Kenan Jarboe on Thu, 3 Jun 1999 03:14:31 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Athena Alliance |
Dear friends and colleagues: I am contacting you to announce a new venture, the formation of the Athena Alliance, and invite you to participate in an electronic discussion forum on economic development in the information age. The Athena Alliance is a non-profit organization dedicated to public education and research about the promises and pitfalls of the global information economy and the networked society. Our purpose is to bring together organizations and individuals concerned with these issues in order to create a focused action agenda to facilitate a positive response by individuals, communities and firms to the challenges posed by the emerging information economy. A more detailed explanation of the Athena Alliance can be found on our web site at www.athenaalliance.org. As our first major undertaking, we will be hosting a conference on information technology, equality and the changing economic reality on November 10 in Washington, D.C., co-sponsored with the Corporation for Enterprise Development (www.cfed.org) and the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland (www.bsos.umd.edu/cidcm). The conference ('New IT New Equity New Economy') will focus on the broad issues concerning the inclusion of all persons in the information age, including access to communications and information technologies (CIT) and the changing nature of work, skills and governance in the new economy. The conference is motivated by our twofold concerns over the state of public discussion on these issues: 1. There is little discussion about what these changes mean for those at the bottom end of the economy. When the conversation has turned to the question of 'the digital divide,' the focus is generally on the narrow topics of the problems of physical access to information technology or the need for increased technical training. The deeper issues such as the financial and psychological barriers to access to information technology, the changing nature of work and skills, the existing inequality of incomes and skills, the use of information technology and the relevance of content, the questions of control (who sets the standards and who this process leaves out), and the interconnect among the various issues are rarely discussed. 2. The discussion do not seem to include a wide range of actors and experts, such as those who work on poverty issues, local economic development professionals and individuals from the communities-left-behind themselves. We seem to have a parallel digital divide, mirroring C.P. Snow's famous Two Cultures. To begin the process of overcoming this gap in our public discourse, the conference will: - articulate the broad range of issues in order to move discussion beyond the narrow discussions about access to the technology and training, and - begin the dialogue among various the stakeholders intellectuals from many disciplines, policy analysts and policy makers, business and labor leaders, economic development practitioners representatives from the communities-left-behind and the communities-at-risk, service providers, and others. The conference will be structured around a series of workshops and small group discussions focused on a sharply defined set of issues arising from the shift from an industrial economy to an information age. The purpose is to maximize mutual learning through the sharing of information, insight, perceptions and solutions. The workshops will be asked to report back to the entire group in a final plenary session about their discussion, particularly on potential tools for confronting the problems. The Athena Alliance will organize follow on meetings based on the outcomes of the workshops to continue the discussions and research and to inform policy makers and opinion leaders. Further information on the conference will be posted on our web site as it becomes available. Or you can contact me at the address, phone number or e-mail given below. As a lead up to the conference, I would like to invite you to participate in an electronic forum on these issues, sponsored by CFED. This forum will address the myriad of issues arising from the shift from an industrial economy to an information age: Will the shift to networked centered and information-based production systems allow communities-left-behind to rejoin the economic mainstream? Do these communities have information, intellectual and social capital assets that can be utilized in this new economic environment? Can information technology be used to leverage these assets? Or are we headed to a permanent 'digital divide' with a new gap between the information haves and the have-nots? What impact will information technologies have on both the delivery of services to these communities and on the very forms of governance in the communities and the states and regions wherein they are located? As different types of Internet-oriented standard setting regimes determine more and more the shape of the environment for the production and delivery of goods and services in the information age, what standards might benefit the communities-left-behind and their service providers? The issues raised in the electronic forum will be further discussed at the CFED 20th Anniversary conference on June 23-25 in Washington. Instructions for joining the electronic forum, and about the CFED 20th Anniversary conference, are listed below. I hope you will join us in this new endeavor. Please feel free to forward this message on to whomever you think might be interested. Ken Jarboe Signing on to the electronic forum: 1. Go to the CFED web site at www.cfed.org 2. Click on "Chatrooms and Forums." 3. Click again on "Chatrooms and Forums" at the far right of the web page. 4. This will take you to the log on page. A separate help window will open automatically with instructions to guide you through the log on process. 5. After you have logged on, to enter this specific forum, click on "The Challenge of the Global Information Age" the 4th forum listed. __________________________________ Kenan Patrick Jarboe, Ph.D. Athena Alliance 711 10th Street, SE Washington, DC 20003 (202) 547-7064 kpjarboe@erols.com --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl