Check out this video: Solitude Vegetable Garden
Finally getting to edit some of the videos I took when I was down south. Spent some good time reconnecting with Krishna at the Solitude farm in Auroville. He introduced me to Fukuoka's philosophy of natural farming which applies to many other aspects of life as well.
Hanging out on the farm rekindled my dreams of getting outside and living a more natural lifestyle. At this point I've spent enough time on a variety of organic farms to believe that is the most healthy way of living. At the same time commercial organic farming doesn't appear to be very practical.
My solution of course is using all that good organic solar energy to power a team of software developers to tickle the necessary money out of a wireless internet connection - probably attached to the windmill.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Sunday, August 19, 2007
SkillsCamp post
SkillsCamp came together this weekend.
I'm guessing 60 - 70 people showed up
with maybe 50 people there for most of
the event.
Despite a variety of glitches, I consider
it an unqualified success.
The unconference structure lends itself very well
to experimenting with new ways of gathering. We weren't
sure how many people would come to skills camp this weekend.
There was some thought that it might get covered in the press
which would have a slashdot effect as large numbers of people
found out about the opportunity for free food and IT training
from some of the smartest people in industry.
As it was the message went out primarily thru the traditional
geek channels (plug, barcamp-pune, itvidya) and the barcamp, plug,
itvidya crowd came - which was great !!
Simbiosis generously gave us use of 4 rooms for the conference.
With the people we had tho I decided it would be better to just
have two parallel tracks and end earlier. As a result the sessions
were well attended and there was generally always something going on
even if one session was stuck for sometime messing with the projector
or screencasting software.
Sessions were generally very similar to most barcamp sessions. Which
is to say good for a high level introduction to interesting concepts.
I talked on google gears walking people through the gears tutorials on
the google site. Other sessions covered the Facebook API, screen reading
software for the blind, 3d game development, security, setting up drupal,
open source circuit design and a variety of others.
This week I'll try to get videos out.
I was most impressed with the session Amitabh Jain gave on AJAX. His session had a very clear structure taking people from a starting point of a functional webapp without AJAX, to implementing the same app using AJAX. He had prepared one file with code snippets for the core functions we were to use. During the session he slowly integrated these snippets into the web app to add AJAX features one by one. It was systematic and reflected genuine software development in a very practical way. Again the video will be up soon so you can see what I'm talking about.
I don't know if I'll try to organize another skillscamp in the near future. Rather I'd like to push for a skillscamp tag for training sessions people give at the regular barcamps.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
BarCamp evolves
I am excited about how BarCamp is evolving. Barcamp Bangalore 4 last month was largest barcamp ever - anywhere - at over 600 registered participants.
Some thoughts on how barcamp may improve over time :
- session tagging
From looking at the wiki and the paper wiki we post at the event I would love to get alittle more metadata about the session beyond the session title. Some tags could be Tutorial, General Discussion, Demo, Panel ... This need not be mandatory, its just an extra hint to attendees and participants.
- use the wiki more
get a paragraph of bio data and session description from the presenters.
select rooms and times on the wiki itself, leaving some rooms open for sessions which are more adhoc and can be scheduled on site in real time.
- give a printed handout at registration with the schedule of sessions, more detailed presenter bio and session info - and a map.
- The annual.
I love the quarterly consistency. Maybe choose one camp of the year when the weather is the best February ? to be THE annual barcamp. Somehow make this special and promote it more.
Some thoughts on how barcamp may improve over time :
- session tagging
From looking at the wiki and the paper wiki we post at the event I would love to get alittle more metadata about the session beyond the session title. Some tags could be Tutorial, General Discussion, Demo, Panel ... This need not be mandatory, its just an extra hint to attendees and participants.
- use the wiki more
get a paragraph of bio data and session description from the presenters.
select rooms and times on the wiki itself, leaving some rooms open for sessions which are more adhoc and can be scheduled on site in real time.
- give a printed handout at registration with the schedule of sessions, more detailed presenter bio and session info - and a map.
- The annual.
I love the quarterly consistency. Maybe choose one camp of the year when the weather is the best February ? to be THE annual barcamp. Somehow make this special and promote it more.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Abdul talks about the weird destruction at CoffeeDay
When I was in the states for my grandma's passing, I heard from Pune that all the restaurants on lane 6 had been demolished. I was totally depressed. It sounds shallow, but the restaurants on lane 6, an Italian restaurant named Il Fungo Magico in particular, are some of the main reasons why I like living in Koregoan Park, Pune, and India so much.
When I came back to India, I saw that all was not lost. But it was weirdly damaged. Like vandals came in with a tractor and just messed with stuff to get their point accross.
SkillsCampPune
Hi Everyone,
I wanted to let you know about SkillsCamp - a training oriented
unconference coming up at Symbiosis University in Pune, India on August 18th.
http://barcamp.org/SkillsCampPune
It will be (un)organized just like the BarCamps we all know and love,
but with a special emphasis on training sessions. This is your
opportunity to share your knowledge and communicate your lightening
intelligence to the community and the world by showing us how to use
some tool, do some aspect of programming, or bend a spoon with the
power of your mind.
We will record video and screencasts for all sessions which will be
edited and made freely available on the internet under a cc license so
all the world can appreciate your generosity, learn from your sage
wisdom, and contact you when they decide it would be easier to
contract your services than climb the same mountains of experience you
have crested.
No skill is too small, no tool too humble to justify a training
session at SkillsCamp. Remember, no matter how junior you feel, there
are hundreds of millions of people on the internet who know less than
you and will appreciate whatever small nuggets of wisdom you have to
share.
Think of NEO and the Kung Fu program in The Matrix. It all starts here !!
August 18th
Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research,
7th Floor, Atur Centre, Gokhale Cross Road,
Model Colony, Pune -16.
register to attend and give a session on the Wiki.
http://barcamp.org/SkillsCampPune
I wanted to let you know about SkillsCamp - a training oriented
unconference coming up at Symbiosis University in Pune, India on August 18th.
http://barcamp.org/SkillsCampP
It will be (un)organized just like the BarCamps we all know and love,
but with a special emphasis on training sessions. This is your
opportunity to share your knowledge and communicate your lightening
intelligence to the community and the world by showing us how to use
some tool, do some aspect of programming, or bend a spoon with the
power of your mind.
We will record video and screencasts for all sessions which will be
edited and made freely available on the internet under a cc license so
all the world can appreciate your generosity, learn from your sage
wisdom, and contact you when they decide it would be easier to
contract your services than climb the same mountains of experience you
have crested.
No skill is too small, no tool too humble to justify a training
session at SkillsCamp. Remember, no matter how junior you feel, there
are hundreds of millions of people on the internet who know less than
you and will appreciate whatever small nuggets of wisdom you have to
share.
Think of NEO and the Kung Fu program in The Matrix. It all starts here !!
August 18th
Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research,
7th Floor, Atur Centre, Gokhale Cross Road,
Model Colony, Pune -16.
register to attend and give a session on the Wiki.
http://barcamp.org/SkillsCampP
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
youtube programming class
Hey Guys,
Here's my idea, I'll start a java programming class online using
youtube and a blog. Each lecture will be short - ~ 5 - 10 minutes,
I'll also include links to other resources. Additionally, once we're
comfortable with the basics, we'll play a little with doing code
walk thrus of open source code out on the net.
With each episode, I'll try to give exersizes.
It would be great to get feedback in the form of questions ,
problems you're having, or comments about the pace or what
you'd like to learn. We'll have a mailing list, wiki, blog, and youtube
to communicate with. I'd like to do as much in video as possible.
Personally, I'd like to get past the basics of programming as
quickly as possible, so that we can focus on doing stuff, which
is where all the fun is.
As an ongoing thing, I'd like to create an online video programming
club where we explore new technologies and work on projects together
and what not.
I would like to do the class twice a week, but I will be traveling for
two weeks beginning Friday, so I'll need a little grace getting started.
I'll send out more details in a bit.
freeman
ps.
i've never really taught before, so i'll need alot of grace all around :)
Monday, July 16, 2007
BarCamp Video
A friend in the audience for my talk at barcamppune3 made a video.
The beginning of the video is me talking about the Digital StudyHall
Warning: long & uncut.
I made a couple of videos of sessions I went to.
Setting up Indian Tech Companies Offshore
MangoSpring
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Open Source Education
On my way to the incubator I seem to be spending a fair amount of time discussing scalable education and new models of learning in the age of the Internet. This seems a critical step on the path as I have always maintained that to do the incubator effectively I would need to represent the skills of the developers. The two ways to approach this are to buy the skills or train people in them. The first approach is certainly quicker, but a too often quoted blog entry by the Riya CEO highlights the rising costs of the top tier of Indian developer talent.
Many people see the international salary leveling as an inevitable result of the globalization process. I may agree in the very long term, but think this is a short term blip in the Indian wage scale caused by a shortage of quality technical training.
When I first moved to India, I spent some weeks walking around Calcutta trying to get a feel for India and how I would fit into it. One of the most consistently amusing pictures for me was that the most pervasive advertisements, even in very poor areas was for Java, C & C++ training.
India is a very young country. Over half the population's 1.1 billion people are under 25, and based on the ads I saw in Calcutta, some large percentage of them see IT as a ticket to more money.
Scaling a technical education to this degree is extremely challenging. There simply aren't enough teachers to service this demand in any kind of traditional way.
Reflecting on my own education, I picked up very little of my primary job skills in school. Rather I learned everything on the job, on my own, in response to a project that needed doing. One neat thing about this industry is that everything needed to know to work in it, is freely available online to anyone with the language skills, computers, and motivation to access it.
Over a year ago I found the DigitalStudyHall Project online while researching technologies for cost effectively bringing internet access out to very rural areas. With DSH, what began as research in how to deliver internet access using cds and the postal system evolved into a program to distribute high quality educational videos in local language out to rural schools, and to teach the rural teachers - or in many case students - how to teach with them.
The need they address is a shortage of local teachers with knowledge of many necessary subjects ie. English, math and science. The DSH answer is to video record good private school teachers giving these lessons and then to train the local teacher how to facilitate a class using a tv and dvd player. In this way the local teacher becomes more a learning manager or facilitator rather than a domain expert.
So far their experience has been qualitatively positive.
The DSH model could be applied to provide technical training to a far wider audience than currently has access to it. In the same way DSH records master teachers to create video lectures of the core subjects, the same can be done for recording industry experts and master teachers in the technology field to create and assemble open source technology courseware.
Even with freely available learning material having someone who can assign students tasks, facilitate discussions, and answer questions or get questions answered and follow up with students about difficulties they are having remains critical to the learning process. A teacher in this sense would be more like a project manager in industry than a professor in academia.
This approach addresses the issue of too few local experts willing to teach. The premise is that training facilitators is far easier than training technical experts. And if it works the model could scale to provide quality technical education at a very low cost to many regions around India (and the world) without current access to it.
