FLOKSociety Research Network

list of experts, organized per research stream, who provided their data for potential input in the project

=Stream 0: General Coordination, Daniel Araya=

works with Anton De Rota, coordinator of internal IAEN research

Dissemination in Chile
Paul Codd, paulcoddmacdonald@gmail.com

Just a reminder that I'm able to help from Chile if/when that becomes useful for you on the FLOK Society project. I don't know what your requirements are but for example I could help disseminate info in Chile, or make new connections with Chilean collaborators, or gather info/research etc. ; cl.linkedin.com/in/paulcoddmacdonald/ ; skype: paul.c.macdonald

David Bollier
contact: david@bollier.org

here's a short account on my report-writing background: Since the late 1980s, I have written 25-35 page reports for the Aspen Institute's Communications and Society Program -- mostly for its annual, invitation-only InfoTech conference of 25 people. The reports are interpretive syntheses of what was said, in which I have "writer's discretion" in summarizing and interpreting what was said -- but the intent is to fairly portray all perspectives, not to give my personal perspective. I have posted a number of my Aspen reports on my website at http://bollier.org/aspen-reports.... and here is the webpage for the Communications and Society Program: http://www.aspeninstitute.org/policy-work/communications-society

Gordon Cook
"produces authoritative reports on complex telecom issues as evidenced by Telecommunications Infrastructure as Commons for Local Self Determination (October 1, 2013) part 2' Because for the past year I been completely focused on the issues underlying a "do it yourself" telecom infrastructure built and maintained as a commons in Spain and Argentina as well as the USA and France, I am well qualified to grasp the issues facing Ecuador.  I have  been writing about the issues of internet technology economics and policy since April of 1992.  In 1994 (at a conference just outside of Moscow).  I was congratulated by the conference organizer for the role I played in helping the commercial and academic sides of the early Russian internet see the need for cooperation. During the run up to the March 2014 meeting and the period following he looks forward to the challenge of documenting the issues and challenges faced by all he parties involved in building the basic commons infrastructure for telecom in Ecuador. In the telecom arena also have my own network of progressive thinkers built up over the past 22 years."

More info: The COOK Report on Internet Protocol Back Issues: http://www.cookreport.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=37&Itemid=61 ; Cook's Collaborative Edge Blog http://www.cookreport.com/wp/

=Stream 1: Human Capabilities, Daniel Araya + Paul Bouchard=

Culture, cognitive policy proposal
Joe Brewer, circlejoe@gmail.com Cognitive Policy Works

I'd love to discuss how Lazlo Karafiath and I might be able to provide cultural research support to the effort by mapping out the memes associated with open culture in Ecuador and beyond.

Cultural Transformation, Jan Inglis 
“I bring 25 years of commitment to local and global transformation efforts involving public issue analysis, and developmentally designed project coordination and evaluation. This basis of experience has been invaluable for integrating and operationalizing the scope of perceptual and structural changes that the commons paradigm is inspiring. Specifically I can offer progressive steps to support: analysis of complex    situations leading to agreements on priorities,     \ generative systemic    co-thinking, anticipation of multiple    and potentially contentious perspectives, structured deliberation    of implications and trade offs, public engagement and    establishment of legitimacy based on above.

Social software, collective intelligence
Seb Paquet, sebpaquet@gmail.com

Seb Paquet is an expert in knowledge sharing, collaboration technology and social software. He is helping the unfolding of local resilience and a living economy by acting as an explainer, a connector and a catalyst. He wrote one of the first dissertations on social software (2003) and received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Université de Montréal. He was a professor at Université du Québec à Montréal from 2007 to 2011. He has also been involved in research (National Research Council of Canada) and startup work (Socialtext, Sceneverse) at various points in his career. expertise: collective intelligence, online and offline facilitation, group flow, knowledge sharing, collaboration, culture hacking, peer learning, wikis., social innovation, open collaboration

Tamara Stenn


For the past 18 years I have been living in, working in and studying the Andean region of South America. I'm a scholar, researcher, and business developer specializing in the Andes region, specifically in the areas of indigenous rule, indigenous ways of being, political economy, buen vivir Sumak Kawsay, Fair Trade, micro enterprise development, international development aid programs, women in development, and grassroots, community development. My research is often participant based, grounded in anthropology and economic study. I use methods such as Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and ethnographic study with home stays and observation. I am also a certified trainer, online instructor, event planner, workshop designer and curricula developer.

