community in a developing country that they should have only technology X, not technology Y. I think it all boils down to what problems you are trying to solve..

 

Inspirational Examples of International Work

 

Marshall

What are some of your favorite local initiatives you've discovered internationally?

Andy

Good question. Lemme see...

Open Knowledge Network - www.openknowledge.net

They're encouraging local content creation in local languages, with an emphasis on peer-to-peer communication.

The Hungarian telecottage movement

Hungarian NGOs and the natl. government are working to create telecentres in every hungarian village - over 3,000 of them. They're approaching the 1000 mark already. I visited of them last year - really amazing. Part of my new book focuses on them.

Same thing with India's Mission 2007 - they're trying to set up "knowledge centers" in 600,000 rural villages.

I also love The Freedom Toaster.

A group in south africa has created a vending machine for disseminating open source software.

You go to the machine, stick in a blank disk and download the latest versions of all sorts of cool open source tools.

Marshall

Wow!

Andy

They have a dozen or so of these vending machines around South Africa and are installing more. It'll be amazing when they all have wireless internet access and can auto-download the latest versions of new software, so the machine stays current.

And the vending machine looks _really_ sweet.

Marshall

So how many of these initiatives are accessible for folks countering the hegemony of, for example, the international IPR cabal or other agendas of hegemony?

You know...are these ultimately a tool for strengthening the grip of international technocrats?

Andy

That's certainly not their intention...

Most of them are home-grown initiatives focusing on local cultural and economic needs.

Andy

Granted, there are plenty of ICT initiatives that come from one big company or organization and get plopped in various parts of the world. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. But if there isn't community buy-in, they often fail.

One of the things I tried to do in the book is identify some of the basic common values of these movements worldwide...

Basically we came up with five broad principles

 

• empowering communities to improve local governance
• connecting isolated communities to larger social, political and economic networks
• Creating learning opportunities for all
• Giving people a voice where they previously had none
• Fostering economic opportunity

Marshall

One of the stories that always comes to my mind when I think of the digital divide is something I read about via Grain.org about indigenous participation in World Summit for the Information Society Intellectual Property Rights debates. Even though there was participation by indigenous groups, the US delegation had a far greater ability to process huge amounts of bureaucratic information due to larger budget, better tech, etc. That makes me wonder, what's the next step beyond access and how can access be designed with the next steps in mind?

Andy

I remember at one of the WSIS preparatory meetings...

there was a group of indigenous Indian women in traditional costumes.

Only one spoke English, and most of the suits at the conference looked at them like they were a sideshow.

Then one of them requested the opportunity to speak.

She spoke to the plenary about the need for content in local languages, and empowering community self-help groups, particularly those dominated by illiterate women.

None of the suits thought they were a sideshow after that.

Unfortunately, only a handful of grassroots activists like this participate.

OneWorld South Asia managed to bring some of them to WSIS

(they also brought those indian women to geneva)

But by then, most of the major policy decisions had been made.

One big problem with WSIS is that you had to be wealthy to participate actively.

Most WSIS planning meetings lasted for two weeks in Geneva - few people, let alone NGOs, can afford to participate at that level of time and cost.

And they didn't take advantage enough of online mechanisms for collecting official input.

I didn't go to all the meetings, but you tended to see the same people each time - those groups who could afford to participate. Meanwhile, hundreds, if not thousands, of other groups stayed home.

But that's the reality of convening meetings that require real-world attendance.

At least I got to go to some of the big meetings and blog like hell from them.

 

Telephony and Multi-Media in Developing Countries

Marshall

Are there ways to collect info online that work internationally and ways that don't? [related] Is there a potential for tech assistance to mitigate that disparity of access? And if so, what would that look like?

 

Andy

One major problem is language. A lot of amazing grass roots organizations would love to participate, but their members only speak Tamil, or Khmer, or Xhosa. So even with a good online collection mechanism, language remains a barrier. Not to mention ICT literacy.

One possible model would have been to employ groups of volunteers associated with a major network like TakingITGlobal...

TIG did amazing work during WSIS organizing national WSIS youth campaigns. If something like that happened again...

I could see them using digital audio as a way to capture grass roots voices.

Sending out teams of volunteers with cheap digital audio devices and capturing tons of podcasts that would serve as official comments on policy issues at hand.

