Co-creation is at the heart of how Enviu ideates, develops, and markets its solutions for social and environmental issues. With this guide we aim to share our experience with those aiming to involve a variety of actors for the development of solutions for complex issues. Currently, you can download the guide on PDF format, and soon you’ll be able to also order hardcopies. 

This guide is a live document that will mature with your contribution. For this, we have made the contents available on a wiki that will be used to develop upcoming editions. Simply click the “edit” tab, and co-create this guide with the rest of the Enviu community.

[Le livre] repenser la pauvreté regorge de ces études de cas qui ont permis aux auteurs [Esther Duflo et Abhijit V. Banerjee] de tirer cinq conclusions:

• Le manque d’information est à la base des mauvaises décisions des pauvres. Il faut donc des campagnes d’informations attrayantes, crédibles et qui révèlent des choses nouvelles.

• Les pauvres ont plus de choix à faire. Ils sont responsables à 100% des décisions qu’ils prennent et ont beaucoup plus de pression qui vient du fait qu’ils essaient au maximum de limiter leurs risques. Il faudrait leur faciliter la tâche en rendant la prise de décision facile. Par exemple: le fait de diminuer le prix du sel enrichi en iode, qui améliore de manière décisive la santé, incitera les plus pauvres à en faire leur choix par défaut.

• Les pauvres n’ont pas accès à certains marchés tels que l’épargne ou l’assurance maladie. Des innovations sociales et économiques (comme l’a été le microcrédit) ou encore l’intervention des pouvoirs publics est décisive pour contrer cela, même si cela implique une certaine gratuité des services.

• Ce ne sont pas les structures des pays pauvres qu’il faut changer mais les problèmes de conception des politiques publiques. Trois grands coupables: l’ignorance, l’inertie et l’idéologie.

• Préjugés et croyances peuvent avoir un impact dévastateur sur ce que les gens se croient capables de faire. Rompre les cercles vicieux est une nécessité.

Andaman Islanders 'forced to dance' for tourists - video

The Jarawa tribe have lived in peace in the Andaman Islands for thousands of years. Now tour companies run safaris through their jungle every day and wealthy tourists pay police to make the women - usually naked - dance for their amusement. This footage, filmed by a tourist, shows Jarawa women being told to dance by an off-camera police officer

World news

• Indigenous peoples ·
• India ·
• South and Central Asia

More news

More video

• More on this story

• 

  Andaman Islands tour operator faces arrest over 'human safari'

  India issues arrest warrant for guide after tribal people forced to dance for tourists on tropical island chain

• Andaman Islands tribe threatened by lure of mass tourism

• Gethin Chamberlain
• guardian.co.uk,
• Saturday 7 January 2012

Source: Observer

We The People is Live!

Welcome to We the People on WhiteHouse.gov. This tool provides you with a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.

Get started by creating a WhiteHouse.gov account now -->

OUR PETITION RESPONSE

Taking Action to Reduce the Burden of Student Loan DebtRead The Response

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How We the People works in 3 easy steps

Step #1

Create or Sign a Petition

Anyone 13 or older can create or sign a petition on WhiteHouse.gov asking the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. To get started you’ll need to create an account and verify your email address. Start thinking about the issues that matter to you, what you would like the Obama Administration to do to address the important challenges facing our country, and who you’ll ask to join you.

Create a Petition

Step #2

Build Support and Gather Signatures

Creating or signing a petition is just the first step. It’s up to you to build support for a petition and gather even more signatures. Use email, Facebook, Twitter and word of mouth to tell your friends, family and coworkers about the petitions you care about.

View Recent Petitions

On our way to Gov2.0, White House seems ahead of France...

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a (wo)man, I put away childish things.

–1 Corinthians 13:11

This woman’s brother having been arrested the day before, this November 17th photo from Occupy LA brought to mind the rite of passage so many young people have experienced over the past few months. If organizers are savvy, the movement will evolve. Even still, young people have grown.

