Andy Carvin: The Dhaka Declaration
October 28th, 2005 by Christopher HarrisAndy Carvin, that global traveler for the good of information access and champion in the fight against the Digital Divide, brings us the text of the Dhaka Declaration from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Conference.
There are some great quotes…
hereby declare our common desire and commitment to build a free multi-stakeholder, people-centric, inclusive and development-oriented knowledge based Information Society in the world at large
Wow, amazing how that sums up the whole idea of infomancy that I keep stumbling around trying to talk about. We have to all be involved in the creation of infomancers for the power of spreading the goodness of infomancy. I also can’t help but think that “development-oriented” and “multi-stakeholder” sounds a bit like open source as well.
It gets better:
emphasizing that a primary aim of the Information Society must be to provide basic information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure to people to facilitate full utilization of ICT at all levels in society including the grass roots and hence enable the sharing of social and economic benefits by all by means of ubiquitous access to information networks, while preserving cultural diversity and heritage of humankind all over the world;
Yes, yes, yes. Infomancers have “full utilization” of information and communication technology. That is what gives them such arcane power over the world. The goal must be to bring this mastery of infomancy to all. In a flat world, when we bring infomancy to those who aren’t already advanced far beyond us, they are already poised to make great use of it.
Why?
recognizing that the concept of a knowledge-based Information Society is one in which affordable access to information & communication technology through content in accessible language and formats can help people achieve their full potential, promote sustainable economic and social development, facilitate participatory decision-making processes in sustaining democracy and good governance and improving quality of life for all;
Isn’t that a definition of what our whole education process is supposed to be about? (Wait, I don’t see any mention of making sure we can all pass an arbitrary standardized test.) Helping people “achieve their full potential” is why I entered education in the first place. Being able to help more and more people reach this goal is why am moving up into higher levels of administration. At this point, I am helping to bring the power of infomancy to over 25,000 students. Now that is a reason to get out of bed in the morning!
More information on this can be found here and many thanks to Andy Carvin for passing this along. Now back to NYLA…