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Dropping Knowledge
Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch):
dropping knowledge is participatory democracy and idea generation for the 21st century.
Supporting organization:
TIDES Center
URL:
www.droppingknowledge.org
City:
Cambridge
State/Region:
MA
Country:
USA
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:
Are we really to think that the few who sit atop influential institutions governing the world have all the answers to today’s challenges? What if there was a way to harvest the creativity and ideas of all people?
The mission of dropping knowledge international is to help the global public find its voice, name the issues it cares about, and figure out together how to solve them. At dropping knowledge international we seek to create a modern infrastructure for the open exchange of knowledge, vision, and ideas among citizens of the world. The international constituency names questions, engages in dialogue, exchanges information, collaborates, and offers solutions to inform and inspire action regarding the most pressing issues of our time. dropping knowledge begins this process by inviting us to question all that is in front of us, all that has come before us, and all that is to come.
Our vehicles for action/change take form in the following products:
· Living Library® and Web Platform – An online resource for gathering, storing, sharing, and searching information and knowledge, and engaging in dialogue for social change. Knowledge is only of value if it is accessible.
· Table of Free Voices® -- A place-based and/or virtual event that brings a diverse group of people together to offer their answers to and thoughts on questions posed by the public. The responses offered by participants at the TOFV are digitally recorded, stored, and offered freely to the public (via the Living Library) to use. For video of our Berlin ToFV please see: http://www.droppingknowledge.org/bin/media/show/12284/22616.page
· Question Campaign -- A communication strategy using print, web, television, film, and audio media to engage the public to name questions that they believe the world needs to address. Questions from these campaigns are used to identify questions to be asked at TOFV and to generate dialogue and knowledge exchange on the dki website and in the Living Library.
· Social Media Products – Multi-media educational products developed from knowledge generated through use of dki’s primary products and captured by dki.
Sustainability (financial) model:
Currently dropping knowledge international operates under a partnership model of sustainability. By this, we mean that we seek to strategically partner with organizations who not only provide support through content synergy – but support in a diversity of forms, especially fiduciary.
Apart from this operating model – dropping knowledge international seeks to create tangible products out of the content generated both on our user platform and from our Table of Free Voices events. This content is distilled and turned into social products which can be sold to activists or as educational materials.
Lastly, we would like to mention the power of the small donation. Just as Wikipedia is supported primarily from micro-donations from its user base – we have found similar success in our history and will continue to foster this support.
Potential obstacles:
We believe that if you know something to be true or beneficial – it belongs to the public. The current intellectually property and information environment is modeled after a closed society. There is a natural tendency for individuals and organizations to restrict, hoard, and limit the use of information that may somehow promote social change. Since all of the material in the dropping knowledge platform is published under a Creative Commons license – we face a serious obstacle when running up against this aforementioned tendency.
The second primary obstacle we face in reaching our mission is a technological hurdle. As we seek to maximize on the newest in both Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 technologies – we grow further from peoples of the world who are unable to meet the technological standards to support these platforms. It is our belief that this is an obstacle that requires creativity. We have begun to experiment with alternative modes of interaction with the dropping knowledge platform in the spirit of making it universally accessible.
Resource Needs:
+Two 17in./1.83GHz iMac desktop computers
+Full-time Senior Software Engineer
+Hosting fees
+Translation, transcription, and transfer fees of content from Table of Free Voices
+Full-time Chief Technology Officer
Key Milestones:
We have identified three key areas for our work over three months and beyond:
1. Re-tooling the Living Library and dki web platform and presence
§ Actualize the functionalities that make it possible for people to create from dki material.
§ Offer the dki platform in other languages, beginning with Spanish.
§ Implement new question and answer model
§ Increase bandwidth and speed of site
§ Create low-barrier entry points into the platform
2. Partnerships to refine dki products and build global community and impact
§ Explore possible partnerships
§ Criteria for network partnerships:
ü The organization has a network or constituency that cares about dialogue for social change.
ü Among dki partnerships, include a few that focus on key social issues and/or constituencies that dki seeks to impact.
ü The organization agrees to abide by the principles of dki in its common work with dki.
ü The partner is interested in a learning relationship.
ü The partner collaborates with dki on the design and financing of the partnership.
§ Work with partners to figure out the appropriate product designs for dialogue, learning, and action to support social change.
3. Structuring the dki organization
§ Launch dki as an independent organization – i.e., a 501c3.
§ Build staff and partnerships for delivering dki core functions.
§ Build the financial solvency of dki, short-term and longer-term.
§ Build dki boards to provide the leadership, resources, and connections to support dki’s success.
Project Summary:
dropping knowledge is a global initiative to support the free and open sharing of knowledge among people of the world. Born out of the unprecedented democratizing power of the Internet, dropping knowledge employs advanced web-technology to empower the global public to engage in dialogue, learning, and action for the social change it seeks.
As an organization seeking to generate massive human capital – we piggyback off the potential of incredible emerging ideas and technologies. In particular we have identified three mega-trends to both qualify and maximize our work:
- The global public is being forced into single issue and unilateral perspectives
Our research indicates that traditional single issue-based advocacy campaigns are no longer effective at long-term mobilizing
- The democratizing potential of advances in communication technology
The largest paradigm shift in information is that towards creating a culture of sharing. The embrace of communications technology is the most effective way to foster this important type of activity
- Dramatic changes in our global economy, society, and world
The high level of worldwide structural and environmental change resulting from globalization has not yet generated an effective social response on the same scale
The open-source movement has created revolutionary activity in the realms of R+D and social networking. But never before has this collaborative power been directed towards solving social issues and global problems. We believe that the great ideas of tomorrow will come out of the global, open, collaborative, and multidisciplinary model dropping knowledge is set to create. Along the way, people will engage with important issues and educate themselves on multiple viewpoints – increasing democratic practice and civic engagement in places where such activity is in decline.
dropping knowledge has the principles and understands the responsibility of the task at hand. $100,000 or more can facilitate immense impact in our work and satisfying our greatest goals. Thank you for your consideration.
Comments
I was really impressed by
I was really impressed by this project.
The scale is big and idea is fresh.
__________________
"All the changes are only in the perceivers." - Baruch Ashlag http://www.kabbalah.info
Opinion
I consider this project awsome and having a noble cause.