Over the last year or so I've written a lot about "mobcasting" -

ie, creating mechanisms to allow anyone with a phone to call a local number, leave a voicemail message and have it automatically posted as a podcast.

Imagine this scenario...

The country of Bangladesh was very active in the WSIS process, but they still have very limited internet access and low literacy at the village level.

Theoretically, you could have set up national radio broadcasts asking for input on the role of technology in Bangladeshi life...

Since most villages have at least one mobile phone, villagers could have called in, recorded their thoughts in Bangla, and have them posted automatically to a citizen's comment podcast, if you will.

These could then be archived and translated by civl servants or volunteers for submission into policy processes.

Marshall

Is there anyone doing anything like that yet?

Andy

I've done it a few times at a very small scale using free tools...

like blogger, audioblogger.com and feedburner.

Ethan Zuckerman and I demoed it at a Harvard Berkman blogging conference one year ago, and I also set it up for two blogs

The Gates @ Central Park http://nycgates.blogspot.com

and Katrina Aftermath http://katrina.blogspot.com

oh, one more - http://mobcasting.blogspot.com

For all three, you'd call a number managed by Audioblogger and leave a message.

Marshall

Did those work well?

Andy

At a basic level, yes, but they have a major flaw.

US only.

You have to call a US number for it to work, and that's not practical internationally.

So I've been struggling to find some kind-hearted open source programers to donate their time...

And help adapt a pre-existing open source telephony system like Asterix to make it possible to install a similar mobcasting tool anywhere in the world.

That would make it possible to post podcasts anywhere, just through a local telephone call.

Marshall

That would be great!

Andy

I demoed the concept in Ghana last summer. It cost a fortune to call the US audioblogger number, but the people who saw it were impressed by the concept.

There are various podcasting companies like Odeo.com working on phone-to-podcast solutions...

but none as far as I know are open source, which would be necessary for use internationally.

Ideally, you'd want the call to be a local call.

 

Marshall

so they'd need to be open source programs that could be adapted to be calling locally?

Andy

Another way of doing it would be to route a call through a VoIP network, but that's well beyond my tech skill set.

Marshall

But an 800 number wouldn't work?

Andy

Well, you'd need an open source solution that would be a simple telephone-to-podcast interface...

but that could be adopted to a local telephone network. for example...

the key tones in the US sound different than they do in other countries, so those would have to be customized.

Then you'd have to install it on a local telephone so people wouldn't have to call internationally.

Meanwhile, you could use the same system, theoretically, for listening to podcasts.

This would allow you to participate in podcasting culture without Internet access.

Marshall

is it practical to listen to podcasts on a phone? isn't that awfully expensive?

Andy

Has interesting implications for e-government, community discourse, human rights, etc.

It depends on the local telephony rules. If it's only a local call, many places charge a flat rate for calls. But it's a problem if local calls are expensive...

However, there's a lot of competition in many developing countries for mobile phone providers...

So minutes are very cheap.

Much cheaper than per-minute Internet access, even for dial-up.

Also, lots of countries have "rent-a-phone systems" ---

in Bangladesh, local women operate mobile phone businesses, where you rent the phone by the minute or the hour. That way you have access to a phone without owning one.

Marshall

Are there other things like that that folks in the US might not even think about but that are facts of life or tech for people in developing countries and could make or break collaboration?

Andy

Access is usually the biggest factor - having to drive for half a day to get to a local cybercafe, or paying $200/month for dial-up.

Marshall

$200 a month for dial up??

Andy

But language is equally problematic. Most of the world doesn't speak English, even though 60-70% of online content is english only.

Yep. Some countries in africa charge insane surcharges for Internet access because there's no telecom competition and the govt dominates the market.

In Iran, a SIM card for a mobile phone literally costs $1000.

Meanwhile, countries that open up the market find their monthly internet costs plummet.

Much of it is purely due to corruption, unfortunately.

Marshall

And internet access could well be an effective means of fighting corruption!

Andy

Ironic, isn't it?

Marshall

Insidious, more likely

Andy

Recently, I blogged about the Kenyan parliament website.

It was about to launch to the public but was taken down without explanation...

It turns out that members of parliament didn't want their private information posted on the Web.

Marshall

private information?

Andy

By private information, I mean their age, their education and work experience - the kind of stuff that is standard on any govt website.

As I posted on my blog, even the Fearless Leader of Turkmenistan posts that kind of info about himself online.

Our conversation then moved on to the viability of multi media creation and consumption in developing countries with current technology.

Andy

You know, many people assume that podcasting and vlogging makes no sense in developing countries...

when in reality you can use compression techniques to crunch a 10meg audio file into a 900k file.

You lose audio quality, of course, but you still get to participate in Podcast Nation.

I would also love to give out video cameras to every human rights group on the planet

sorta like what Witness.org does, but on a grander scale.

Think of it this way -

The only reason we know about Abu Ghraib is because some idiot took keepsake snapshots.

Similarly, we only knew about Rodney King because a citizen had a camera nearby.

Some people lament the spread of cameras and video on mobile phones, but I think we're at a watershed moment for citizen journalism.

 

Marshall

What's going to take it to the next level?

Presumably greater access, and...

Andy

Greater awareness of how one citizen journalist can make a positive difference;

greater media literacy - in particular, understanding how mainstream media doesn't cover everything that's important in the world and that we can help fill in the blanks

and more localized projects that allow people to upload their own news quickly, in their own language and affordably

Some networks like the BBC are taking the position that citizen journalism is the real deal, and they need to take it seriously

so they're beginning to encourage a lot of interaction among their audiences, having them submit their own content.

 

Taking Conferences Global

 

Marshall

so speaking of face to face...

I'd like to ask you about conference matters too

so Net Squared is leading up to a conference in May in SF (30th,31st)

that will bring together tech companies, early adopters and non profits

...any thoughts based on your experiences on how to make that rock?

Andy

Set up an open blog/mobcast ahead of time...

so that people can blog about their expectations, questions, etc.

plus capture URLs through a shared del.icio.us tag for the event

and get people recording podcasts building up to the event.

Then, encourage as many people as possible to do the se during the conference

 

Marshall

net2 is the tag for items related to the issue of npo adoption of web2.0 tools

Andy

Essentially, have people treat the conference as being more than a physical event

and have it preceded - and followed- by collaborative blogging and the like.

One thing that's helpful is having participants be able to post bios of themselves, with pictures, interests, etc.

Figure out a way to get Asterisk telephony software to work and put lots of podcasts over the phone.

That, or partner with a media outlet to broadcast it.

Get Radio Open Source to do a call-in show.

They're syndicated on public radio stations.

Christopher Lydon, who singlehandedly pioneered journalistic podcasting...

has a daily call-in show....Listeners post story ideas, guest suggestions, etc. on their blog, and they make programs around it.

Definitely the best radio/Internet integration I've seen so far.

 

Disaster Response 2.0

 

Marshall

Could you talk a little about Katrina?

Andy

Prior to Katrina, I'd been involved in a couple of online disaster responses.... Back in 2001, I set up the SEPT11INFO email list, which was generating 1200 messages a day for the first couple of days after the attack...

Then last year, I was part of the team that edited the Tsunamihelp blog [note: see the powerful use of Flickr on the right sidebar]...

while at the same time, I created an aggregator called tsunami-info.org. [note: great use of RSS resyndicated!]

By the time Katrina had come around, I had a simple and fairly effective template for setting up a blog that would encourage users to submit their own text, photos and voicemail podcasts.

Marshall

what's the best place to see that template in action?

Andy

So I created Katrina Aftermath (katrina.blogspot.com) and encouraged the public to use it for donation requests, missing person announcements, etc.

Go to http://katrina.blogspot.com. It's based on my Gates mobcast from last year....

The key thing I did was publicize the email address I used to auto-post messages to the blog...

so that anyone could post their own messages.

Similarly, I publicized the site's audioblogger login and PIN so anyone could call in and leave a voicemail podcast.

Finally, I created a bunch of RSS aggregation pages that collected content from news wires, the blogosphere, etc. related to the hurricane. I also aggregated photos of missing people posted to Flickr.

Marshall

what a great use of RSS

 

Andy

I wish I could take credit for the idea...

but the folks at TsunamiHelp pioneered it during the tsunami.

Now the same team is working to create an international network of bloggers ready to dive in the moment another disaster happens.

 

Marshall

How usable is this for non technical folks?

I can see it's not hard to contribute

but are folks comfortable with it?

Andy

Good question. It's a basic Blogger template, so anyone with basic HTML skills could implement it. I'd just have to put together a tutorial to explain how the hell I did it.