The call :
I am working with DSH to create video courseware materials in a wide range of technical subjects. Beyond basic programming techniques I would like to delve into many of the tools we use as professional software developers. This includes source control, build systems, testing, debugging, refactoring, the IDE, project mangement, deployment, additional frameworks, etc...
Anyone in Pune interested in collaborating with me in this please get in touch.
Many people see the international salary leveling as an inevitable result of the globalization process. I may agree in the very long term, but think this is a short term blip in the Indian wage scale caused by a shortage of quality technical training.
When I first moved to India, I spent some weeks walking around Calcutta trying to get a feel for India and how I would fit into it. One of the most consistently amusing pictures for me was that the most pervasive advertisements, even in very poor areas was for Java, C & C++ training.
India is a very young country. Over half the population's 1.1 billion people are under 25, and based on the ads I saw in Calcutta, some large percentage of them see IT as a ticket to more money.
Scaling a technical education to this degree is extremely challenging. There simply aren't enough teachers to service this demand in any kind of traditional way.
Reflecting on my own education, I picked up very little of my primary job skills in school. Rather I learned everything on the job, on my own, in response to a project that needed doing. One neat thing about this industry is that everything needed to know to work in it, is freely available online to anyone with the language skills, computers, and motivation to access it.
Over a year ago I found the DigitalStudyHall Project online while researching technologies for cost effectively bringing internet access out to very rural areas. With DSH, what began as research in how to deliver internet access using cds and the postal system evolved into a program to distribute high quality educational videos in local language out to rural schools, and to teach the rural teachers - or in many case students - how to teach with them.
The need they address is a shortage of local teachers with knowledge of many necessary subjects ie. English, math and science. The DSH answer is to video record good private school teachers giving these lessons and then to train the local teacher how to facilitate a class using a tv and dvd player. In this way the local teacher becomes more a learning manager or facilitator rather than a domain expert.
So far their experience has been qualitatively positive.
The DSH model could be applied to provide technical training to a far wider audience than currently has access to it. In the same way DSH records master teachers to create video lectures of the core subjects, the same can be done for recording industry experts and master teachers in the technology field to create and assemble open source technology courseware.
Even with freely available learning material having someone who can assign students tasks, facilitate discussions, and answer questions or get questions answered and follow up with students about difficulties they are having remains critical to the learning process. A teacher in this sense would be more like a project manager in industry than a professor in academia.
This approach addresses the issue of too few local experts willing to teach. The premise is that training facilitators is far easier than training technical experts. And if it works the model could scale to provide quality technical education at a very low cost to many regions around India (and the world) without current access to it.
The call :
I am working with DSH to create video courseware materials in a wide range of technical subjects. Beyond basic programming techniques I would like to delve into many of the tools we use as professional software developers. This includes source control, build systems, testing, debugging, refactoring, the IDE, project mangement, deployment, additional frameworks, etc...
Anyone in Pune interested in collaborating with me in this please get in touch.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Death is a Choice
In the last few days of my grandma's life, I asked my family how they wanted to die. Here's what they said.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Resurrection Lily
When my grandma died, a lady at the nursing home gave us a flower that had just bloomed in their garden. At breakfast my mom described the biblical symbolism of the white lily.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Offline Web Service
I've been excited about the concept behind Google Gears for some time. Now google rewards my laziness with a framework web developers can use to make their web services remain available when their users are offline.
Many of the strategies for connecting the next 2 billion people to the net involve various 'slow networking' strategies where internet connectivity is intermittent ie. United Villages and postmanet. Now it should be possible for users in these types of environments to continue using their favorite web applications.
Many of the strategies for connecting the next 2 billion people to the net involve various 'slow networking' strategies where internet connectivity is intermittent ie. United Villages and postmanet. Now it should be possible for users in these types of environments to continue using their favorite web applications.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Pallet Rack University on the Open Architecture Network
I just posted the very beginnings of a plan to set up an IT Institute and Software Park on some land in Pune using Pallet Racks. High Density Urban Structures with Pallet Racks
Thursday, April 26, 2007
techsutras.com
We've started making some videos on the internet video scene and posting them on techsutras.com.
twitter.com/freemanindia
I've been spending more time on twitter lately.
It may be that because expectations are so low there
is less of a mental hurdle surrounding what it takes
to post.
I wonder if lifecasting - http://justin.tv is twitter
for videobloggers.
It may be that because expectations are so low there
is less of a mental hurdle surrounding what it takes
to post.
I wonder if lifecasting - http://justin.tv is twitter
for videobloggers.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Beginning 3D model of LA structure
I've been wanting to make 3D models since building the pallet rack structures in LA. Now in India its finally starting to happen. This is a very rough first model - took us alittle over an hour to make of what we built in the Brewery artist lofts in downtown Los Angeles.
I read on the Architecture for Humantiy website about a contest they may do later this year for alternative structure for hutments (aka. slums / shanti towns). I would like to model some ideas for this using pallet racks.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
skill camp
Im a bit high on the level of enthusiasm and participation I saw at BarCamp Bangalore this weekend.
Skill Camp -
I would like to create a camp structure for helping the community develop a video courseware curriculum.
this would be organized on a wiki where we basically ask for people
to do sessions based on teaching some particular task in programming
or computing. We would set up cameras in the room and screencasting
software on the demo computers such that we record every aspect of
the tutorials and the follow on questions. All video would be freely available
on the web via creative commons liscenses, and interested people (possibly
sponsored) could help edit the raw footage into watchable short segments.
goal:
to create freely available training videos helping people learn current skills
initially in the IT industry.
steps:
1. talk to the relevant communities - barcamp pune, knowledge foundation, ...
2. set up a wiki with initial structure
3. find a suitable venue
4. look for sponsors - it companies, training institutes
5. line up speakers & sessions
6. logistics: lunch, tea, snacks ...
anything else ?
Skill Camp -
I would like to create a camp structure for helping the community develop a video courseware curriculum.
this would be organized on a wiki where we basically ask for people
to do sessions based on teaching some particular task in programming
or computing. We would set up cameras in the room and screencasting
software on the demo computers such that we record every aspect of
the tutorials and the follow on questions. All video would be freely available
on the web via creative commons liscenses, and interested people (possibly
sponsored) could help edit the raw footage into watchable short segments.
goal:
to create freely available training videos helping people learn current skills
initially in the IT industry.
steps:
1. talk to the relevant communities - barcamp pune, knowledge foundation, ...
2. set up a wiki with initial structure
3. find a suitable venue
4. look for sponsors - it companies, training institutes
5. line up speakers & sessions
6. logistics: lunch, tea, snacks ...
anything else ?
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
E-Trade to Unveil Global Trading Platform
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20070220/D8NDE9680.html
NEW YORK (AP) - E-Trade Financial Corp. (ETFCP) on Tuesday unveiled a global trading platform that makes it the first U.S. discount brokerage to give customers the ability to trade foreign-listed stocks online. ...
NEW YORK (AP) - E-Trade Financial Corp. (ETFCP) on Tuesday unveiled a global trading platform that makes it the first U.S. discount brokerage to give customers the ability to trade foreign-listed stocks online. ...
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Pune Barcamp
I'll be presenting some of my education and incubator ideas at barcamp this weekend.
Here's a quick outline.
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
Marc Hedlund quotes Antoine de Saint-Exupery
premise:
there is a huge amount of high tech work to be done.
The internet itself is a resource for both education
and jobs. Self motivated people can both find jobs
online as well as learn the skills necessary to perform
them.
google certification:
increasingly the most significant reference employees
have is their reflection in the web sphere when an
employer types the candidates name into google. As such
students hoping to increase their attractiveness in the
job market would do well to conciously develop their online
profile. For software developers having publically visible
code goes miles for establishing legitimacy. Some ways to
go about this are :
- open source projects
- ngo projects
- social networks
- university tie ups
next gen teaching:
in the age of video, traditional lectures are (or should be) dead.
instead online video courseware should (and is) emerging which
combined with conventional web based tutorials and reference books
provides most of the vertical knowledge students require
- MIT open courseware
- Digital Study Hall
Learning Groups:
Especially for beginners, there are still strong needs for teachers
to help guide students thru the learning process. I see this role having
two primary aspects. One works with the more human aspects of helping
students progress thru their training providing encouragement and
navigating personal issues the arise. The other provides subject specific
help, assigns and evaluates homework, and leads group discussions.
Networking:
So, much of the main role for traditional education is in the
networking. A next generation institute might focus on these as
the real value add of the organization. To do this 'classes' should
have an emphasis on group programming projects, as the best way to
learn who you want to work with is by working with alot of people.
Practical focus on jobs:
Thru the educational process people should be watching the job boards
and many 'class projects' should be pulled from them. In this way students
should be very clear that the skills they are picking up are directly
relevant to getting jobs. And they develop the confidence to interact
directly with clients.
- rentacoder.com
- elance.com
- getafreelancer.com
- ether.com
Research:
In addition to gaining practical experience doing service jobs
there should be significant energy put into exploring new areas.
In my world this would be oriented around technologies with near
term product potential.
- amazon web services
- occasionally connected clients
- mobile computing
- video
Incubator:
By bidding on jobs people develop their portfolio, and learn
how to put together compelling proposals. If the students decide
to turn into entrepreneurs, this can be used to pitch investors.
A significant part of what the modern university provides is the
connection between alumni and industry and young people with
fresh ideas. Managing the funding and productization process of teams
deserves significant support.
Matriculation:
The goal of the system is to consistently produce students who
can work well in a modern software development environment on
peer level with their western counterparts. Experience working
with good tools, doing service work, and running start-ups is
all part of developing these skills in the individuals.
skills -
project management
- basecamp (37signals.com)
- hiveminder(.com)
source control
- svn or cvs
issue tracking
- bugzilla
- trac
database
- mySqL
- postgres
languages
- ruby
- php
- java
- javascript
- python
- perl
frameworks
- rails
- hibernate
- ...
design
- css
- html
- flash
ajax
os
- linux
resources:
- Teach yourself programming in 10 years
- How to be a Hacker
- Paul Graham - Great Hackers
Here's a quick outline.
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
Marc Hedlund quotes Antoine de Saint-Exupery
premise:
there is a huge amount of high tech work to be done.
The internet itself is a resource for both education
and jobs. Self motivated people can both find jobs
online as well as learn the skills necessary to perform
them.
google certification:
increasingly the most significant reference employees
have is their reflection in the web sphere when an
employer types the candidates name into google. As such
students hoping to increase their attractiveness in the
job market would do well to conciously develop their online
profile. For software developers having publically visible
code goes miles for establishing legitimacy. Some ways to
go about this are :
- open source projects
- ngo projects
- social networks
- university tie ups
next gen teaching:
in the age of video, traditional lectures are (or should be) dead.
instead online video courseware should (and is) emerging which
combined with conventional web based tutorials and reference books
provides most of the vertical knowledge students require
- MIT open courseware
- Digital Study Hall
Learning Groups:
Especially for beginners, there are still strong needs for teachers
to help guide students thru the learning process. I see this role having
two primary aspects. One works with the more human aspects of helping
students progress thru their training providing encouragement and
navigating personal issues the arise. The other provides subject specific
help, assigns and evaluates homework, and leads group discussions.
