TIS Weekly (#109): Social Innovation: The Power Of Open Source
[July 9th, 2017]
A personal story.
I fell for the internet in 1994 because of the promise of a global village, a world in which we could meet each other, learn from each other, have fun with each other. Like so many others, I was a little naive. I forgot that in the end the technology doesn’t make the difference, the people do. And there will always be people that use technology for the wrong. So that’s why we have fake news and that’s why we have hacker attacks.
We all know that, but let’s not forget about all the good the Internet brought us too. Our theme this month is social innovation. The impact of Internet and digital technology on society has been enormous. That’s where I want to focus on this week. On the power of open source more specific. Making knowledge and technology freely available so others can use it and help making it better. That is an example of social innovation.
Theme | SOCIAL INNOVATION
Open software
The internet has been built on open source software. Free software without ownership. Or more precise: shared ownership. Everyone can use it and everyone can join the group of developers that works on making the software better. You don’t need a fortune anymore to build software, built tools, built sites. Watch this video, because it explains open source really well and is convincing in explaining that open source is a way of thinking that can have impact on much more than software.
Theme | SOCIAL INNOVATION
Open knowledge
After building the internet on open source software came the open sourcing of knowledge. Together we know more. One of my favorites remains Wikipedia. Isn’t it fascinating that people spend so much time and effort in building a free encyclopedia? I always say that to me the internet would have already been a succes with only Wikipedia as a result! Watch Jimmy Wales tell the story of Wikipedia:
“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free acces to the sum of all human knowledge.”
Theme | SOCIAL INNOVATION
Open education
There is a wealth of free education on the internet. Universities making their courses available, free online courses, teachers sharing their lessons, et cetera. But how do the people profit in areas where the internet is less freely available? And where it’s hard to have the money to buy computers and phones? Kolibri is a toolset that tackles this problem: ‘Kolibri makes high quality e-tech available in low-resource communities’. Have a look!
Theme | SOCIAL INNOVATION
Open tools
We’re living in a time where offline and online more and more merge. A Tesla is a car, but it gets better with a software update. 3D-printing is hardware, but powered by software. Open Source Ecology is a fascinating initiative. It is building the Global Village Construction Set: ‘a high-performance, modular, do-it-yourself, low-cost platform — that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different industrial machines that it takes — to build a small sustainable civilization with modern comforts.’
Add your own videos and maybe they will feature in the next TIS Weekly. Questions? Remarks? Ideas? hello@tis.tv is the address! From TIS with love, Erwin Blom.
A weekly dose of innovation? Subscribe here to the TIS Weekly.
Interested in more Social Innovation newsletters?
- More About: Social Innovation — Power To The People
- Social Innovation Without The Tech
- Social Tech: Empowerment
- Social Innovation Challenge
- What About Non-First World Countries?
- Power To The People
- NGOs, stop talking, start listening