I'm not a techie myself, so it can't be all that hard.

Marshall

oh buddy, that is so relative!

Andy

Perhaps...

My problem is that I have lots of techie ideas but no skills to implement most of them.

Mobcasting is a great example of that.

But so far I haven't found any skilled programers willing to volunteer their time.

The challenge would be to come up with the open source solution...

then create a simple-enough tutorial to allow others to install it themselves.

On Video Blogging

Marshall

What do you aim to accomplish with your vlogs?

Andy

What I love about vlogging is that it allows me to tell all sorts of stories - both professional ones and personal ones. When I was traveling a lot summer working on my book, I got to vlog from all over the world, capturing different cultures and their technology experiences.

Marshall

Yours are really a nice mix of political, cultural and technical.

Andy

Meanwhile, I also got to do cool things like go to Luke Skywalker's house in southern Tunisia and make a couple of vlogs for the Associated Press asap news service.

Marshall

The AP has a vlog service?

Andy

Sort of...

http://asap.ap.org

It's a news service targeting young people

they invited me to write a story about star wars tourism in tunisia, since I was there for the World Summit on Information Society...

And I gave them an article, two vlogs and a photo gallery...

http://www.andycarvin.com/video/lukesplace1.mov

http://www.andycarvin.com/video/lukesplace2.mov

Marshall

That's awesome. So how accessible is vlogging to the "2/3rds world?" Or international audiences in general?

Andy

Limited...

One of the biggest problems is bandwidth; as you'll see from those two files, they're over a dozen megs each.

But that's because they're optimized for a North American audience.

When I was in Ghana, I did a videoblogging workshop with only dial-up access...

And we managed to upload podcasts and video that were compressed to one meg.

Marshall

so is vlogging worth doing for folks in places with bandwidth issues?

Andy

check this out

http://www.andycarvin.com/video/accrataxi.mov

this video was done in Ghana and compressed for local use.

When I talked about vlogging in Ghana, people were skeptical. But when I showed them the link I just gave you, they were blown away. It never occurred to them, for example, that Ghana public radio could archive their interviews online.

 

Web 2.0 vs. Clean Water?

 

Internet access is still an elite thing to have there, mind you, but that doesn't mean that people who do have it shouldn't be encouraged to use the medium to express themselves.

But it's a common debate...

some people argue that vlogging and podcasting is superfluous in countries that have bigger problems on their hands.

Marshall

and how do you respond to that?

Andy

But imagine if a bunch of protesters who were shot at in Uzbekistan last year all had mobile phones with video capability. They could have captured what really went on that day.

It's similar to the charge that we shouldn't invest in ICT in developing countries because they need clean water and food first.

I agree, they need clean water, food, good governance, public health...

The list goes on...

But that doesn't mean that we should encourage them to ignore the Internet revolution.

ICTs [Information/Communication Technologies] are empowering people to create new economic opportunities and demand accountability from their public officials.

So I don't see this as an either-or argument.

There's room to invest in basic development needs while exploring the potential of new technologies to make a difference as well.

Marshall

There's a theory of development that countries developing should skip over what were the initial steps elsewhere...how does this play into the ICT field as you see it?

Andy

Absolutely!

Why dig up the environment to install cables when you can explore municipal wi-fi?

Take Estonia for example.

They had the opportunity to rebuild their country from scratch in the early 90’s.

So they researched the best practices in all sorts of areas - technology, government, education, etc...

and embraced the ideas that made sense.

So now, when the Estonian government has a cabinet meeting, all the official notes are online immediately for public comment.

And when you drive down the highway, you'll see signs with @ symbols identifying the location of the closest telecentre.

one more example of low bandwidth video

http://www.andycarvin.com/video/andytreovideo.mov

This was shot on a treo mobile phone in Accra, just to show how simple it was to use mobile video for vlogging.

Marshall

Are there tools that "we" use, like RSS or wikis or maybe vlogging(?) or I don't know what else, that are too complicated to work with new users on - that should be avoided in favor of a first layer of tools like text blogging?

Andy

It's a good idea to learn basic blogging before podcasting or vlogging in many cases.

but if we're able to develop a simple telephone interface for podcasting, all that could change.

Meanwhile, RSS can be simple or complicated.

It's a matter of offering simple demos of how RSS can make a difference in someone's work or life in general.