Networking:
So, much of the main role for traditional education is in the
networking. A next generation institute might focus on these as
the real value add of the organization. To do this 'classes' should
have an emphasis on group programming projects, as the best way to
learn who you want to work with is by working with alot of people.
Practical focus on jobs:
Thru the educational process people should be watching the job boards
and many 'class projects' should be pulled from them. In this way students
should be very clear that the skills they are picking up are directly
relevant to getting jobs. And they develop the confidence to interact
directly with clients.
- rentacoder.com
- elance.com
- getafreelancer.com
- ether.com
Research:
In addition to gaining practical experience doing service jobs
there should be significant energy put into exploring new areas.
In my world this would be oriented around technologies with near
term product potential.
- amazon web services
- occasionally connected clients
- mobile computing
- video
Incubator:
By bidding on jobs people develop their portfolio, and learn
how to put together compelling proposals. If the students decide
to turn into entrepreneurs, this can be used to pitch investors.
A significant part of what the modern university provides is the
connection between alumni and industry and young people with
fresh ideas. Managing the funding and productization process of teams
deserves significant support.
Matriculation:
The goal of the system is to consistently produce students who
can work well in a modern software development environment on
peer level with their western counterparts. Experience working
with good tools, doing service work, and running start-ups is
all part of developing these skills in the individuals.
skills -
project management
- basecamp (37signals.com)
- hiveminder(.com)
source control
- svn or cvs
issue tracking
- bugzilla
- trac
database
- mySqL
- postgres
languages
- ruby
- php
- java
- javascript
- python
- perl
frameworks
- rails
- hibernate
- ...
design
- css
- html
- flash
ajax
os
- linux
resources:
- Teach yourself programming in 10 years
- How to be a Hacker
- Paul Graham - Great Hackers
gurukul
Im thinking about giving a talk at the upcoming pune barcamp about next generation education. I need to put something of a presentation by tomorrow evening.
Right now though, Im especially interested in past generation education - specifically the gurukul system, and how it might be applied today to provide modern education.
Im thinking that it takes clarity on the part of the teacher (aka. guru) about what they stand for. Since the gurukul method of teaching is much less structured than traditional classroom education, its less important to come up with a specific curriculum. Instead in the gurukul method the learning and guidance is transmitted by living together. Thru regular ongoing contact, the students are able to learn a great deal simply by observing the teacher, and the teacher can provide guidance to the students based on personal observation over time.
Because the teacher student relationship spans much more than just an hour of class time the nature of what is taught is much more holistic. The guru is basically transmitting a way of life to the students, not just a certain subject matter.
This is an important subject - how to live. By definition it touches all aspect of life. And while (also by definition) everyone knows how to live, very few people understand how to live sustainably. Communicating how to live sustainably, successfully, happily seems like a worthy endeavor. And its possible all it takes to get this going is to start with the confidence that as challenges and questions come up the information will be there to help navigate them.
This is what the guru provides, not all pervading knowledge, but the confidence to navigate the situations as they arise.
Right now though, Im especially interested in past generation education - specifically the gurukul system, and how it might be applied today to provide modern education.
Im thinking that it takes clarity on the part of the teacher (aka. guru) about what they stand for. Since the gurukul method of teaching is much less structured than traditional classroom education, its less important to come up with a specific curriculum. Instead in the gurukul method the learning and guidance is transmitted by living together. Thru regular ongoing contact, the students are able to learn a great deal simply by observing the teacher, and the teacher can provide guidance to the students based on personal observation over time.
Because the teacher student relationship spans much more than just an hour of class time the nature of what is taught is much more holistic. The guru is basically transmitting a way of life to the students, not just a certain subject matter.
This is an important subject - how to live. By definition it touches all aspect of life. And while (also by definition) everyone knows how to live, very few people understand how to live sustainably. Communicating how to live sustainably, successfully, happily seems like a worthy endeavor. And its possible all it takes to get this going is to start with the confidence that as challenges and questions come up the information will be there to help navigate them.
This is what the guru provides, not all pervading knowledge, but the confidence to navigate the situations as they arise.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Structure for an Incubator
For my next trick, I plan to start an
incubator of sorts here in India. I see an
opprotunity to coach young hackers interested
in starting up to help prepare them for working
with Silicon Valley VCs or tech companies.
This is similar to how Paul Graham
pitches students on starting a company rather than taking an
internship with a large company for their
summer vacation.
Initially when people join they are entrepreneurs in
residence who research, prototype, and pitch
ideas within a few domains that look like high growth
fields.
Once a pitch solidifies with an idea and team behind it
we provide seed funding to take the team 6 months
to a year thru a public launch. During this time we
provide a great deal of mentorship encouraging people
to use the best development practices.
Since the most likely exit from the incubator is an
early stage acquisition, we need to build a reputation for
producing teams with strong development skills which can
integrate well with existing silicon valley based teams.
Starting and running an internet company has to be the
best training for learning how to work productively
in one, provided sufficient guidance is provided.
As teams mature and the winners net out, a small business
team can work the valley either filling out teams with
complimentary players in preparation for real venture
financing, or exploring partnership / acquisition opportunities
where we would bring well functioning teams with significant
experience in the emerging technologies du jour, some product IP,
and a user base to the table.
incubator of sorts here in India. I see an
opprotunity to coach young hackers interested
in starting up to help prepare them for working
with Silicon Valley VCs or tech companies.
This is similar to how Paul Graham
pitches students on starting a company rather than taking an
internship with a large company for their
summer vacation.
Initially when people join they are entrepreneurs in
residence who research, prototype, and pitch
ideas within a few domains that look like high growth
fields.
Once a pitch solidifies with an idea and team behind it
we provide seed funding to take the team 6 months
to a year thru a public launch. During this time we
provide a great deal of mentorship encouraging people
to use the best development practices.
Since the most likely exit from the incubator is an
early stage acquisition, we need to build a reputation for
producing teams with strong development skills which can
integrate well with existing silicon valley based teams.
Starting and running an internet company has to be the
best training for learning how to work productively
in one, provided sufficient guidance is provided.
As teams mature and the winners net out, a small business
team can work the valley either filling out teams with
complimentary players in preparation for real venture
financing, or exploring partnership / acquisition opportunities
where we would bring well functioning teams with significant
experience in the emerging technologies du jour, some product IP,
and a user base to the table.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Capital Irrigation
when we think about connecting the next billion
people to the internet, its important to keep in
mind why those billion people want a connection.
buzzwords don't work in this conversation, if
the internet doesn't equate to some fundamental
need fairly directly its going to be hard to
convince another billion people why they want it.
so, it may be useful to talk about the internet
in terms of its ability to deliver money. how can
rural villagers tickle these pipes to make
money flow out of them.
some interesting sites which can be used to get
money out of the internet:
Amazon's Mechanical Turk
allows people to simply log on and start answering BPO
style questions on a web page. People can get additional
certifications which allow them to answer hire value questions.
Ether a personal call center
service lets individuals register themselves as experts in a
particular field and set the terms under which they are willing
to answer questions.
elance.com rentacoder.com odesk.com An increasing number
of sites helping individuals land jobs that can be performed
via the internet.
Kiva.org & prosper.com
let individuals apply for a loan to regular people on the Internet. Kiva is focused on microfinance and helping small entrepreneurs get started.
GlobalGiving.org lets NGO's submit
loan applications directly to the Internet.
DrishteeHaat.com EBay E-Commerce, DrishteeHaat is focused on
helping villagers sell crafts online.
---
Given the potential of the internet to be a source of capital for
its users, its worth examining the different business models Internet
Operators may use.
Freelance BPO / Call / Dev Center.
Now that individuals can connect with potential employers fairly
directly, there is a role for an upscale internet cafe type operation
which provides its users with an SLA which guarantees VOIP level
connectivity, and probably a dedicated virtual machine such that
they could setup their environment and store data in a secure persistant
way.
Internet Agent.
While the Dev Center is primarily concerned with enabling people
to actively earn money on the Internet, Internet agents simply represent
the internet to people working in the real world. So these would be
individuals familiar with the net and access to a connection possibly
as simple as a cell phone. They would talk with their customers and help
them represent themselves to the Internet. This could take the form of
selling goods via e-commerce, requesting a loan thru a service like kiva,
government assistance, or ngo assistance thru something like globalgiving.
***
I'm excited about the airjaldi(.com) coming up
in October. A number of friends are coming by
with interests in different aspects of the rural
internet equation. Its going to be lots of fun.
Laura Drewett & Ian Howard will be running a
workshop on Financial Engineering for rural
internet providers. I'm looking forward to it.
people to the internet, its important to keep in
mind why those billion people want a connection.
buzzwords don't work in this conversation, if
the internet doesn't equate to some fundamental
need fairly directly its going to be hard to
convince another billion people why they want it.
so, it may be useful to talk about the internet
in terms of its ability to deliver money. how can
rural villagers tickle these pipes to make
money flow out of them.
some interesting sites which can be used to get
money out of the internet:
Amazon's Mechanical Turk
allows people to simply log on and start answering BPO
style questions on a web page. People can get additional
certifications which allow them to answer hire value questions.
Ether a personal call center
service lets individuals register themselves as experts in a
particular field and set the terms under which they are willing
to answer questions.
elance.com rentacoder.com odesk.com An increasing number
of sites helping individuals land jobs that can be performed
via the internet.
Kiva.org & prosper.com
let individuals apply for a loan to regular people on the Internet. Kiva is focused on microfinance and helping small entrepreneurs get started.
GlobalGiving.org lets NGO's submit
loan applications directly to the Internet.
DrishteeHaat.com EBay E-Commerce, DrishteeHaat is focused on
helping villagers sell crafts online.
---
Given the potential of the internet to be a source of capital for
its users, its worth examining the different business models Internet
Operators may use.
Freelance BPO / Call / Dev Center.
Now that individuals can connect with potential employers fairly
directly, there is a role for an upscale internet cafe type operation
which provides its users with an SLA which guarantees VOIP level
connectivity, and probably a dedicated virtual machine such that
they could setup their environment and store data in a secure persistant
way.
Internet Agent.
While the Dev Center is primarily concerned with enabling people
to actively earn money on the Internet, Internet agents simply represent
the internet to people working in the real world. So these would be
individuals familiar with the net and access to a connection possibly
as simple as a cell phone. They would talk with their customers and help
them represent themselves to the Internet. This could take the form of
selling goods via e-commerce, requesting a loan thru a service like kiva,
government assistance, or ngo assistance thru something like globalgiving.
***
I'm excited about the airjaldi(.com) coming up
in October. A number of friends are coming by
with interests in different aspects of the rural
internet equation. Its going to be lots of fun.
Laura Drewett & Ian Howard will be running a
workshop on Financial Engineering for rural
internet providers. I'm looking forward to it.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
happy
> have you ever wondered where you´re coming from?
