mtl3p

I had to put a bio in for a grant yesterday that a group in the States is going for. I’m always kind of weirded out by it (my bio/cv) because up until a year ago I thought it was garbage. Since then I’ve realized that what I thought were random events were actually connected and even made sense from a employer point-of-view.

Anyways, this guy said “they are going to _love_ your bio” and it kind of made my day. I think it makes a big difference that “they” is a large ICT-focused NGO. I’m not sure how many other companies would love it.

This really isn’t supposed to sound like bragging. It’s something that I’m pretty nervous about (my CV and my work experience) and I’m still getting used to the idea that 1)it’s not weak and 2) that it’s not just the ISF experience that saves it.

Also - I’m posting it because I don’t have an “about me” section and I don’t really want to make one.

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Michael Lenczner has been working in community informatics for the last eight years. This includes separate projects working with seniors, immigrants, and teen-age mothers. He spent 2 years working in health informatics at the Montreal General Hospital in their radiology department. He was partnered on-site for six months with a NGO in Burkina Faso working on training IT staff and users as well as improving their network. He stayed for an extra month to bring together the local university, national dep. of telecommunications, and the main ISP to educate them about WiFi and consult with them regarding a wireless connectivity project linking the 4 hospitals in the capital - Ougadougou.

In the last two years Michael has co-founded IleSansFil - a wireless community group in Montreal which has 7000 users and is growing at the rate of 800 per month. The open-source project they started (WiFiDog) has been picked up by groups world-wide including NYCwireless, LondonWireless, PlaceSite, TorontoWireless and CUWIN. He has spoken at conferences in Vancouver, Banff (the Banff New Media Institute), Toronto, and New York, as well as being invited to conferences in Ottawa and Winnipeg. Additionally he has consulted for private WiFi companies as well as for International Development Research Center (Canada) for their strategy on wireless connectivity in the developing world.

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I’ve been having a rotten time recently. A lot of it has to do with being in school. It turns out I failed a class last year (I had a B incomplete that I thought was a regular B so I didn’t follow up on a missed assignment). And the class this summer is not exactly proceeding on schedule.

The fact that I’m letting my performance in school take a down-turn is important in of itself, but what I really hate is that it means I don’t let myself work on anything else because it’s “procrastination” to work on anything that I enjoy -like IleSansFil, a bunch of amazing side-projects I want to do, or on getting more contracts for project managment.

It’s been making me think of my experience at Queens, where I quit the varsity hockey team in order to focus on school. The end result: dropping out anyways *and* losing a sport that I loved.

So I was daydreaming about taking the fall off. I’ve been doing school part-time (3 classes) and working for 2 years now. And because I went to prep-school in the States instead of cegep I’m stuck in a 4-year program instead of three years and have another 2 years left of part-time until I get my bachelors.

And then I get this email last night on one of the lists I’m on:

“IISD (International Institute for Sustainable Development) is currently accepting applications for six-month international placements in the Emerging Leaders for Governance program for 2005-2006. IISD will place five Canadians aged 19-30 (exceptions may apply) on six-month terms with organizations, working on e-governance issues.” The positions available are:
-Hungary
-Bhutan
-Washington
-Bulgaria
-Kenya

A few of the actual jobs look pretty boring in terms of my experience (Bulgaria and Hungary both look like the main job is to setting up, filling, and maintaining a CMS) and the Washington with the World Bank looks like it might be a stretch for me in terms of my actual experience researching and writing reports (although I have good experience of the field of ICT4D).

In any case, I’ll be applying to one of them. It’s almost decently paid, it will look good on my C.V., but most importantly, I want to be doing it. And I _will_not_ being taking any classes this fall term.

ahh - that feels much better

and I am so proud not to be using a headset to understand (there’s booths in each room with simultaneous translation)

Truth be told, my belief in the importance of what we are doing at ISF was starting to wane. Just tonight the thought occured to me - what if it actually turns out to be important? It’s impossible to know what this will turn into - whether we achive higher density by getting regular individuals involved and turn on the mesh functionality, or maybe the developers will write some code that turns out to be key. Not sure, but I guess that there’s the chance that something we do up here in montreal could make a big difference. Just imagine if we were able to suck in a few of the semweb people in Montreal. A few of my smarter friends always want to have their own private development team to bring their ideas to fruition. We can do a lot better that that - if you come up with the right idea and it can be fit onto our platform, we can probably develop it with/for you *and* roll it out to your fellow citizens on what will soon be one of the largest wireless networks in the world (in terms of nodes and of users).