PHOTOGRAPH by Jonathan Gibby/Zuma

Victoria's Secret Revealed in Child Cotton Pickers

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Cam Simpson reports from Burkina Faso on the plight of 13-year-old foster child Clarisse Kambire, one of many children involved in the production of organic and "fair-trade" cotton which is used to make garments for U.S. lingerie maker Victoria's Secret. (Source: Bloomberg)

Sunday, October 23, 2011

فن عاري

حاكموا الموديلز العراة الذين عملوا في كلية الفنون الجميلة حتي أوائل السبعينات و اخفوا كتب الفن و كسروا التماثيل العارية الأثرية, ثم اخلعوا ملابسكم و انظروا إلي أنفسكم في المرآة و احرقوا أجسادكم التي تحتقروها لتتخلصوا من عقدكم الجنسية إلي
الأبد قبل أن توجهوا لي إهاناتكم العنصرية أو تنكروا حريتي في التعبير

Put on trial the artists' models who posed nude for art schools until the early 70s, hide the art books and destroy the nude statues of antiquity, then undress and stand before a mirror and burn your bodies that you despise to forever rid yourselves of your sexual hangups before you direct your humiliation and chauvinism and dare
to try to deny me my freedom of expression

"Aliaa al-Mahadi (ou Magda Elmahdy) est étudiante à l'université américaine du Caire. Elle a participé activement aux mouvements révolutionnaire de 2011 notamment sur internet. Elle a publié sur son blog, entre autres photos : cet autoportrait nu avec des rectangles jaunes devant les yeux, la bouche et le sexe. Ils représentent "la censure de notre savoir, de notre expression et de notre sexualité", commente t-elle dans le blog qu'elle a intitulé "Journal d'une rebelle". Elle dénonce une "société de violence, de racisme, de sexisme, de harcèlement sexuel et d'hypocrisie".
En ce début de siècle l'art engagé devient l'un des modes d'expression les plus en vogue.
Le 1er novembre, Aliaa al- Mahdi avait déjà créé la sensation en demandant aux hommes de se voiler. Plusieurs hommes avaient posté leur photo, avec un voile, sur sa page personnelle, en signe de solidarité."
(Texte via http://www.lankaart.org/article-nus-aliaa-al-mahdi-92063876.html)

In a Nutshell

What is Wikirating Wikirating is an online community credit rating platform. It provides transparent source of credit rating information, which is reviewed by a worldwide commnunity... [read more] Motivation and mission Over the last few years, banks, companies and countries have based their risk and credit estimations on overrated assessments provided by few major and well established rating agencies. Wikirating's mission is to be a real independent and transparent source for credit ratings... [read more] How does it work Everybody can participate, either anonymously (with restricted edit rights) or by creating an account. All information have to be strictly referenced by at least one reliable source, like at Wikipedia. As contrary to other wikis, Wikirating reward the community... [read more] How to help Beside active users in general, Wikirating needs volunteers who want to do more (Credit Rating Specialists, Software Architects, PHP developers, MediaWiki experts,...). Feel free to contact us directly if you are interested to take over more responsibility.

Ce n’est plus un secret pour personne : le capitalisme est en train d’être dévoré par ses propres effets toxiques. En 2005, parmi d’autres voix peu écoutées alors, une association française, Ars Industrialis, lancée par quatre philosophes et une juriste, avait sonné le tocsin. A l’époque, leur manifeste décrivait les dangers d’un capitalisme “autodestructeur” et la soumission totale aux “impératifs de l’économie de marché et des retours sur investissements les plus rapides possibles des entreprises” et notamment celles actives dans les médias, la culture ou les télécommunications.

Aujourd’hui, l’association comporte plus de 500 membres, économistes, philosophes, informaticiens et toxicologues (car le capitalisme est devenu “addictif” et “pulsionnel”) confondus et ne semble pas s’être trompée de sonnette d’alarme. “Nous faisons partie des gens qui ont soulevé, dès 2006, l’insolvabilité chronique du système financier américain. On nous riait au nez, à l’époque”, explique le philosophe Bernard Stiegler, fondateur d’Ars Industrialis et directeur de l’Institut de recherche et d’innovation du Centre Pompidou.