> and why you are here?
the first half of last year
i basically sat around different
parts of india, wondering what
i was doing, what i wanted ...
i think its a particular neurosis
that comes from being free
and not having to worry about
basic necessities
i felt that if i couldn't figure out
in some sort of definitive way
what i wanted, then i wouldn't
know if i had it, and couldn't work toward it
in any kind of systematic way.
some things that came up for me:
i am still driven to create.
i want to make the world a better place
i want to be happy & healthy now
i dont want to sacrifice present health & happiness
for future dreams and ambition
> and why you are here?
the first half of last year
i basically sat around different
parts of india, wondering what
i was doing, what i wanted ...
i think its a particular neurosis
that comes from being free
and not having to worry about
basic necessities
i felt that if i couldn't figure out
in some sort of definitive way
what i wanted, then i wouldn't
know if i had it, and couldn't work toward it
in any kind of systematic way.
some things that came up for me:
i am still driven to create.
i want to make the world a better place
i want to be happy & healthy now
i dont want to sacrifice present health & happiness
for future dreams and ambition
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Vlogger In Residency Program
Its looking like im going to buy a flat in the San Mateo Ecovillage.
Its a gorgeous funky spot on the water in San Mateo. It just sorta seems
like too much my scene to pass up, even if I'm living in India.
http://www.greensolutions.org/smcc.htm
As I'm living in India tho, I don't really need a gorgeous funky spot
in silicon valley to live so I thought I would use it to support
Video Bloggers who are interested in useing their craft to make the world
a better place.
This idea is just being formed - I haven't even closed on the place yet,
but I think it looks likely enough that I put together a simple wiki
http://vloggerir.pbwiki.com/
and made alittle video intro
http://blip.tv/file/70482
Its a gorgeous funky spot on the water in San Mateo. It just sorta seems
like too much my scene to pass up, even if I'm living in India.
http://www.greensolutions.org/smcc.htm
As I'm living in India tho, I don't really need a gorgeous funky spot
in silicon valley to live so I thought I would use it to support
Video Bloggers who are interested in useing their craft to make the world
a better place.
This idea is just being formed - I haven't even closed on the place yet,
but I think it looks likely enough that I put together a simple wiki
http://vloggerir.pbwiki.com/
and made alittle video intro
http://blip.tv/file/70482
Friday, September 01, 2006
Swajana
I've been working on this project for alittle while, and its beginning to bear fruit.
The basic concept is simply to use internet video to bring awareness to those parts of the world that need attention, and those people who are actively working to address the situations there.
My goal is to increase awareness of the diversity of people and lifestyles around the world, to evoke empathy for people living in remote areas by sharing their lives with people online, and to facilitate communication between the first and third worlds by providing very direct means for talking, giving, trading, lending, teaching.
The first project we've engaged is the dharmasala mesh network and conference http://airjaldi.org coming up in october. Videos are now available at http://swajana.blip.tv
The basic concept is simply to use internet video to bring awareness to those parts of the world that need attention, and those people who are actively working to address the situations there.
My goal is to increase awareness of the diversity of people and lifestyles around the world, to evoke empathy for people living in remote areas by sharing their lives with people online, and to facilitate communication between the first and third worlds by providing very direct means for talking, giving, trading, lending, teaching.
The first project we've engaged is the dharmasala mesh network and conference http://airjaldi.org coming up in october. Videos are now available at http://swajana.blip.tv
Friday, August 25, 2006
pallet racks
just made a pallet rack photoset on my flicker
http://www.flickr.com/photos/freeman/sets/72157594251251366/
and a talk on building a pallet rack university or living
structure on my videoblog http://freeman.blip.tv
http://www.flickr.com/photos/freeman/sets/72157594251251366/
and a talk on building a pallet rack university or living
structure on my videoblog http://freeman.blip.tv
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Against School
Against School
How public education cripples our kids, and why
How public education cripples our kids, and why
This is an extremely good essay on compulsary education.
Education is definitely high on my list of areas
to address in the philanthropy I engage in.
In India I am routinely impressed by the intelligence
and vitality of the street children. Many children well
under 14 are holding down what seem to me serious jobs
with integrity and self respect. On numerous occasions
I have found myself negotiating on equal footing with an
8 year old about the cost of a wooden chess set or pair
of sandals.
A quick and wistfull sentiment I sometimes feel is
"wow, this kid is so smart, just imagine what he could
do if he went to school"
Im coming to believe that these kids may be so bright
and self assured compared with their american counterparts
because they don't spend their days in total boredom isolated
from any real (risky) interaction with the world.
I recently visited a school set up in a rural area here in India
where some very nice buildings had been constructed to provide
education to the local village children. The classrooms
were nice, the teachers seemed as competent as my own had been,
and watching them give sample lessons to the kids reminded me of
everything I hated about school.
As I engage in this process and try to 'help'
I need to be careful that I don't propogate some of the worst aspects
of my culture and background.
**
People at work talk about the gurukul system that used to be popular here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurukul
Monday, August 21, 2006
India Activity
india has some crazy potential.
1 billion people
600 - 700 million people still live in the villages
over 500 million people are under 25
in bombay there is a large population of well spoken
well educated people graduating from college in media
studies without specific prospects. typically they start
working in a BPO or call center for 10 - 15k rupees / month
(250$ - 350$) which is seen as a pretty good salary for someone
just out of college but has limitted opprotunities for
career advancement.
i have recently hired a couple of guys from these schools
to help me put together video blogs. they are very
excited as they can see the potential of internet TV to
change everything, and it is an opprotunity for them to be
a part of something very big.
the first vertical
we are going after is documenting the lives and works of people
dedicating themselves to service. http://swajana.blip.tv there are
many other ideas for videoblogs that we want to produce as we train
up a crew of people in the skills and culture necessary.
towards this i am trying to establish something like a node101
hub near the university district here in Pune, and then later in
central bombay where some of the larger schools are. this is
where the people working with me will operate from, and we
will also teach workshops on video blogging and other useful
technologies, and then recruit interns and eventually employees
to work with us.
so, in this way i think we can rapidly and inexpensively ramp
up a large population of cool kids trained in video production if
we can come up with vertical categories to produce video
blogs for that could generate at least enough thru advertizing
to cover our operating costs.
thru our ngo video blog project we have connected with a number
of interesting groups so far.
one is the digital studyhall project http://dsh.cs.washington.edu/
their goal is to produce a massive library of video education materials
that can be used to augment the inadequate education generally available
to the worlds poor. there is a massive amount of work to be done in this area.
another group we've met with is a very large ngo that was
started soon after independence by a friend of Gandhi. They
provide medical, educational and vocational services to villagers
around india.
they have a number of exciting projects going on focused around
three goals of teaching rural farmers sustainable and effecient
agriculture practices, developing non-farming employment in the
villages, and developing and educating the youth in the villages.
thru these objectives they hope to stem the flow of young people
from the relatively sustainable lifestyles in the villages to the extreme
poverty of the urban slums.
i have this notion that we may be able to train a large number
young people in bombay and pune to create video and basic
websites, and then connect them with different
villages where we can create videos of many stories out there
including documenting the history of the skilled artisans. we
would follow this up by developing simple ecommerce sites
enabling people to sell their crafts online.
i really like the idea of training the kids of people who came
to bombay to create video and work effectively with technology
and then sending them back to the villages to work on using
these skills to make money and improve the quality of life for
people there.
1 billion people
600 - 700 million people still live in the villages
over 500 million people are under 25
in bombay there is a large population of well spoken
well educated people graduating from college in media
studies without specific prospects. typically they start
working in a BPO or call center for 10 - 15k rupees / month
(250$ - 350$) which is seen as a pretty good salary for someone
just out of college but has limitted opprotunities for
career advancement.
i have recently hired a couple of guys from these schools
to help me put together video blogs. they are very
excited as they can see the potential of internet TV to
change everything, and it is an opprotunity for them to be
a part of something very big.
the first vertical
we are going after is documenting the lives and works of people
dedicating themselves to service. http://swajana.blip.tv there are
many other ideas for videoblogs that we want to produce as we train
up a crew of people in the skills and culture necessary.
towards this i am trying to establish something like a node101
hub near the university district here in Pune, and then later in
central bombay where some of the larger schools are. this is
where the people working with me will operate from, and we
will also teach workshops on video blogging and other useful
technologies, and then recruit interns and eventually employees
to work with us.
so, in this way i think we can rapidly and inexpensively ramp
up a large population of cool kids trained in video production if
we can come up with vertical categories to produce video
blogs for that could generate at least enough thru advertizing
to cover our operating costs.
thru our ngo video blog project we have connected with a number
of interesting groups so far.
one is the digital studyhall project http://dsh.cs.washington.edu/
their goal is to produce a massive library of video education materials
that can be used to augment the inadequate education generally available
to the worlds poor. there is a massive amount of work to be done in this area.
another group we've met with is a very large ngo that was
started soon after independence by a friend of Gandhi. They
provide medical, educational and vocational services to villagers
around india.
they have a number of exciting projects going on focused around
three goals of teaching rural farmers sustainable and effecient
agriculture practices, developing non-farming employment in the
villages, and developing and educating the youth in the villages.
thru these objectives they hope to stem the flow of young people
from the relatively sustainable lifestyles in the villages to the extreme
poverty of the urban slums.
i have this notion that we may be able to train a large number
young people in bombay and pune to create video and basic
websites, and then connect them with different
villages where we can create videos of many stories out there
including documenting the history of the skilled artisans. we
would follow this up by developing simple ecommerce sites
enabling people to sell their crafts online.
i really like the idea of training the kids of people who came
to bombay to create video and work effectively with technology
and then sending them back to the villages to work on using
these skills to make money and improve the quality of life for
people there.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Friday, July 21, 2006
Microfinance - Rural Internet Kiosk Killer App
What started as a conversation about how to
enable would be rural internet operators apply
to the internet for start-up funding has broadened
into a larger conversation of how to train internet
operators to help members of their community submit
loan applications to online loan services like kiva.org.
enable would be rural internet operators apply
to the internet for start-up funding has broadened
into a larger conversation of how to train internet
operators to help members of their community submit
loan applications to online loan services like kiva.org.
Friday, July 14, 2006
more edu 2.0 ...
- videoblog training
make training videos for the web using all available
low cost technologies - esp. screencasting , but also
ppt presentations, and talking into the camera. develop
a standard format for this, which includes lecture, screencast,
and question and answer from the audience (probably asynchronous
online)
- blogging & forums, students should spend a substantial
amount of time blogging and answering questions on forums.
this will build up a reputation for them individual as well as for
the organization generally
- open source, the core technologies we work with are open source
contributing to these projects helps to establish us as experts in the
field, it also does alot for building up development process discipline,
and networking with high level people in the industry.
- probono, rentacoder, elance ...
fairly early in people's training they should start doing probono projects
for non-profits, and start to take very low paying jobs off of elance and
rentacoder. this will get people experience working on real projects.