I have gotten enough feedback from people to know that, in some ways what we are doing is inspirational. It’s exciting for others to see a group using open-source methods making an impact in our surroundings, especially when for-profit companies couldn’t. I was starting to think that we had basically hit all the goals we were looking to reach. But now I’ve got this sneaking suspicion that there’s some twists in the trail, and that there’s a chance we could end up making a significant contribution to how this whole “internet” thing will play out?

Not to make too much of ourselves, but a group of 30-40 people of whom 10 are developers, plus resources (still working on that), plus not being hampered by requiring a profitable business plan, all tied together with an amazing team spirit that has show no signs of getting anything but stronger? Why would it be ridiculous for us to make a difference?

can someone page-slap me the site which is a map of the world and little “flashes” happen on the map each time someone publishes a blog post?

also - very much in the vein of this, I bought some killer white adiddas. They are the first pair of shoes I’ve bought in 3 years, so if you laugh at them I might jump at your throat.

here you go. I think they’re slick. They go nice with my newly shaved head.

I’ve been thinking about how I blog. Mostly about how I’ve been a real pussy in using this tool (please excuse the sexist language). Specifically for the last 2 months I’ve been thinking about what I say with this space tool opportunity and how I say it. I know that I do a lot of promotion - of myself, of IleSansFil, and of other projects that I’ve been involved with. I have no problem with that. I”m going to continue to do that. I have a problem with what I haven’t been using this space to say or to share.

What is bringing this to a head is that I will soon be teaching others how to blog - “at-risk” youth. And I’m going to feel like a complete hypocrite telling them that authenticity is one of the keys of the micro-publishing revolution when I am so circumspect in what I publish. I’m also going to feel like a heel in telling them they have the power to write anything they are feeling when I limit my writing so evidently.

Mainly - I don’t think that I should be utilising this tool to pretend to be a one-man newspaper. I don’t want to emulate print tools. I’m not trying to be a “citizen-journalist” or a novelist. this is (could be) something different and I’m frustrated by how I’ve been shying away from what I could be doing.

I’m not sure what’s going to come after this. I don’t want to turn this blog in to a livejournal about what I had for breakfast or who I think is cute, but there’s a lot more I have to say than what’s come so far.

I stayed with my sister and her husband for the past few days. Since she’s been in the states since after high-school I don’t see her too often. It’s been really nice to visit her, to come see where she lives, instead of just seeing her when she comes back for family holidays.

I’ve had 4 days of beautiful weather, I’ve visited the Art Museum, the new library, and the market - and had an espresso at the first Starbucks. Apparently no one drinks espressos in Seattle. It’s all double-grande-mocha-decaf-cinnamon-skim-milk-latte’s or smthn.

I also ran across the original Toys in Babeland which is one of the first sex-positive stores in North America. I didn’t know that it was from Seattle so it was a blast when I looked across the street and saw it.

I definitely liked Seattle. Thanks Sarah, for being a wonderful host, and Tom, I’m sorry that I finished your Chipwich.

“An eighteenth-century Hasidic rabbi, Nachman of Braslav had many thoughts about absences, abysses, and dilemmas. He also know a thing or two about bridges. He once made a statement about a bridge that his followers remmebered and set to music. Generations later, the song was sung by Jewish prisoners in the death camps at Auschwitz. He taught that “Life is a very narrow bridge between two eternities - do not be afraid.” I am not sure what Nackman meant by his statement. But I can tell you what occurs to me when I listen to it. Many years ago, when I first heard this song, I imagined that Nackman was alluding to what he believed to be a heavenly eternity before and after death. Never being particularly interested in heaven, I didn’t think to much about it at the time. But more recently, I had a new idea. I though tabout our countless ancestores, who stretch out behind us in into the eternity of the past. And I thought of the countless number of our yet unknown offspring, our children’s children’s children, who stretch out in front of us into the eternity of the future. And I thought perhaps Reb Nachman was helping us to see that we, then living, are the only link, the only bridge between those who have come before us and those who will come after us. One of our main tasks is to keep the connection alive by respecting the past, studying it, being challenged by it, rejecting some of it, seeing the possiblities in it, reshaping it, situating ourselves and our practices within it, making meaning from it.”

from Constructing the Self, Constructing America by Philip Cushman.