Marc Becker
marc@yachana.org

I have pretty much everything on my webpage http://www.yachana.org/. My main academic work is on the history of Indigenous movements in Ecuador (in particular see Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indigenous Movements, Duke University Press, 2008), tho recently I have been writing more about current politics, in particular tensions btwn the Correa administration and the Indigenous movements with which I have long worked (see Pachakutik: Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012). Most of my articles are on my webpage http://www.yachana.org/research/articles.html.

Buen Vivir grassroots communities in Ecuador and surrounding countries
Anthropology of Human Change, max holland , max.holland@gmail.com, Social Theorist

“If you need any anthropological help and contacts, let me know. I am in touch with some well-connected Latin American anthropologists in the region who specialize in working with networks of 'buen vivir' focused grass-roots social movements. Such anthropologists could be useful for getting local buy-in for rolling out pilot projects. On such is Arturo Escobar, a big hitter, who I think would be willing to help your project with regional contacts and door-opening. He is well connected internationally, and may be willing to also put your project in contact with sustainable farming/indigenous knowledge specialists such as Vandana Shiva.”

Suggested by Max Holland for indigenous perspectives
Marc Becker, a historian/anthropologist who works closely with contemporary indigenous groups. Here is a recent interview where his perspective is made clear: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/4123-correa-and-ecuadors-left-an-interview-with-marc-becker ; his email is: ‘marc@yachana.org

Rudi Colleredo-Mansfeld, an anthropologist working with indigenous groups in the Ecuadorian Andes rudi-colloredo@unc.edu

Jason Pribilsky, an anthropologist. Jason started a project on the buen vivir plan, but dropped it to start work in Peru. He will nevertheless have ideas and contacts: pribiljc@whitman.edu

General Support, especially with hispanic networks, especially Mexico
Alan Lazalde gustavo.lazalde@gmail.com

I'm a professor and developer, with skills on project management, group facilitation, interested in open education and its posibilities to stimulate innovation among students. I've been working closely with Oiga.me (crowdsourcing), Goteo (crowdfunding), Wikimedia México (editathons, hackathons, social media). Recently as consultor for Ciudadanía 2.0, a SEGIB initiative of colaboration to propose public policies on citizen innovation all over Iberoamerica. Also, I can create new connections with mexican and spanish innovators, entrepreneurs, developers, hackers, scientist and artists.

=Stream 2: Productive Capacities: George Dafermos=

Open Design and Hardware
Massimo Menichinelli, info@openp2pdesign.org

policies regardings Open Commons and especially Open Design, so here are some blog posts about policies for Open Design, Digital Fabrication and FabLabs:


 * 1) http://www.openp2pdesign.org/2013/open-design/policies-for-open-design/
 * 2) http://www.openp2pdesign.org/2013/fabbing/policies-for-digital-fabrication/
 * 3) http://www.openp2pdesign.org/2013/fabbing/policies-for-fablabs/

Selçuk Balamir, s.balamir@uva.nl ; http://www.selj.net

currently a PhD Fellow at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, researching the sustainability implications of 'postcapitalist' design cultures that practice 'commoning'. To what extent the production of shared value (as opposed to exchange value) in the emergent practices of peer production, open source, and digital fabrication prefigure a new and sustainable basis for product design, and redirect the production and distribution of material artefacts towards viable, desirable and equitable configurations?

Open Food Production
Richard Nelson, solaroof@gmail.com, SolaRoofCoop

I am really pleased to discuss with you the wonderful opportunity to contribute to the success of the Ecuadorian Open Knowledge economic development program. I am home in Montreal, which is -5GMT. I am attaching the draft documents that describe the SolaRoof plans for POD development and the proposed PODnet global community. I am available on Google Hangout (use my gmail account) or use my Skype name, solaroof. Home phone 001 514 646 0979 or Mobile 001 514 692 9107 (text me if you don't see me online). I am in on Monday - will be online by 0800.

