Yochai Benkler, others at Harvard map current and future Internet

Harvard's world-renowned Berkman Center for Internet & Society is celebrating its tenth anniversary with a conference called Berkman@10. I'll report here on today's sessions, which were organized as a fairly conventional symposium (although as loosely as one could run it with 450 attendees). Tomorrow will be set up as an unconference, where the audience defines most of the topics and self-organizes into small-group discussions.

• Whither peer production--wither peer production?
• The conscious commons
• What will a Harvard for six billion people look like?
• Designing for cooperation
• Seeding and modeling
• The dilemma of openness
• The Berkman Center broadens

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Disaster Technology for Myanmar/Burma aid workers

There is an ongoing crisis in Myanmar (Burma) in the aftermath of cyclone Nargis. The ruling military junta is finally allowing humanitarian organizations into the region after denying access for almost a week. The situation is grim, and you can help by donating to organizations like: Doctors without Borders, Direct Relief, and UNICEF.

There has been some incredible discussion on the humanitarian tech and Geo lists in the past 24 hours around adapting/improving existing collaboration services to work with the tools in the field. Mikel Maron and I will be speaking about this at Where2.0 next week, and it looks like some exciting work will be happening there and at WhereCamp.

Eduardo Jezierski from InSTEDD is currently working to localize the Sahana Disaster Management System

Jonathan Thompson's organization, Humanlink, has been working on adapting technology for aid workers for some time. You can follow recent developments on the Aid Worker Daily blog.

Update: Paul Currion posted a big list of other projects now underway to the humanitarian.info blog:

• A Sahana instance is being set up for the use of anybody who needs it, with the support of INSTEDD and possible uptake by NetHope members.
• Direct Relief International have done up a KMZ file of health facilities in-country, based on the WHO 2002 Global Health Atlas.
• OCHA are prepping a HIC to support the existing Myanmar Information Management Unit, who have already put out some W3 maps.
• UNOSAT have also got their sat on with a KMZ file of the cyclone path and the usual satellite mapping.
• Ditto ITHACA, who have released a series of satellite maps showing the impact of Nargis.
• ReliefWeb’s info stream on Cyclone Nargis is of course like drinking water from a hose, with their map filter probably most useful.
• The WorldWideHelp blog roars into action with all the news that’s fit to blog.
• A couple of the mailing list discussions that I’m on are talking about ways in which we might leverage cellphone and/or satellite phone communications if they become available, particularly for tracking relief and relief personnel.
• Digital Globe and Geo-Eye have hopped the NASA satellite for an updating KML layer on the cyclone.
• Microsoft apparently have a team on standby to deploy the refugee tracking software that was developed for Kosovo (no reference yet).
• Telecoms sans Frontieres are also on standby out of Bangkok, waiting for access to free up.
• Also Infoworld points out that - with regards to early warning - IT didn’t fail Myanmar, people did.

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Maker Faire mimesis and open speculation

O'Reilly's Make magazine and the Maker Faire that we're hosting today and tomorrow in San Mateo, California have been described in many ways, ranging from a revival of the mid-20th-century love for Popular Mechanics magazine to an exciting new impetus for teaching children about science. During my six hours there today, I noted its strong connections to powerful and fundamental human urges toward creation, mastery, and the reproduction of our own culture.

Some of the Maker Faire centers are devoted to the kind of do-it-yourself projects shown in our magazine. Anyone from a four-year-old to a mechanically adept adult can find challenge and satisfaction at these tables. Projects in another building took a big step up, showcasing the brain children of engineers who devoted their spare time to building games and toys or aiding their communities with research projects. A number of the booths seemed to be run by Renaissance men and women who were making a living from their creative combinations of art and technology.

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Mondrian, Just the First