- full price paying contracts
make training videos for the web using all available
low cost technologies - esp. screencasting , but also
ppt presentations, and talking into the camera. develop
a standard format for this, which includes lecture, screencast,
and question and answer from the audience (probably asynchronous
online)
- blogging & forums, students should spend a substantial
amount of time blogging and answering questions on forums.
this will build up a reputation for them individual as well as for
the organization generally
- open source, the core technologies we work with are open source
contributing to these projects helps to establish us as experts in the
field, it also does alot for building up development process discipline,
and networking with high level people in the industry.
- probono, rentacoder, elance ...
fairly early in people's training they should start doing probono projects
for non-profits, and start to take very low paying jobs off of elance and
rentacoder. this will get people experience working on real projects.
- full price paying contracts
Friday, July 07, 2006
Cyber cafe business potential untapped -Educational Centres
The Asianage (11/25/2005 10:43:55 PM)
Mumbai, Nov. 25: Cyber cafes in India have the potential to become the educational centres of our nation, said Mr R.N. Bhaskar, chairman, E-Convergence Technologies Ltd, at a seminar on Thursday on “cyber cafes future prospects and challenges.”
“While we have only 5,50,000 broadband connections, China has 30 million. Using cyber cafes for education can become big business with the advent of voice telephony and the increase in broadband connections in the nation,” he said.
With a major dearth of skilled teachers in the country and with only three per cent of the population having completed graduate study, cyber experts suggested the use of virtual education classes over broadband connections as an effective method in lowering the cost of education and in reaching out to rural villages. There are more than 1,05,000 cyber cafes in the country and cyber cafes were reported to be growing at 45 per cent annually.
Mumbai, Nov. 25: Cyber cafes in India have the potential to become the educational centres of our nation, said Mr R.N. Bhaskar, chairman, E-Convergence Technologies Ltd, at a seminar on Thursday on “cyber cafes future prospects and challenges.”
“While we have only 5,50,000 broadband connections, China has 30 million. Using cyber cafes for education can become big business with the advent of voice telephony and the increase in broadband connections in the nation,” he said.
With a major dearth of skilled teachers in the country and with only three per cent of the population having completed graduate study, cyber experts suggested the use of virtual education classes over broadband connections as an effective method in lowering the cost of education and in reaching out to rural villages. There are more than 1,05,000 cyber cafes in the country and cyber cafes were reported to be growing at 45 per cent annually.
Friday, June 30, 2006
getting started
Brajeshwar whom i work with has some extra space in an office up in anderi, mumbai. Its already well wired and has computers, desks and some administrative support.
I've been working with Zack Rosen to set up a internship program for junior software developers in india to get experience working on Drupal. So far this has been a work from home project.
I am exploring with Brajeshwar the idea of doing something alittle more ambitious at his space in mumbai.
from a letter to zack:
my goals are to:
- actively improve the opensource codebase (and ancillary things like
testing and docs)
by having quality developers contribute to it.
- increase the number of open source developers
- increase the number of developers who are able to effectively
configure and deploy
drupal based websites
- create sites and provide support for ngo type organizations that
have worthy causes
but wouldn't necessarily have the skills or resources to build or
hire contractors to
build websites for them.
towards this i would like to hire a couple people to work on
civicspace full time.
this could be treated similarly as the summer of code trainings, only with the
expectation that this is an ongoing thing. additionally we might have a small
'class' of interns / students who would be going thru this as a
training process.
i would like them to:
- actively contribute to the codebase. possibly filling in holes that are hard
to get volunteer contributors to work on.
- provide training to other individuals and to create video training materials
helping people to understand how to use civicspace
- possibly as part of student projects provide support for non-profit
organizations
- eventually possibly opening up to do paid contract work
i would also like to establish a Node101 there. I feel the video production group is critical at all lecture / learning opprotunities. With people doing web development, software development, and video production for the web - we have a humble but sustainable beginning to a next generation technical institute.
I've been working with Zack Rosen to set up a internship program for junior software developers in india to get experience working on Drupal. So far this has been a work from home project.
I am exploring with Brajeshwar the idea of doing something alittle more ambitious at his space in mumbai.
from a letter to zack:
my goals are to:
- actively improve the opensource codebase (and ancillary things like
testing and docs)
by having quality developers contribute to it.
- increase the number of open source developers
- increase the number of developers who are able to effectively
configure and deploy
drupal based websites
- create sites and provide support for ngo type organizations that
have worthy causes
but wouldn't necessarily have the skills or resources to build or
hire contractors to
build websites for them.
towards this i would like to hire a couple people to work on
civicspace full time.
this could be treated similarly as the summer of code trainings, only with the
expectation that this is an ongoing thing. additionally we might have a small
'class' of interns / students who would be going thru this as a
training process.
i would like them to:
- actively contribute to the codebase. possibly filling in holes that are hard
to get volunteer contributors to work on.
- provide training to other individuals and to create video training materials
helping people to understand how to use civicspace
- possibly as part of student projects provide support for non-profit
organizations
- eventually possibly opening up to do paid contract work
i would also like to establish a Node101 there. I feel the video production group is critical at all lecture / learning opprotunities. With people doing web development, software development, and video production for the web - we have a humble but sustainable beginning to a next generation technical institute.
capital irrigation
http://apiap.org
are cybercafes the technical institutes of tomarro ?
of today ?
apparently running a cybercafe in the developing world
isn't an especially lucrative business yet. in india the
average per hour rate for access is 15 rupees. ~ 27 cents.
education however is a big market. all the way down the
social stratosphere people are looking to gain technology
skills to help them rise out of poverty.
cybercafes have become very prevalent , even in very
impoverished areas.
if a concerted effort was made to produce video training materials
in the urban centers where there are a wealth of very educated and
technicaly trained people. this content could form the lecture base
to a very broad distributed educational system available wherever
cybercafes are.
to be maximally effective this should be developed into a program
in which a very large and explicit part of passing thru the system
was mentoring students younger in the program.
if structured correctly, this kind of thing could scale very largely
with minimal capital contribution, and would create tribes / clans
of people with experience working together.
this could also be tied to a system like mechanical turk , elance or
rentacoder which provides jobs that can be executed via the internet
such that an ecology is created in which the internet connection the
cafe operators bring in to a community are used both to deliver jobs
and the training necessary to perform them.
or more succinctly:
for those able to speak its language
the internet connection becomes a hose which spews money
think of it as capital irrigation
are cybercafes the technical institutes of tomarro ?
of today ?
apparently running a cybercafe in the developing world
isn't an especially lucrative business yet. in india the
average per hour rate for access is 15 rupees. ~ 27 cents.
education however is a big market. all the way down the
social stratosphere people are looking to gain technology
skills to help them rise out of poverty.
cybercafes have become very prevalent , even in very
impoverished areas.
if a concerted effort was made to produce video training materials
in the urban centers where there are a wealth of very educated and
technicaly trained people. this content could form the lecture base
to a very broad distributed educational system available wherever
cybercafes are.
to be maximally effective this should be developed into a program
in which a very large and explicit part of passing thru the system
was mentoring students younger in the program.
if structured correctly, this kind of thing could scale very largely
with minimal capital contribution, and would create tribes / clans
of people with experience working together.
this could also be tied to a system like mechanical turk , elance or
rentacoder which provides jobs that can be executed via the internet
such that an ecology is created in which the internet connection the
cafe operators bring in to a community are used both to deliver jobs
and the training necessary to perform them.
or more succinctly:
for those able to speak its language
the internet connection becomes a hose which spews money
think of it as capital irrigation
edu 2.0 part II
a supportive space for developers and apprentices
on open source projects to gather and ply their trade.
here are the rough categories i feel are important to developers
coming of age right now, especially in developing areas like india.
video & media production : fcp / premiere / ...
design : photoshop / flash ...
web development : flash / css / dreamweaver / ...
content management : civicspace / sugarcrm / ...
development : php / ruby / java / javascript / ajax ...
frameworks : rails / hibernate / dojo ...
database : mysql / postres ...
sysadmin : linux
networking : wifi / mesh / traditional ...
financing : ...
ecommerce : ...
logistics & import / export : ...
an interesting excersize is to go thru this list
and look for existing foundations which serve these
spaces now
video: node101, pixelcorps.com
cms: civicspace.org
ajax: dojo foundation
frameworks: apache foundation
database: ...
please let me know suggestions for others.
note:
video blogging is especially important to the mix
as the video people can create training videos from the experiences
of everyone else learning how to use their respective technologies.
this increases visibility for the vertical "expert", the videographer,
and also adds to the global knowledgebase, helping other people pick
up the technology easier.
on open source projects to gather and ply their trade.
here are the rough categories i feel are important to developers
coming of age right now, especially in developing areas like india.
video & media production : fcp / premiere / ...
design : photoshop / flash ...
web development : flash / css / dreamweaver / ...
content management : civicspace / sugarcrm / ...
development : php / ruby / java / javascript / ajax ...
frameworks : rails / hibernate / dojo ...
database : mysql / postres ...
sysadmin : linux
networking : wifi / mesh / traditional ...
financing : ...
ecommerce : ...
logistics & import / export : ...
an interesting excersize is to go thru this list
and look for existing foundations which serve these
spaces now
video: node101, pixelcorps.com
cms: civicspace.org
ajax: dojo foundation
frameworks: apache foundation
database: ...
please let me know suggestions for others.
note:
video blogging is especially important to the mix
as the video people can create training videos from the experiences
of everyone else learning how to use their respective technologies.
this increases visibility for the vertical "expert", the videographer,
and also adds to the global knowledgebase, helping other people pick
up the technology easier.
edu 2.0
i've been thinking about what a university
or technical institute should look like in a web 2.0
world in which internet connectivity is given.
certification, long a major impediment to independent training
institutes seems less important in an era of google an ego surfing.
so, that aspect of training which is focused on helping you to
land a job (as contrasted with perform a job) could / should be
devoted to helping students develop online credible profiles which
demonstrate competence in the areas claimed by the resume with links
to actual code - ideally in use in popular open source systems.
long term involvement with the larger open source projects could
be invalueable to the aspireing technical worker. possibly most
importantly by immersing the student in a strict development process
in which the user experiences the interpersonal protocols surrounding
development on large scale software projects.
in an ideal scenario students would also receive meaningful feedback from
very senior people on the team which would do wonders for improving
the quality of code they were producing. These mentors could also become
references and possibly sources of jobs.
it may also lead to a scene in which the distinction between a persons
'student life' and 'work life' became less distinct and one in which the
bonds between groups of individuals who liked to work together became
stronger and longer lasting than the ties to the corporate funding structure
du jour.
or technical institute should look like in a web 2.0
world in which internet connectivity is given.
certification, long a major impediment to independent training
institutes seems less important in an era of google an ego surfing.
so, that aspect of training which is focused on helping you to
land a job (as contrasted with perform a job) could / should be
devoted to helping students develop online credible profiles which
demonstrate competence in the areas claimed by the resume with links
to actual code - ideally in use in popular open source systems.
long term involvement with the larger open source projects could
be invalueable to the aspireing technical worker. possibly most
importantly by immersing the student in a strict development process
in which the user experiences the interpersonal protocols surrounding
development on large scale software projects.
in an ideal scenario students would also receive meaningful feedback from
very senior people on the team which would do wonders for improving
the quality of code they were producing. These mentors could also become
references and possibly sources of jobs.
it may also lead to a scene in which the distinction between a persons
'student life' and 'work life' became less distinct and one in which the
bonds between groups of individuals who liked to work together became
stronger and longer lasting than the ties to the corporate funding structure
du jour.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Tech & Social Service - conferences
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/ictd2006/ 5/25 - 5/26
ICTD2006 is a multidisciplinary forum for academic researchers
designing information and communication technologies for developing
economies.
http://barcamp.org/WineCamp 5/26 - 5/28
An ad-hoc gathering that brings together the best of the old world and
the new... wine, non-profits and geeks!
http://www.netsquared.org/conference 5/30 - 5/31
The Net Squared conference will bring a dynamic mix of international
leaders in emerging technology, politics and philanthropy together to
discuss the future of tech enabled social change work.