I am ready and able to contribute in practical project development/management/ delivery and can swiftly guide local teams to build actual projects with a focus on learning by doing. I show how to enable thousands of family enterprise - with the POD as greenhouse for the 21st Century family farm - the POD is climate controlled in all climates (hot or cold) and highly productive, with multiple crops. The regenerative cycles result in surplus of water, nutrients and energy, which means there is not any limitation on the success of the growers who learn the clean/green technologies called SolaRoof. SolaRoof is an OpenSource technology and that fits with the wonderful and enlightened policy of the government.

Open Supply Chains
Fernando Baptista, baptista_f@yahoo.com.br

my technological background is on industrial automation and I have been very involved in experiences and research concerning the use of social medias and collaborative digital tools to foster open collective intelligence, open co-creation, distributed manufacture and distributed diversified transactions (including also their impact and enhancements on presencial interactive environments), or in other words, highly-interactive digital-presencial economic configurations based on openness and common pools of intangibles... I would be able to research and to develop sets of orienting rules and norms for digital infrastructures compatible with such a model

Agricultural Cooperation and Sustainability
Vicente Cordova 

"My academic formation focused on remote sensing science and teaching science at university level. When I returned to Ecuador after 8 years abroad, I was positively surprised with the pace and extent of the changes that the new vision of governance was implementing. I had the opportunity of working first hand in those changes, as Director of Scientific Research at SENESCYT for almost one year. That position gave me a great insight of the R&D structure and policy in Ecuador. I fact, I collaborated with the  draft of the New Plan of Science and Technology and was involved in the reorganisation of the State Research Institutes. As director of local development and environment at the government of Municipio de Pìllaro,  I started working directly with farmers, ranchers and small entrepreneurs, looking for financial sources for several programs to help the community be economic and environmentally sustainable. Now, I collaborate with the Ecuadorian Space Institute IEE, as scientific advisor by means of an agreement between UTC and IEE. At all those jobs, I became more aware of the real limitations for both research and development in the production processes. There is a tremendous lack of information the farmers need to enhance their production processes. The capital (corporations) have sequestered the technical information and competencies from the technicians and given to the sales executives. The farmers have developed a high dependence on the agrochemical salesmen, affecting the environment and condemning the farmers and consumers to increasing levels of poverty and negative environmental and health effects. I consider the last roya outbreak in Ecuador a direct consequence of the overuse of chemicals enforced by the agrochemical companies. The lack of information has rendered the irrigation projects across the country useless and of high environmental impact. We don´t have a reliable, in real time, trustable source of agro meteorologic information to make technical decisions, redounding in a lack of real information for political decision. This situation has worsen the perspectives of sustainability on most of the production processes, specially in ecosystems that have evolved in dry conditions for millions of years (peninsula de Santa Elena). The research efforts that we as UTC and IEE are carrying out, must have the sustainability components, to ensure the survival of our country. Creating and migrating towards a knowledge based society is the only option. Management of intellectual property, in such a way that the whole community can access to, is a priority for the research instances, in order to achieve technological and scientific independency."

=Stream 3: Social Infrastructure and Institutional Innovation: John Restakis=

Contributive Value Accounting and Visualisation
Joachim Lohkamp, jl@jolocom.com JOLOCOM

“ValueXchange indeed is an important topic in context of the Social Dynamic Graph, yet the emphasis lies in the P2P graphic design that I developed. It is node based, uses filters and an algorithm of recency, activity and relevance. Ii integrates the four dimensions of knowledge/ideas, people, location and time in a contextualized mobile interface that is simple and intuitively to use. The roots of this design lie in a rather unconventional research of ancient knowledge, spirituality, geometry and the observation and learnings from living systems.”

Open Standards for Stable Currencies, IP, Personal Data and Value Chain Management Platform development
Marc Gauvin, mgauvin@digitalmediavalues.com

"We can really build something that fits the FLOK objectives, is mainstream and can address the urgent need to build an all inclusive IP based P2P market that combines IP management using standards such ISO/IEC 21000-19 Media Value Chain Ontology (MVCO) ( http://dmag.ac.upc.edu/ontologies/mvco/ ) with open standards for value measure (currency) satisfying ASTA3 Requirements (http://bibocurrency.com/index.php/es/asta3-requirements) for stable mutual credit. Important to this, is the need for users to control their personal data,  hence part of the work would include extending the MVCO for user based transparent management of their personal data."

