Alan Sondheim on Sun, 15 Oct 2017 01:53:28 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> RIP Michael Gurstein
Oh hell, Ted. I worked with him in Cape Breton and elsewhere in NS on Wiring Nova Scotia; we were close until he moved west. We worked together in Sydney; it was wonderful and necessary work. I hadn't heard from him in a while. Thank you for passing this on. 
He was amazing.

Best, Alan

On Sat, 14 Oct 2017, t byfield wrote:


I'm sad to pass this news on.

T

< https://www.facebook.com/gurstein/posts/10155671874752457 >

Michael Gurstein

October 2, 1944 - October 8, 2017
Michael Gurstein was born on October 2, 1944 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to Emanuel (Manny) and Sylvia Gurstein. While still an infant, the family moved to Melfort, Saskatchewan where Manny grew up and his family still lived. In Mike?s youth, Manny and Sylvia ran a successful retail store. There, the family grew with a younger sister, Penny. Mike excelled at school. He spent his summers working at a golf club in Waskesiu and graduated from Melfort Composite Collegiate Institute high school, and then completed an undergraduate degree in philosophy at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. Mike was driven by pragmatism and curiosity about the wider world that motivated his doctoral studies in Sociology at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. While a student, he began his life-long exploration of the world, with trips through North Africa and a long journey from Southeast Asia through Afghanistan and Iran and back to the U.K. 
Upon Mike?s return to Canada, he worked in politics and policy, as a senior 
civil servant for the Province of British Columbia under Barrett?s NDP 
government (1972-4) and for the Province of Saskatchewan under Blakeney?s NDP 
Government (1974-5). While teaching at York University, he ran unsuccessfully 
for the NDP in the riding of Parkdale.

Mike moved to Ottawa in the late 1970s where he met his wife, Fernande 
Faulkner. Together they had two children, Rachel (1981) and Marc (1983). He 
and Fernande established and ran a management consulting firm, Socioscope, 
which studied and guided the social aspects of the introduction of 
information communication technology. In Ottawa, Mike also built and managed 
a real estate portfolio. In 1992 the family moved to New York, where Mike and 
Fernande worked for the United Nations.

In 1995, Mike became Associate Chair in the Management of Technological 
Change at the University College of Cape Breton. There, he founded the Centre 
for Community and Enterprise Networking (C/CEN) as a community based research 
laboratory exploring applications of ICT to support social change in one of 
Canada's most economically disadvantaged regions.

Grown out of his early experience in rural small town Saskatchewan and his 
later experiences in impoverished but culturally and communally rich Cape 
Breton, Mike's work provided the conceptual framing for ?community 
informatics?. He published the first major work in the field, and introduced 
the term "community informatics" into wider usage as referring to the 
research and praxis discipline underpinning the social appropriation of ICT. 
Within the area of community informatics a major contribution has been Mike's 
introduction of the notion of "effective use" as a critical analytical 
framework for assessing technology implementation superseding approaches 
based on the more commonly accepted frameworks such as that of the "digital 
divide".

In 1999, the family moved to Vancouver to be closer to Mike?s parents and 
sister. In 2000, Mike and Fernande returned to New York, to work at the New 
Jersey Institute of Technology and the UN, respectively. Mike returned to 
Vancouver in 2006 and established the Center for Community Informatics 
Research Development and Training (CCIRDT). With this platform, he traveled 
the world to consult with governments and civil society organisations, 
present at conferences, and conduct research.

Mike was the founding editor of the Journal of Community Informatics and was 
Foundation Chair of the Community Informatics Research Network. He was at the 
time of his death the Executive Director of CCIRDT, and formerly an Adjunct 
Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies Vancouver Canada, 
and as well as Research Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology 
in Newark, New Jersey, and Research Professor at the University of Quebec 
(Outaouais). He was also a member of the High Level Panel of Advisers of the 
UN's Global Alliance for ICT and Development. He has also served on the Board 
of the Global Telecentre Alliance, Telecommunities Canada, the Pacific 
Community Networking Association and the Vancouver Community Net.

In recent years he was active as a commentator, speaker and essayist/blogger 
articulating a community informatics (grassroots ICT user) perspective in the 
areas of open government data and internet governance. Through all of his 
work, Mike was motivated by his commitment to democratising access to the 
tools of information technology and the advancement of civil society.

Mike passed away peacefully at home on October 8 after a two year battle with 
prostate cancer. He is survived by his wife Fernande, his mother Sylvia, his 
sister Penny, his children Rachel and Marc, his step-children Bruno and Nina, 
his grandchildren Emmanuelle and Daniel, step grandchildren Patrick, Emilly, 
Jessica and Erica, and niece, Natasha.

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