ICTD2006 is a multidisciplinary forum for academic researchers
designing information and communication technologies for developing
economies.
http://barcamp.org/WineCamp 5/26 - 5/28
An ad-hoc gathering that brings together the best of the old world and
the new... wine, non-profits and geeks!
http://www.netsquared.org/conference 5/30 - 5/31
The Net Squared conference will bring a dynamic mix of international
leaders in emerging technology, politics and philanthropy together to
discuss the future of tech enabled social change work.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Monday, May 15, 2006
connecting the next 2 billion people
this weekend at barcamp(mumbai) was my own personal tipping point
in wanting to start puting something into action reguarding using
the internet to revitalize rural communities around india.
I've talked to a number of super bright people who also want to
do things in this area, so I figured it was time to push towards
defining a plan of action and working capital once thats established.
below are some thoughts that have been circulating in my head.
I'd love any help towards taking this in the direction of a concrete
plan we could execute and finance. I'd also appreciate any links
people could share of similar projects in existence or being planned
thanks
freeman
--------
i'd like to use the internet to bring jobs,
education, communication and general
vitality into rural areas.
my sense is that to do this we need to
define what services can be provided more
cheaply & effectively to these regions via the
internet than via other means.
one big area is media & education.
if we assume that via some low cost networking
solution we can deliver rich videos and other media,
then we can produce or distribute training or entertainment
out thru this channel. the content might even be relayed to
people via the local cable operator or local fm radio transmitter.
another big area is jobs. if we can make people aware of the
jobs that are available either BPO style working via the internet,
or by providing internet services to their local communities, AND
we can provide them the training (and potentially the financing)
to help execute this. thats a big win.
there are a variety of other services we may be able to provide
microcredit, e-government, email & voicemail, ....
I am interested in defining a systematic plan for how to role
this out. This will include setting up a local media center where
we produce a great deal of training and news type video materials,
as well as a program for how we actually train people and deploy
them into different villages to work on getting connectivity established,
facilitateing local training, producing some local media, and maybe
conducting commerce on behalf of the local communities.
a goal I would like to meet is to submit a proposal to newventuresindia
by june 30 so they will consider us for financing and mentoring in their
2006 round.
using the internet to deliver jobs and training to rural communities around
the world is cool enough that i believe we just need to come up with a
plausible plan for how to go about it to get the financial and political support
we need.
links -
new ventures india - application guidelines
http://www.newventuresindia.org/nvi/Content/index.jsp
high bandwidth high latency internet
http://unitedvillages.com
http://dsh.cs.washington.edu/postmanet_paper/
in wanting to start puting something into action reguarding using
the internet to revitalize rural communities around india.
I've talked to a number of super bright people who also want to
do things in this area, so I figured it was time to push towards
defining a plan of action and working capital once thats established.
below are some thoughts that have been circulating in my head.
I'd love any help towards taking this in the direction of a concrete
plan we could execute and finance. I'd also appreciate any links
people could share of similar projects in existence or being planned
thanks
freeman
--------
i'd like to use the internet to bring jobs,
education, communication and general
vitality into rural areas.
my sense is that to do this we need to
define what services can be provided more
cheaply & effectively to these regions via the
internet than via other means.
one big area is media & education.
if we assume that via some low cost networking
solution we can deliver rich videos and other media,
then we can produce or distribute training or entertainment
out thru this channel. the content might even be relayed to
people via the local cable operator or local fm radio transmitter.
another big area is jobs. if we can make people aware of the
jobs that are available either BPO style working via the internet,
or by providing internet services to their local communities, AND
we can provide them the training (and potentially the financing)
to help execute this. thats a big win.
there are a variety of other services we may be able to provide
microcredit, e-government, email & voicemail, ....
I am interested in defining a systematic plan for how to role
this out. This will include setting up a local media center where
we produce a great deal of training and news type video materials,
as well as a program for how we actually train people and deploy
them into different villages to work on getting connectivity established,
facilitateing local training, producing some local media, and maybe
conducting commerce on behalf of the local communities.
a goal I would like to meet is to submit a proposal to newventuresindia
by june 30 so they will consider us for financing and mentoring in their
2006 round.
using the internet to deliver jobs and training to rural communities around
the world is cool enough that i believe we just need to come up with a
plausible plan for how to go about it to get the financial and political support
we need.
links -
new ventures india - application guidelines
http://www.newventuresindia.org/nvi/Content/index.jsp
high bandwidth high latency internet
http://unitedvillages.com
http://dsh.cs.washington.edu/postmanet_paper/
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
unfortunately freeman
I saw this on the web somewhere. Type 'Unfortunately (your name)' into google and see what comes back.
Unfortunately Freeman is a convicted felon, convicted of armed robbery in 1974 and paroled in 1979.
Unfortunately, Freeman was forced to part with the "old me" until her husband's alcoholism and abusive behavior finally ended in his being committed to the ...
Unfortunately she met doctor Freeman in the 1950's and he convinced her to have a lobotomy.
Unfortunately, Freeman's arrangement smooths out the rhythm, mutes the accents and induces Osborne to deliver a bland vocal with none of the passion
Unfortunately Freeman is a convicted felon, convicted of armed robbery in 1974 and paroled in 1979.
Unfortunately, Freeman was forced to part with the "old me" until her husband's alcoholism and abusive behavior finally ended in his being committed to the ...
Unfortunately she met doctor Freeman in the 1950's and he convinced her to have a lobotomy.
Unfortunately, Freeman's arrangement smooths out the rhythm, mutes the accents and induces Osborne to deliver a bland vocal with none of the passion
Friday, March 03, 2006
Dying in America
I was talking with a friend from Russia about how her grandparents died. She said they just died. One of her grandfathers died in his sleep, another had cancer of some kind that made it impossible to eat.
They took him to the hospital. The hospital said they could do nothing. So, they brought him home, and he died a “relatively” slow death. It took about 3 weeks and was uncomfortable. On the upside, all the family was there and he was well cared for.
My grandma on my mom’s side also cannot eat. It’s not cancer. I want to call it old age (she’s 93), but maybe that’s unfair. I know not too long ago her stomach was sucked into her esophagus. She had surgery to fix this, but I don’t think she has been able to swallow since. Grandma is Italian, all my life she has been feeding me.
When the doctors explained the problem to my mom, she talked to my grandma and said something like, “Momma, there’s something wrong with your throat so you can’t swallow anymore. Either the doctors put a tube directly into your stomach and feed you with a machine, or you starve to death over the next few days.” My grandma said, “I guess I’ll take the machine”.
She is in a convalescent hospital now. She sleeps most of the time. The machine is always there, pumping “Fiber Blend” into her stomach every 15 seconds.
My grandpa is with her. It is nice they are together.
When people talk about dying in their sleep, my understanding is this is usually from heart failure. My grandpa had a small heart attack in his late 60’s, and another in his late 70’s. A computerized sales call hitting his bedside at 3am caused the second attack.
In his early 80’s, the doctors put him on medication to thin his blood, or slow down his heart, or something like that to help prevent more attacks. The effect was to put him to sleep for the great majority of the next couple of years.
One day a substitute doctor saw my granddad and was appalled at all his medications. He promptly cancelled most of them. Overnight grandpa woke up and rejoined the family.
Several years went by, and one night when he was 88 or so grandma got worried when he did not come back to the easy chair after getting up to go to the bathroom. Grandma wandered through the house looking for him. She found him in a stupor, sitting on the bedroom floor.
She called 911. The ambulance came and took them to the hospital. The doctor talked to my mom around 3am. He told her that grandpa had suffered a heart “event”, his brain was starved for oxygen for some amount of time, it was unclear how much damage had been done, his heart beat was erratic, and if they didn’t put in a pacemaker he would probably die that night.
My mom had them put in the pacemaker.
He is a favorite at the convalescent hospital. Physically he is relatively mobile, and he is gracious and charming. He did lose something that night. One time I came to visit wearing a red Che Guevara sweatshirt with a star on the front. My hair was very short after shaving my dreadlocks off a month before. Grandpa called me admiral, shook my hand and let me know how much he appreciated my visiting him while I was on leave, and asked me where I was stationed now – about 20 times.
Grandma and Grandpa were working class folks. People complain about the Teamsters, but the union was nothing but good for my grandparents. They weren’t rich but they received good pensions working in the canning and bottling mills of Canada Dry and Schlitz. They spent their money frugally, saving a little each month. Altogether, they managed to save around $150,000 by the time things got bad and they had to move into the convalescent home.
Each month costs them around $11,000. They have been there close to a year, and will exhaust their life savings probably by June. I don’t know what this looks like. Grandpa can go to the VA hospital. Grandma?
My grandma on my father’s side was bedridden ten years, the last three in a skilled nursing facility before passing away. She was hooked to oxygen for much of her last years, and slept most of the time. I remember talking with my mom about this when her mom and dad started having a hard time. Both of them had signed documents that said “Do Not Resuscitate” and “No Life Support”.
At the time these phrases seemed clear, but as we go thru this process I realize that the actual problems people face as they die are generally more gradual and complex. And at 3am when decisions need to be made no one is checking through documents. They are asking the nearest loved one questions like, “Should we save your father’s life?”
They took him to the hospital. The hospital said they could do nothing. So, they brought him home, and he died a “relatively” slow death. It took about 3 weeks and was uncomfortable. On the upside, all the family was there and he was well cared for.
My grandma on my mom’s side also cannot eat. It’s not cancer. I want to call it old age (she’s 93), but maybe that’s unfair. I know not too long ago her stomach was sucked into her esophagus. She had surgery to fix this, but I don’t think she has been able to swallow since. Grandma is Italian, all my life she has been feeding me.
When the doctors explained the problem to my mom, she talked to my grandma and said something like, “Momma, there’s something wrong with your throat so you can’t swallow anymore. Either the doctors put a tube directly into your stomach and feed you with a machine, or you starve to death over the next few days.” My grandma said, “I guess I’ll take the machine”.