« Je suppose donc que toutes les choses que je vois sont fausses ; je me persuade que rien n’a jamais été de tout ce que ma mémoire remplie de mensonges me représente ; je pense n’avoir aucun sens ; je crois que le corps, la figure, l’étendue, le mouvement et le lieu ne sont que des fictions de mon esprit. Qu’est-ce donc qui pourra être estimé véritable ? Peut-être [...] qu’il n’y a rien au monde de certain ». (Descartes, Deuxième Méditation Métaphysique, 1641).

En complément de notre article consacré aux tangible user interfaces, une vidéo à propos du dernier joujou de Microsoft : HoloDesk. Ou comment le géant américain répond à Descartes.

Le dualisme Marché-Etat ne suffit plus. Il y a une impérieuse nécessité à tenir compte des apports de la société civile, de l'engagement des citoyens, des capacités propres de développement de chaque territoire. Il y a urgence à mettre en œuvre une véritable démocratie économique. Les acteurs de l'économie sociale et solidaire en ont la capacité. Les responsables politiques en auront-ils la clairvoyance ?

Five Things I Saw at Contactcon

Host Doug Rushkoff on the stage at Contactcon (via Flick user Steven Brewer)

On October 20 I had the luck to join a group of some of the brightest and most creative people from every part of the tech spectrum at Contactcon. Held at the beautiful Angel Orensaz Foundation Center (see above), the conference was a flurry of energy and excitement, never lingering on one point of focus too long. As befits the format, below are five events or situations that caught my attention at Contactcon:

1. Unendorsed sharing. Wifi was provided in the center by KeyWifi, which had set up eight or so networks and handed out pieces of paper with passwords to one of the hotspots. They hoped to evenly distribute them among participants to keep all the networks running. When I went to the table to get my password, it was clear that wasn't working: "Just please don't tell anyone the passcode!" a poor Key employee asked me. People were giving out their codes and overloading the access points. I guess you couldn't stop them from sharing with those in need.
    
2. Unattempted procedures. The structure of the conference -- though I'm sure a lot of participants would object to that word -- was based on a series of short provacations and then a series of project meetings established on the spot. I'm always skeptical that people come to events like Contactcon ready to work and think outside their comfort zone, but the attendees really were. The board quickly filled with great ideas, from an alternative currency for Occupy Wall Street to new ways to dodge internet censorship. People grouped with whatever proposal they liked and got started. Judging from the list-serv I'm on, they're very much still at work.
    
3. Unparalled hosting. In addition to being one of the most original minds working on questions of technology and society, as well as one of the most radical thinkers to crack the mainstream media, Doug Rushkoff is incredibly good at keeping people on track. With an open format and people suggesting different workshops, Rushkoff kept things moving by making sure anything too vague or self-serving got passed by, with a good sense of what the group did or did not support. Plus, you could hear the bile dripping from his voice when he had to announce the Pepsi sponsorship. The man is a dynamo.
    
4. Unexpected radicals. Occupy Everything and Occupy Wall Street in particular had a big impact on participants' thinking. I was surprised to see a group project on getting people to pledge collectively not to pay their student debts attract wide support at the conference level. Some of the participants who would have been in a small tech bubble a couple years ago are now actively looking to use their talents and ideas to support global social movements. There was a big focus on technologies that used international networks to overcome parochial restrctions to access. And a few of these tech-minded folks have better political imaginations than I've seen in policy circles. Contactcon showed me that their are not just people, but communities out there waiting to meet each other.
    
5. Unlikely bedfellows. I've heard Contactcon described as a meeting of the top pro-human technologists, and that turned about to be the case. A campaign based around food justice was one of the most popular projects at the conference, and all the participants anchored their thoughts and projects in very human problems. That is, except for the Makerbot printing out plastic shells for homeless hermit crabs. Apparently people like collecting shells they use as housings, and now crab populations are in need of some man-made assistance. 3D printing isn't exactly made for problems like this one, but it could have been. And maybe the next generation of tech solutions will be.

Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District, and has spread to over 100 cities in the United States and actions in over 1,500 cities globally. #OWS is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.

Occupy Wall Street is a horizontally organized resistance movement employing the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to restore democracy in America. We use a tool known as a "people's assembly" to facilitate collective decision making in an open, participatory and non-binding manner. We call ours the NYC General Assembly and we welcome people from all colors, genders and beliefs to attend our daily assemblies. To learn more about how you can start a people's assembly to organize your local community to fight back against social injustice, please read this quick guide on group dynamics in people's assemblies.

Occupy Wall Street demonstrators at Zuccotti Park in downtown New York City this week.

The occupiers are actually forging a robust micro-society of working groups, each one developing new approaches -- or reviving old approaches -- to long-running problems. In just one example, Occupy's General Assembly is a new, highly flexible approach to group discussion and consensus building. Unlike parliamentary rules that promote debate, difference and decision, the General Assembly forges consensus by "stacking" ideas and objections much in the fashion that computer programmers "stack" features. The whole thing is orchestrated through simple hand gestures (think commodities exchange). Elements in the stack are prioritized, and everyone gets a chance to speak. Even after votes, exceptions and objections are incorporated as amendments.

This is just one reason why occupiers seem incompatible with current ideas about policy demands or right vs. left. They are not interested in debate (or what Enlightenment philosophers called "dialectic") but consensus. They are working to upgrade that binary, winner-takes-all, 13th century political operating system. And like any software developer, they are learning to "release early and release often."

It's the new style.
It's no revolution.
It's 'learning by doing'.

le principe à la base des réseaux sociaux décentralisés (ou acentrés) est de laisser l’utilisateur du service maître de ses données, en lui donnant la possibilité d’héberger lui-même, sur son propre ordinateur, son profil, la liste de ses amis, les contenus numériques qu’il désire partager (textes, photos, vidéos). Soit les données ne quittent jamais la machine de l’utilisateur, soit elles le font en mode crypté, lors d’échanges directs, d’ordinateur à ordinateur, avec d’autres utilisateurs autorisés. Le modèle technique sous-jacent à ces applications répond à une logique de pair-à-pair (peer-to-peer, P2P) ; en éliminant les intermédiaires dans les activités de partage et de réseautage en ligne, des liens directs sont établis entre les utilisateurs, en reflétant au niveau de l’architecture technique le principe d’échange direct qui, dans un réseau social, motive les utilisateurs à partager.

The very first light fields were captured at Stanford University over 15 years ago. The most advanced light field research required a roomful of cameras tethered to a supercomputer. Today, Lytro completes the job of taking light fields out of the research lab and making them available for everyone, in the form of the world’s first Lytro Light Field Camera.

Occupy Wall Street Hackathons Produce Digital Tools and New Activists

Groups of programmers gathered in three cities this weekend to build digital tools for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Several of those tools have already launched, and in many cases they’re being maintained by activists who’ve never held a sign in a park.

“I was waiting to see how I should be involved,” says Jake Levitas, who attended the San Francisco hackathon. “In the last week, I thought, ‘I know I’m going to dedicate a lot of time to this movement. I don’t know how, but I know I want to be involved.’”

When he found out about the hackathon through Facebook, he knew how he wanted to participate. Levitas, working with a small team at the event, started a design library called OccupyDesign. It’s a database of Occupy Wall Street protest placards, logistical signs and icons — with a strong focus on infographics. The idea, he says, is that it is harder to argue with facts presented visually than it is a talking point, and that a centralized visual library can help the protests make a strong impression. And he hopes this project will get more designers like him involved.

“Especially if they don’t think they can sleep on the street for a while,” he says, “they don’t know how they can plug in.”

19th October 2011

I am the 99%