Many people don't see RSS as intuitive because of all the XML gobbledygook. But when you show someone that you can subscribe to a Craigslist RSS feed for all the newest real estate listings in your town, that's when the light bulbs go off.

 

Culturally Appropriate Technology Transfer

 

Marshall

Are there things in doing cross cultural training that are important but often overlooked you'd like to mention?

Andy

Not really - though there are some technical issues of getting RSS to work for all languages. That's a bit beyond my skill set to explain in detail, since that involves XML, UNICODE and the like.

One thing you hear a lot is using the Internet for cultural preservation -

ie, capturing a culture's content before it dies.

I think this is the wrong mindset.

Instead we should see the Internet as a tool for cultural _prosperity_.

Marshall

creation more than preservation? why?

Andy

Giving indigenous cultures a new lease on life, economically and socially, in ways that are respectful.

Because preservation acknowledges that the culture itself is moribund, and we're simply preserving it so we white elites can look back at it and say how quaint.

Instead we should use the Internet to empower and strengthen these cultures...

rather than treating them like a museum piece.

Plus, there's the problem that many cultures don't want certain aspects of their traditions posted for the world to consume.

For example, some native american tribes have stories that should only be told during snowfall, or at night. Putting them online 24/7 is considered disrespectful or worse.

I think one of the biggest issues is that many well-meaning people will go into a country with a particular ICT solution and say "Do this - we know best" rather than listening to the community, understanding their challenges and perspectives, and giving them true ownership of the project in question.

You need to have local know-how, local buy-in for an ICT project to be sustainable. Otherwise it might just be a flash in the pan.

That's one thing I like about Hungarian telecottages - each community owns the telecentre, manages it, determines its goals. And they're usually based in community institutions like a town hall or cultural center.

Marshall

What are some best practices in that kind of collaborative project?

Andy

The founder of the hungarian telecottage movement has a list of top principles for running a community telecottage; they're featured in my book. I can email them to you.

Marshall

That would be great.

Is there a way I can link to your book?

Andy

Hopefully an online version of the book will soon be online at www.telecentre.org/thebook

 

Telecentre - The Book and Call to Action

 

Andy

It's mainly a picture book - text doesn't do it justice.

They used different paper for each chapter - it's really funky.

Looks more like an art gallery biennial than an ICT policy book.

The main point of the book was to say that public Internet access is a worldwide movement, sharing similar visions, dreams and goals...

Despite the fact that we all call them different names - CTCs, telecentres, telecottages, community access points, etc.

What we did was travel a lot and capture examples of really amazing telecentre projects - focusing on the people who created them and benefit from them. We covered six countries

Hungary, Laos, Ghana, Chile, the US and India

Each chapter focuses on a different goal

Hungary explores community empowerment;

Laos is education for all;

Ghana is economic development

Chile is connecting isolated communities

the US is empowering people to create their own media

and India is for showing how networks bring all of these things together into national policy goals.

It's kind of a "call to arms" for the telecentre movement, saying we need to get away from all the jargon and work together on the things we all care about.

IDRC.ca will be publishing it.

Marshall

what do you mean jargon?

Andy

Too many public computing initiatives are forced to use names created by their govts or funders

telecottages- community access points-CTCs-knowledge centers, etc.

Over time, people start to act and believe as if all of these different initiatives are fundamentally different...rather than sharing the same basic goals.

So the book is intended as a kick in the pants in that regard. With lots of pretty, National Geographic-like pictures. With lots of pretty, National Geographic-like pictures.

Marshall

that sounds awesome. mind if I ask how the travel was funded?

Andy

Telecentre.org is managed by IDRC, the Intl Development Research Centre, in Canada...

with funding from the Canadian govt, the Swiss govt and Microsoft.

The book is published it in English, French and Spanish, so that'll be helpful too.

Marshall

Release date?

Andy

Soon. Some time within the next month, I hope. IDRC is still working out the online ordering mechanism, plus they want to have some kind of official launch.

I may make a vlog of me reading it as a bedtime story.

 

Conclusion

Andy Carvin's text, photo and video blogging can be found at AndyCarvin.com.  He's currently seeking a new home in an institution committed to bridging the digital divide and promoting the Internet as a tool for civic engagement and social justice.  If that's you, hurry and snap him up before some one else does.