She is in a convalescent hospital now. She sleeps most of the time. The machine is always there, pumping “Fiber Blend” into her stomach every 15 seconds.
My grandpa is with her. It is nice they are together.
When people talk about dying in their sleep, my understanding is this is usually from heart failure. My grandpa had a small heart attack in his late 60’s, and another in his late 70’s. A computerized sales call hitting his bedside at 3am caused the second attack.
In his early 80’s, the doctors put him on medication to thin his blood, or slow down his heart, or something like that to help prevent more attacks. The effect was to put him to sleep for the great majority of the next couple of years.
One day a substitute doctor saw my granddad and was appalled at all his medications. He promptly cancelled most of them. Overnight grandpa woke up and rejoined the family.
Several years went by, and one night when he was 88 or so grandma got worried when he did not come back to the easy chair after getting up to go to the bathroom. Grandma wandered through the house looking for him. She found him in a stupor, sitting on the bedroom floor.
She called 911. The ambulance came and took them to the hospital. The doctor talked to my mom around 3am. He told her that grandpa had suffered a heart “event”, his brain was starved for oxygen for some amount of time, it was unclear how much damage had been done, his heart beat was erratic, and if they didn’t put in a pacemaker he would probably die that night.
My mom had them put in the pacemaker.
He is a favorite at the convalescent hospital. Physically he is relatively mobile, and he is gracious and charming. He did lose something that night. One time I came to visit wearing a red Che Guevara sweatshirt with a star on the front. My hair was very short after shaving my dreadlocks off a month before. Grandpa called me admiral, shook my hand and let me know how much he appreciated my visiting him while I was on leave, and asked me where I was stationed now – about 20 times.
Grandma and Grandpa were working class folks. People complain about the Teamsters, but the union was nothing but good for my grandparents. They weren’t rich but they received good pensions working in the canning and bottling mills of Canada Dry and Schlitz. They spent their money frugally, saving a little each month. Altogether, they managed to save around $150,000 by the time things got bad and they had to move into the convalescent home.
Each month costs them around $11,000. They have been there close to a year, and will exhaust their life savings probably by June. I don’t know what this looks like. Grandpa can go to the VA hospital. Grandma?
My grandma on my father’s side was bedridden ten years, the last three in a skilled nursing facility before passing away. She was hooked to oxygen for much of her last years, and slept most of the time. I remember talking with my mom about this when her mom and dad started having a hard time. Both of them had signed documents that said “Do Not Resuscitate” and “No Life Support”.
At the time these phrases seemed clear, but as we go thru this process I realize that the actual problems people face as they die are generally more gradual and complex. And at 3am when decisions need to be made no one is checking through documents. They are asking the nearest loved one questions like, “Should we save your father’s life?”
Friday, September 30, 2005
where are the cool americans ?
walking from the ashram to the german bakery a few days ago
i fell into conversation with a few guys who had just got off
a bus. asked where i thought they were from i guessed Bagdad.
they were from Amman.
They wondered whether i had been to an Arab country.
i joked that with the usa's behavior in the arab world
i'd be afraid of getting shot.
they were totally offended.
said the perception of arabs as violent was unfounded
and that they understood that the behavior of the governments
didn't reflect the wishes of the people - it never does.
...
in a later conversation in the bakery
with two of very few north americans i've met since travelling
we discussed why there are so few americans travelling ?
'paranoia' was everyone's first guess, tho it seems alittle
too superficial. i don't really believe that all the cool people
in america - and i can attest to the fact that they are there -
are really afraid of terrorists in places like thailand or india.
i don't have any good theories to explain our abscence,
but it doesn't reflect well on us.
i fell into conversation with a few guys who had just got off
a bus. asked where i thought they were from i guessed Bagdad.
they were from Amman.
They wondered whether i had been to an Arab country.
i joked that with the usa's behavior in the arab world
i'd be afraid of getting shot.
they were totally offended.
said the perception of arabs as violent was unfounded
and that they understood that the behavior of the governments
didn't reflect the wishes of the people - it never does.
...
in a later conversation in the bakery
with two of very few north americans i've met since travelling
we discussed why there are so few americans travelling ?
'paranoia' was everyone's first guess, tho it seems alittle
too superficial. i don't really believe that all the cool people
in america - and i can attest to the fact that they are there -
are really afraid of terrorists in places like thailand or india.
i don't have any good theories to explain our abscence,
but it doesn't reflect well on us.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Internet Media Seminar in Mumbai
looks like im going to give a couple of talks at commet media
a non profit in mumbai working to set up a new media school. fun fun.
Internet Media Revolution Seminar
What is going on right now with the internet revolution? What technologies are currently changing the way we communicate with each other and represent our own identities to the world ?
Highlights
In this seminar we will spend some time viewing the ways in which people are using internet technologies to communicate with the world. There will be an emphasis on video such as video blogs but will go thru other new technologies useful to the Internet Media Revolutionary such as:
· Podcasting
· Wiki’s
· Social Networks
· Tagging
· Shared Bookmarks
· Slow Networking
We will also explore the social, philosophical, and practical reasons for publishing on the internet.
The particulars
· Thursday Sept 29^th, Oct 13th & Oct 27th at 4:00pm for
90-120 mins.
· A portion of each session will be dedicated to viewing internet video content downloaded from the web.
· Each session will
· Each of the 3 Thursday sessions will be from 4 pm till roughly 5:30 pm.
· Each session will include
o Screening video blogs downloaded from the internet
o Demonstration of several internet technologies
o Discussion of their importance and relevance
o Questions and Answers
· Room for 10, so sign on soon.
The result
By the end of the seminar people should be familiar with the tools available to them to represent themselves on the internet as well as effectively communicate with the rest of the world via the internet.
Resource person: Freeman Murray
Freeman Murray studied Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Cruz which he left to join the Java group at Sun Microsystems in 1995 when the Internet was just starting to heat up. Over the following decade Freeman founded and sold his own Internet software business as well as helped other internet software businesses get going. For the past couple of years Freeman has been concentrated on internet video and how it can be used to democratize the global media.
a non profit in mumbai working to set up a new media school. fun fun.
Internet Media Revolution Seminar
What is going on right now with the internet revolution? What technologies are currently changing the way we communicate with each other and represent our own identities to the world ?
Highlights
In this seminar we will spend some time viewing the ways in which people are using internet technologies to communicate with the world. There will be an emphasis on video such as video blogs but will go thru other new technologies useful to the Internet Media Revolutionary such as:
· Podcasting
· Wiki’s
· Social Networks
· Tagging
· Shared Bookmarks
· Slow Networking
We will also explore the social, philosophical, and practical reasons for publishing on the internet.
The particulars
· Thursday Sept 29^th, Oct 13th & Oct 27th at 4:00pm for
90-120 mins.
· A portion of each session will be dedicated to viewing internet video content downloaded from the web.
· Each session will
· Each of the 3 Thursday sessions will be from 4 pm till roughly 5:30 pm.
· Each session will include
o Screening video blogs downloaded from the internet
o Demonstration of several internet technologies
o Discussion of their importance and relevance
o Questions and Answers
· Room for 10, so sign on soon.
The result
By the end of the seminar people should be familiar with the tools available to them to represent themselves on the internet as well as effectively communicate with the rest of the world via the internet.
Resource person: Freeman Murray
Freeman Murray studied Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Cruz which he left to join the Java group at Sun Microsystems in 1995 when the Internet was just starting to heat up. Over the following decade Freeman founded and sold his own Internet software business as well as helped other internet software businesses get going. For the past couple of years Freeman has been concentrated on internet video and how it can be used to democratize the global media.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
india recap
india is great
i totally feel im in the right spot for where im at
in my life right now.
i just spent 4 days in mumbai
and im sick again which is a bit of a bummer.
mumbai is new york style rockin
after spending some time in calcutta, delhi, and
pondicherry (auroville.org) i decided to get an
apartment in mumbai cause it seemed like the
most exciteing place and because im doing internet
video stuff, so it seemed potentially useful to be
close to bollywood.
after a few months tho i noticed i was sorta low
grade sick most of the time and decided i wasn't willing
to sacrifice my physical or mental health for some
abstract ambition. so i moved to pune which is more
laid back then bombay, but has a larger software
scene, a famous yoga institutre (bksiyengar.com), and
the osho(.com) ashram which has tai chi classes in
the morning, meditation classes thru out the day, and
healthy food.
since coming to pune i feel like ive got a cool healthy
lifestyle, im productive, and im not spending that much
money. - probably ~$500 / mo. which makes me feel
comphortable taking some time figureing stuff out.
i spend alot of time in the ashram - which is mostly
western - tho not american.
in the tech world
people are really friendly as everyone wants to get contracts
from america.
there's not much of a start-up scene here yet.
everyone wants outsourcing jobs. im really curious
about how to help get the start-up culture goig.
the outsourcing wave is just beginning
in every city ive been to, all the walls are plastered with
ads for classes promising to teach people java and C++ .
there's 500,000,000 people in india under 25 and some
decend percentage of them are looking at getting into software.
the software thing has also been going on long
enough that there are some very smart and senior
people here. they just get paid MUCH better.
someone fresh out of college may make $250 / mo
while an accomplished engineer with 7 years experience
may make ten times that.
on the tech / pro side ive been focusing around video
stuff for alittle while. with the low cost of video production
gear and internet distribution the major cost is labor - so
i see video production & post in india being pretty key to
the transition of the web to a more video format.
i also feel there's an opprotunity now to be kind of
systematic about produceing the media we feel is
necessary - like producing all the training programs
in the matrix. so, im talking with a couple groups
about helping get a low end video production studio
going over here.
there's alot of other areas i want to get into
on the software side as well, like figuring out
how to deliver high bandwidth high latency
internet content to remote areas
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rywang/postmanet_paper/
http://unitedvillages.com
and doing stuff with structured syndication
...
ideally i'd find some balance between
setting up teams for start-ups back home
and having some sort of labs which can
work on interesting new ideas with the
goal of either open sourcing the development
or starting up with it - or both :)
i totally feel im in the right spot for where im at
in my life right now.
i just spent 4 days in mumbai
and im sick again which is a bit of a bummer.
mumbai is new york style rockin
after spending some time in calcutta, delhi, and
pondicherry (auroville.org) i decided to get an
apartment in mumbai cause it seemed like the
most exciteing place and because im doing internet
video stuff, so it seemed potentially useful to be
close to bollywood.
after a few months tho i noticed i was sorta low
grade sick most of the time and decided i wasn't willing
to sacrifice my physical or mental health for some
abstract ambition. so i moved to pune which is more
laid back then bombay, but has a larger software
scene, a famous yoga institutre (bksiyengar.com), and
the osho(.com) ashram which has tai chi classes in
the morning, meditation classes thru out the day, and
healthy food.
since coming to pune i feel like ive got a cool healthy
lifestyle, im productive, and im not spending that much
money. - probably ~$500 / mo. which makes me feel
comphortable taking some time figureing stuff out.
