[ David Wortley is Director of the Serious Games Institute (SGI) at Coventry University. He is responsible for the development of the Institute as a brand new self-financing initiative to establish a centre of excellence for the emerging serious games application area. Working with academics, regional development agencies and leading computer games companies, David aims to make the SGI a thought leader and focal point for games based learning, simulation and immersive 3D virtual environments. Prior to this post, David worked internationally on community informatics projects and is a regular keynote speaker.]  

It was ten years ago in 1997 that I first got involved in what I now know as Community Informatics or the use of Information Communications Technology to support community development. I was running a small high technology business in a tiny village on the outskirts of the town of Market Harborough in Leicestershire, located in the heart of England amongst quaint rural hamlets and rolling countryside. My business had been delivering professional business presentation services to blue chip companies across the UK and providing an advanced digital imaging service through a network of retail outlets who would take PowerPoint presentations on disk from clients visiting their print/copy shops and send them electronically for my company to turn them into high quality 35mm slides and OHPs with a 24hr turnround. Life, running this small business from a converted barn in the courtyard of my home, was comfortable but I knew that I had to diversify to survive as clients were increasingly able to design their own presentations and use a data projector to make their business presentation.

This article chronicles the role of social enterprise and emerging technologies - how they can and will shape the social and economic health of our communities.  

In 1997, the UK Dept of Trade and Industry (DTI) ran an awards competition called the “Multimedia Demonstrator Program” (MMDP) as an initiative to encourage small businesses to adopt emerging technologies such as multimedia and the internet. It was regarded as a vital part of a strategy to make the UK’s nation of small & medium enterprises competitive in global economy.  

This competition was an opportunity to diversify my business and generate income for future growth. Like many small, local businesses across the world, I had experienced the frustration of doing business with blue chip companies across the UK, yet finding the companies who were on my doorstep turning to big city firms in London, Birmingham or Manchester to get their presentation services. I became determined to explore how technology could be used to help small communities tap into local skills and talents more easily and thereby support sustainable social and economic development. My story begins here.  

I entered the MMDP awards competition with a project called ComKnet (Community Commerce and Knowledge Network) and put together a consortium of local partners including a local newspaper, an internet service provider and a university. I was fortunate enough to win £150k of funding for the 2 year project, to be matched in kind by all the project partners. So, late in 1998, I set out on a journey that would take me all over the world to meet wonderful, passionate people all committed to building a sustainable future in the Global Information Society.  

I began by searching the internet to discover local technology champions with whom I could collaborate to build a growing network of knowledge sharers. It was here, within a few days of my project starting that I discovered an awful truth - someone had got there before me and had already established a community website with the functionality to deliver many of the things I had planned to do. I was very nervous because the webmaster of this site had the design skills to be a strong competitor, not only to the ComKnet project, but also to the web design part of my own business.  

Imagine my surprise when I invited the webmaster to visit my offices to explore how we could collaborate only to discover that he was already known to me as my milkman!! This man (Frank Bingley - see http://www.bigfern.btinternet.co.uk/index.htm) with no technology background, had taught himself how to design web pages using the most basic of tools and had done all this on a computer he had built himself. My initial reaction was that he was “from a different planet” and was a unique phenomenon. I have since discovered that there are thousands of people like him all across the globe - ordinary people doing extra-ordinary things without fuss or any awareness of the magnitude of their work.  

“Lesson 1 - every community has ordinary people capable of extraordinary ideas for the use of technology to benefit local people - our challenge is to identify these community champions (technology warriors) and harness their talents.”  

As the ComKnet project developed, I began to understand the depth of local talent and the extraordinary ingenuity of ordinary people without any technology background, yet capable of finding exciting innovative ways of using technology to solve local problems. I then developed links with other community technology projects, and became involved in a London scheme to set up a community learning centre in an old laundrette at South Kilburn. Working with the resident consultant on the project, we decided to organise a global web cast on community technology networks.  

