 | Issue: | Asia-Pacific I 2006 |
| Article no.: | 13 | |
| Topic: | Asia-Pacific and creativity in e-world | |
| Author: | Christine Maxwell | |
| Title: | Board Member, World Summit Awards and Trustee Emeritus | |
| Organisation: | Internet Society (ISOC) | |
| PDF size: | 52KB |
About author
The Internet has unleashed the power of information and communications technology for development (ICT4D). Value, traditionally derived from labour, land and capital, is increasingly the product of shared knowledge, creativity and collective intelligence. Online access to ideas and information, made possible by the development of local language content, are more important now than ever in this context. This provides opportunities for the Asia-Pacific region’s people to become content creators, not just customers, and be leaders rather than followers.
Article abstract
Christine Maxwell is on the Board of Directors of the World Summit Award (WSA), a contest involving 168 countries that selects and promotes the world’s best e-content and applications. The goal of the WSA is to encourage creative local content development and help narrow the “e-content gap”. Ms Maxwell, an early pioneer in the development of standards for best practice e-content on the Internet, is a Trustee Emeritus of the Internet Society (www.isoc.org). She has great experience and expertise in scientific, educational and electronic publishing. Ms Maxwell’s Internet start-up company, The McKinley Group, created one of the first and most successful online Internet Yellow Pages called MAGELLAN. It was featured on the home page of Netscape in the early 90s, before being acquired by Excite. Currently, Christine Maxwell continues her work as an Internet entrepreneur, working on the development of Internet content architectures and Internet publishing projects.
Full Article
The “Asian sun” is indeed rising. Our children have been the first to embrace, rather than feel threatened by, the cacophony of ideas, trends and technology-driven stimuli of a century that already, unquestionably, belongs to Asia. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) economic development programme in the Asia-Pacific region covers over 60 per cent of the world’s population and 38 developing countries. Although there are significant social, political, cultural and religious differences among all these countries, they all have one thing very much in common: a barely tapped well of creative output. As the tentacles of ICT4D, (information and communications technology for development) stream out further and faster, touching lives in the farthest corners of the region, the creativity of the most populous part of the world is literally exploding onto the Internet. The Internet has unleashed the power of ICT4D around the world. The power of ICT4D to quickly change communities and individual lives for the better was on display for all to see inside the ICT4D Pavilion at the recent World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis this past November, 2005. The “C” drumbeat behind this important event could be heard by all. The “C” doesn’t stand for creativity alone; it also stands for the creation of “glocal”, global and local content. And nowhere was this heard more loudly during the WSIS than at the World Summit Award (WSA). Digital divide WSA is a global contest that selects and promotes the world’s best e-content and applications. Its overall goal is to bridge the digital divide and narrow the “content gap”. The WSA currently involves representatives from 168 countries throughout the world. It focuses upon cultural identity and diversity, and looks for multimedia projects that effectively and creatively produce quality content and digitalise educational, scientific and cultural heritage. There have been many winners in the Asia-Pacific and Pacific Rim countries; the Pacific Rim provides a dynamic context for innovation and creativity. Experimentation in the arts, sciences and technology is resulting in the emergence of new forms of cultural production and experience unique to the region. Increasingly, inter-connected global markets, speedy innovation and less expensive execution are helping to drive the pace of innovation in the region. ICT4D is playing its part, helping to drive the alignment of government, the public sector and the private sector in policy-making and programme implementation. As technology makes information accessible, people can find, share and act upon the collective intelligence of millions of people to help bridge the digital divide. Online access to ideas and information, made possible by encouraging the development of local language content, are more important than ever in this context. The changing basis of value creation The world’s source of value is seeing a marked shift away from labour, land and capital towards the value of shared knowledge, creation and the importance of collective intelligence. This phenomenon is propelling virtual communities into the limelight as collective players with largely untapped potential for radical innovation. The Club of Amsterdam Journal and the work of Fernando Ibarra, in particular, speak about the impact of collective intelligence (www.ymlp.com). In recent years, the cultural industry has become one of the fastest growing economic sectors in industrialised countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom. While the more developed economies of the Asia-Pacific are beginning to experience this phenomenon, many countries in the region do not yet recognise the cultural industries as an economic sector in their own right. The definition of “cultural industries”, and how to distinguish them from “creative industries”, is not quite clear. The term “creative industries” refers to the individual creation of intellectual property, but there is a lot of “cross-over” in these terms. According to UNESCO, cultural industries, also referred to as copyright industries or creative industries, include a wide array of economic activities, ranging from crafts through music and film to publishing and the flourishing multimedia industry. What the cultural industries have in common is that they are all use creativity, skill and intellectual property to produce products and services with social and cultural meaning. There are many events and publishing activities throughout the Asia-Pacific and “rim” region that are designed to help connect to people and communities who are driving the pace of innovation and creativity in this part of the world. Publications and events about the Asia-Pacific region The excitement around the growth of creativity and innovation coming from Asia and Pacific Rim countries, has already lead to an explosion in new events and publishing activities. The CADRE Laboratory for New Media at San Jose State University in San Jose, California, will be hosting the Pacific Rim New Media Summit co-sponsored by the internationally renowned Art Journal LEONARDO. This trans-disciplinary event focuses specifically on educational methodologies and practices. This gathering will look at the diversity of Pacific Rim nations and focus upon the development of partnerships to address the challenges the region faces as it develops its arts-and-sciences networks and increases its economic influence. A special issue of LEONARDO (www.leonardo.info) guest edited by UC Professor Greg Niemeyer will showcase new media work from Pacific Rim artists as well as scholarly discourse evaluating the current new media landscape of the Pacific Rim. It will offer a snapshot of cultural production unique to the Pacific Rim and deepen our understanding of the regional aesthetics of life in cyberspace. The Virtual Science Museums of China and Sisu Samarakshak are two recent winners of the World Summit Awards for creativity and innovation in e-content (for a full list of winners, visit www.wsis-award.org). The Virtual Science Museums of China website (www.kepu.net.cn), produced by the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, “translates” scientific information into content that can be easily shared and appreciated by people who are not professionals. VSMC establishes a virtual community space, where scientists and the general public can meet in order to better understand each other, by means of open and unbiased communication. The website also hopes to foster a better understanding between China and the world at large by actively developing international partnerships. The Sisu Samarakshak project, produced by the United Nations Children’s Fund’s Hyderabad field office, uses Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to empower communities and promote the inclusion of vulnerable groups especially women and the disabled. Sisu Samarakshak uses ICT to improve the health of women and children through enhanced community monitoring mechanisms. This project offers a comprehensive, integrated, solution to address the needs of the community by providing community-based learning and support. Sisu Samarakshak is part of UNICEF’s global strategy of information dissemination centres to provide accurate, timely and contextual knowledge for mothers and children These projects are fine examples of how technology can help society. Much more can be done. The Pacific Rim New Media Conference will look at how further progress can be made. The questions they will address there include: – How is information technology and creativity shaping new directions in the arts and sciences around the Pacific Rim? – What challenges face organisations and individuals in the region who are working in the fields of architecture, design, literature, theatre, music? – How do the puzzle pieces of academic research and information technology-based industry fit into this picture? To succeed at bridging the digital divide, we need to pay more attention to encouraging scholarly and creative achievements from the Pacific-Asia region, especially those relating to geopolitical and economic networks. The opportunities for the peoples of the Asia-Pacific Rim region to be content creators, not just customers, and to be leaders rather than followers are growing exponentially. The world has begun to feel strong winds of change coming from the East. Like our children, we should embrace this and open ourselves to new connections and new ideas by finding ways to collaborate and innovate together within the e-world.