i spend alot of time in the ashram - which is mostly
western - tho not american.
in the tech world
people are really friendly as everyone wants to get contracts
from america.
there's not much of a start-up scene here yet.
everyone wants outsourcing jobs. im really curious
about how to help get the start-up culture goig.
the outsourcing wave is just beginning
in every city ive been to, all the walls are plastered with
ads for classes promising to teach people java and C++ .
there's 500,000,000 people in india under 25 and some
decend percentage of them are looking at getting into software.
the software thing has also been going on long
enough that there are some very smart and senior
people here. they just get paid MUCH better.
someone fresh out of college may make $250 / mo
while an accomplished engineer with 7 years experience
may make ten times that.
on the tech / pro side ive been focusing around video
stuff for alittle while. with the low cost of video production
gear and internet distribution the major cost is labor - so
i see video production & post in india being pretty key to
the transition of the web to a more video format.
i also feel there's an opprotunity now to be kind of
systematic about produceing the media we feel is
necessary - like producing all the training programs
in the matrix. so, im talking with a couple groups
about helping get a low end video production studio
going over here.
there's alot of other areas i want to get into
on the software side as well, like figuring out
how to deliver high bandwidth high latency
internet content to remote areas
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rywang/postmanet_paper/
http://unitedvillages.com
and doing stuff with structured syndication
...
ideally i'd find some balance between
setting up teams for start-ups back home
and having some sort of labs which can
work on interesting new ideas with the
goal of either open sourcing the development
or starting up with it - or both :)
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
blessed are they that blog
for their thoughts are the lords
:)
tao just started a blog and reminded me
i hadn't posted in awhile.
its been almost all up since my last post
i moved to pune
im spending alot of time in the osho(.com) "meditation resort".
he's a controversial character, and people outside often feel
the place is too money oriented. from my experience tho the
lush and beautiful grounds and 7 free meditation sessions every
day justify the 330 rps cost of admission.
they have super healthy food too.
so for the first time since living on the beach in kauai
i feel i have a very healthy lifestyle.
there's some magic stuff that happens as i find myself in a situation
im willing to hang out in for awhile. minor parts of my routine have
the time to carve out some depth in my personality. i can take the time
to see who people are without having to make quick decisions. and i can
take the time to figure out where im going and how im going to get there.
good stuff.
6:30 - evening meeting starts in 10 minutes :)
:)
tao just started a blog and reminded me
i hadn't posted in awhile.
its been almost all up since my last post
i moved to pune
im spending alot of time in the osho(.com) "meditation resort".
he's a controversial character, and people outside often feel
the place is too money oriented. from my experience tho the
lush and beautiful grounds and 7 free meditation sessions every
day justify the 330 rps cost of admission.
they have super healthy food too.
so for the first time since living on the beach in kauai
i feel i have a very healthy lifestyle.
there's some magic stuff that happens as i find myself in a situation
im willing to hang out in for awhile. minor parts of my routine have
the time to carve out some depth in my personality. i can take the time
to see who people are without having to make quick decisions. and i can
take the time to figure out where im going and how im going to get there.
good stuff.
6:30 - evening meeting starts in 10 minutes :)
Sunday, June 12, 2005
im 10 days or so back in india
ive been belly sick for most of that
when i left india
i was belly sick
and realized
the very direct connection
between being physically sick
and mentally unhappy
that connection is pretty real for me again
and maybe its useful
being unhappy every once in awhile
useful if maybe a change of some kind
would be beneficial
ive lost alot of ambition since coming to india
i read in a book somewhere india was good for that
now at least some of what i have
are committments i made when i was more ambitious
right now lifestyle seems really important
if im not trying to get anywhere
than picking a good way to be
seems like a logical step
and begs the same questions
of whats important to me
and right now
im feeling community
and being closer to the land
i miss the campfires of larson's beach
where we'd cook meals together
and still looking
for how i fit in
in someway tho
im pretty convinced
that if i found a physical community
i'd figure that part out
...
ive been belly sick for most of that
when i left india
i was belly sick
and realized
the very direct connection
between being physically sick
and mentally unhappy
that connection is pretty real for me again
and maybe its useful
being unhappy every once in awhile
useful if maybe a change of some kind
would be beneficial
ive lost alot of ambition since coming to india
i read in a book somewhere india was good for that
now at least some of what i have
are committments i made when i was more ambitious
right now lifestyle seems really important
if im not trying to get anywhere
than picking a good way to be
seems like a logical step
and begs the same questions
of whats important to me
and right now
im feeling community
and being closer to the land
i miss the campfires of larson's beach
where we'd cook meals together
and still looking
for how i fit in
in someway tho
im pretty convinced
that if i found a physical community
i'd figure that part out
...
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
johanesburg, hong kong, istanbul, amsterdam, buenos aires
everyone travelling south east asia
stops by koh san road at some point
most people pass thru pretty quickly
on their way to the islands in the
south, the mountains in the north, or
laos, combodia, myanmar, or bali. i
haven't found it an especially easy
place to meet people.
but i've become friends with a fellow
traveller staying in my guest house
who's been travelling for the better
part of the past 10 years.
he told me there's five cities i need
to check out -
istanbul, johanesburg, amsterdam, buenos aires,
and hong kong where i should stay in the
chung king mansion for 20$ / night.
he says beijing is very cheap and alot more
arty than shanghai which is emerging as the
business center. apparently the transiberian
railroad connects into china. you can pick up
the train in beijing, take it all the way accross
russia and europe and get off in amsterdam. the
trip would take about 3 weeks.
he's been averaging about $15 / day. i think that
includes travel, as he generall travels over land
which tends to be very cheap.
at least while im playing traveller i've found
living very cheap as well. right now im paying
220 baht ($5) / night for a very nice room in a quiet
neighborhood close to kho san road. almost every
day i get a mixed fruit smoothie in the morning
and then a mango smoothie at lunch for 50 cents each.
there are fruit vendors everywhere selling half a pineapple,
cantelope, or papaya for 25 cents. a falafel sandwhich is
alittle expensive at 60 baht ($1.50). red curry tofu, vegetables,
and rice is less expensive than that most places.
transportation is cheap too
you have to haggle with the tuktuks so thats alittle
variable. with alittle patience tho you can get it
almost unconciably low for a long ride. public transportation
like the river boat and the skytrain are super cheap
11 baht will take you as far down the river as they go
and 40 baht will take you aruond the whole line that
skytrain does.
a funny thing i've notice is that outside the traveller
areas things get more expensive. i experienced this in
india as well. outside the traveller area in calcutta
all the hotels i checked out were at least 500 rupees
and generally closer to 1000 which was a far cry from
the 150 i was paying on sutter street.
even more than india tho, thailand starts feeling tokyo
upscale as you get closer to the downtown of the city.
im thinking specifically of this megamall in siam center
thats maybe 7 floors of chrome, escalators, and upscale
trendy shops.
since being in calcutta i've held the conviction that
for most people the future looks more like calcutta than
tokyo. its interesting to me that bangkok seems much more
in line with the tokyo path of development than the calcutta
one.
there's something i don't understand about why the cost of
living here is so low when it appears there is a very large
amound of discretionary spending going on.
mmm.
i haven't had pancakes since i left the states
but i saw them on the menu at the place i had lunch
yesterday, so i think im going to give them a try.
stops by koh san road at some point
most people pass thru pretty quickly
on their way to the islands in the
south, the mountains in the north, or
laos, combodia, myanmar, or bali. i
haven't found it an especially easy
place to meet people.
but i've become friends with a fellow
traveller staying in my guest house
who's been travelling for the better
part of the past 10 years.
he told me there's five cities i need
to check out -
istanbul, johanesburg, amsterdam, buenos aires,
and hong kong where i should stay in the
chung king mansion for 20$ / night.
he says beijing is very cheap and alot more
arty than shanghai which is emerging as the
business center. apparently the transiberian
railroad connects into china. you can pick up
the train in beijing, take it all the way accross
russia and europe and get off in amsterdam. the
trip would take about 3 weeks.
he's been averaging about $15 / day. i think that
includes travel, as he generall travels over land
which tends to be very cheap.
at least while im playing traveller i've found
living very cheap as well. right now im paying
220 baht ($5) / night for a very nice room in a quiet
neighborhood close to kho san road. almost every
day i get a mixed fruit smoothie in the morning
and then a mango smoothie at lunch for 50 cents each.
there are fruit vendors everywhere selling half a pineapple,
cantelope, or papaya for 25 cents. a falafel sandwhich is
alittle expensive at 60 baht ($1.50). red curry tofu, vegetables,
and rice is less expensive than that most places.
transportation is cheap too
you have to haggle with the tuktuks so thats alittle
variable. with alittle patience tho you can get it
almost unconciably low for a long ride. public transportation
like the river boat and the skytrain are super cheap
11 baht will take you as far down the river as they go
and 40 baht will take you aruond the whole line that
skytrain does.
a funny thing i've notice is that outside the traveller
areas things get more expensive. i experienced this in
india as well. outside the traveller area in calcutta
all the hotels i checked out were at least 500 rupees
and generally closer to 1000 which was a far cry from
the 150 i was paying on sutter street.
even more than india tho, thailand starts feeling tokyo
upscale as you get closer to the downtown of the city.
im thinking specifically of this megamall in siam center
thats maybe 7 floors of chrome, escalators, and upscale
trendy shops.
since being in calcutta i've held the conviction that
for most people the future looks more like calcutta than
tokyo. its interesting to me that bangkok seems much more
in line with the tokyo path of development than the calcutta
one.
there's something i don't understand about why the cost of
living here is so low when it appears there is a very large
amound of discretionary spending going on.
mmm.
i haven't had pancakes since i left the states
but i saw them on the menu at the place i had lunch
yesterday, so i think im going to give them a try.
thailand
im leaving thailand soon
its worth a note
im going to miss the fresh fruit most
of bangkok anyway
Koh Pha Nagn
when i first flew in to thailand
gaia was here and we immediately
took a bus down to kohphanagn
was probably the most beautiful and
healthy i've been to since i've been
travelling on this trip. along with
that was a cool scene of body concious
travellers i'd like to hang out with at
some point.
half way thru my week there i got a
message from ken saying they were ready
to get the development project in india
going, so i left the sanctuary and headed
back to bangkok where i've been waiting
for the funding to come thru for the past
10 days.
today is supposed to be the day.
its worth a note
im going to miss the fresh fruit most
of bangkok anyway
Koh Pha Nagn
when i first flew in to thailand
gaia was here and we immediately
took a bus down to kohphanagn
was probably the most beautiful and
healthy i've been to since i've been
travelling on this trip. along with
that was a cool scene of body concious
travellers i'd like to hang out with at
some point.
half way thru my week there i got a
message from ken saying they were ready
to get the development project in india
going, so i left the sanctuary and headed
back to bangkok where i've been waiting
for the funding to come thru for the past
10 days.
today is supposed to be the day.
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