I needed to find someone who could help us make a video about both projects so that we could broadcast this over the web and stimulate discussion about the challenges of globalisation and technology in both rural and urban communities. An advert in the local paper attracted two volunteers, and once again I was staggered to discover that I had a former senior BBC cameraman living in my village, and a special effects expert working on the Harry Potter films. They helped me to arrange a series of interviews with local people describing how they saw technology affecting their communities in the new millennium.  

To deliver the web cast, we worked with a corporate partner who wanted to launch their new webcast technology called e-video and we negotiated a deal in which they provided the studio and the network free of charge and we brought over 300 people to log onto the event from around the world. It was the world’s first community networks live video webcast in April 2000. In the event, there were so many people connected that the streaming technology failed and most people who were logged on were only able to view the presentation slides and chat via text.  

Although the web cast technology was not up to the task in the year 2000, the event connected many people with common interests in community informatics and it acted as a catalyst to build new relationship which fostered some great initiatives and brought to light at an international level some of the extraordinary talented and committed around the world.  

“Lesson 2 - the internet can bridge the local and the global and help us to realise how much we all have in common, and even when technology fails, good things can happen.”  

One of the people logged on that day in April 2000 was John Hibbs in San Diego. He runs the Benjamin Franklin Institute for Distance Learning and has been organising an annual international webcast called “Global Learn Day”. John is passionate about using simple and affordable technology to make education accessible to everyone. Every year, with little or no funds but energy, passion and skill, he organises a global learning voyage which reaches people by telephone, radio and internet. Amongst the VIPs John has recruited for this amazing 24-hour journey around the globe is Kofi Annan, the former UN Ambassador.  

“Lesson 3 - the most vital ingredients in community informatics are passion, energy, determination and stamina.”  

Whilst working on the ComKnet project, I encountered some wonderful projects and people. Mino Eusebio-Castro was a leader in the Ashaninka tribe in Peru. In a jungle without electricity, he set up a computer powered by a generator in a tribal hut as a way of bringing the benefit of communications and knowledge to his community - see http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-5375-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html. He, like many others around the globe has used enterprise and innovation to make a real difference to local lives.  

“Lesson 4 - enterprise and innovation in the use of technology can attract inward investment to your community.”  

As word spread about our project in Market Harborough, I found myself involved in many international conferences. Through these conferences and connections, I discovered the potential of community radio through projects like Kothmale Radio where a community radio station with internet access provides an information service through radio chat shows where listeners can send in questions which studio experts research through the web. I ran a similar project called “The Radio with Pictures Show” in Market Harborough - using a combination of local radio, teleconferencing and a virtual classroom I connected local and global experts to discuss common issues from Melbourne to Moscow and Market Harborough to Mumbai.  

I subsequently had the pleasure of visiting Bangalore for a conference in 2001, and another on regional community informatics in Korea in 2002. Both conferences taught me that grass roots organisations can deliver great ideas. In India, a project called Daknet uses a wireless computer or laptop on vehicles to deliver email as it passes through villages in remote areas, and in Korea, communities have been using the internet to create a new national resurgence.  

“Lesson 5 - technology need not be expensive or complex to reach communities and change lives – radio broadcasting and telephones can be very effective.”  

Time is too short to catalogue all the exciting projects that have emerged alongside the technologies that are rapidly now converging. Many of these developments have been driven by “leisure media applications” such as electronic games. The popularity of computer games consoles has helped to improve the computer graphics on our desktop computers and mobile phones as well as fuelling the drive for faster and better broadband and wireless connections.  

It is almost impossible to predict where technology will take our global society over the next few years, but I believe that there are some key lessons to be learnt from the many informatics projects around the world :-

• Social entrepreneurs and community champions are vital catalysts for enterprise, innovation and attracting inward investment.

• It is important to think global whilst acting local.

• Successful projects balance grass-roots initiatives with top-down support and the right level of resources (financial and human). It is like a 3-legged stool and if one leg is missing or deficient, the stool collapses.

• Use technologies that are appropriate to local circumstances and engage local people.

• Local culture and heritage is a powerful force for building a shared vision for the future.