Global Business Structures
Donnie Maclurcan, donmaclurcan@gmail.com

", I would appreciate being considered for the role of external expert for the 'enabling legal and other institutional frameworks to support open productive capacities' stream. I can offer this stream strategic insights into global approaches to business structures and their associated legal and institutional frameworks (e.g., community interest companies, not-for-profit enterprise, cooperatives, BCorporations. I am currently mapping these structures worldwide, and I presently understand many of the intricacies/nuances of these systems). I am able to shed light on which forms seem to be working best. Having consulted to government, private sector, academic and NGO groups, and simultaneously worked with the Post Growth Institute on alternative economic futures, I have a distinct understanding of the policy ramifications associated with shifting to open, ethical economies and some creative ideas about how 'the firm' might operate in a truly sustainable way. I also have strong knowledge and networks relating to best practices around value accounting and externalities, the circular economy, impact investing, community impact bonds and the interplay of these with emerging forms of accountable governance."

Open Venture Funding
Paul Codd, paulcoddmacdonald@gmail.com

"Paul is a two times entreprenuer and former lecturer of Business Strategy, Systems thinking, and Corporate Social Responsibility at ESERP Business School, Barcelona and Staffordshire University, England. Prior to teaching his background includes internet projects from startups to corporates. He also acted as organisational development and culture change consultant to top teams in the local government sector in England. His interests include photography, organisational systems and paradigms, and he is in the process of becoming a Holacracy practitioner. For the last 12 months or so he has been developing a start-up funding mechanism called the Chakana Fund which includes open and P2P innovations to the traditional VC model."

Collaborative finance as a tool for Ecuador`s transition
Jerome Birolini, jbirolini@gmail.com

I have worked for the past 8 years in investment and social finance. Up until June of 2013, I was working in the microfinance industry where I have worked with more than 50 microfinance institutions in various countries of Latin America, including Ecuador. I am currently studying on the Schumacher College`s "Economics for Transition" Masters degree and would be delighted to help look at how finance can be used to facilitate Ecuador`s transition. I am ready to contribute to practical project development/management/delivery related to the following: social and community funding, interest-rate free lending, complementary currencies and community land trusts. I will be based in England until the end of March 2014 but could potentially relocate after that in order to help the implementation process in the field. Finally, I can create new connections with the various academics, educators, entrepreneurs, scientists and activists that come to speak at the college.

=Stream 4: Open Technical Infrastructures - Jenny Torres =

FLO software solutions for disaster relief and resilience
Devin Balkind, devinbalkind@gmail.com Sarapis Foundation

“I've wondered if Ecuador would put it's money where it's mouth is in regards to free/libre/open technology/culture/ information/knowledge movement and indeed it seems they have! Fantastic. I'm currently working on a project to provide New York City's civic organizations an ecosystem of FLO software solutions for disaster relief and resilience. The project is called nycprepared.org and it's getting nice traction and some significant funding will (hopefully) be distributed to us this coming week. This page gives a pretty concise explanation of the technical components of the project. I wonder if this project could be the basis for a collaboration. We're working with leaders in FLO disaster management software technology - and I'd imagine that Ecuador could benefit from the deployment of these systems.

Recursive Internet Architecture
Gordon Cook,cook@cookreport.com

"Doctorate in Russian history - lifelong interest in governing systems and  22 years as self-employed publisher on Internet technology policy and economics.  I have a global network of key people in all the areas of interest to the Ecuadorian plan.  My network  covers "the material infrastructures in support of the open knowledge commons."  Over the past year I have made myself an expert in the global free network movements including alterMundi Argentina and elsewhere in South America.  The key bedrock of this movement is  that basic Internet infrastructure both mesh wireless and fiber must be held as a commons in such a way that it can never be acquired by a third party. However, there are other very significant Internet applications primarily within the global research and education community.   From 2008 to 2012  I have published several major studies of what is happening here, including under Surfnet's leadership, the use of this infrastructure to establish a global collaborative operating system for  open scientific research. I know all the key people in these communities as well. I have within the last three years and published research on telemedicine;  the internet of things; the Internet in public education reform;  grid computing and the Internet and life sciences and so on. Since the 2008 crash I have intensively studied and written about the need for P2P social organization and economic reform – that of Steve Keen and the modern monetary theory for example - I published two issues on the P2P foundation in 2010 and was told at the time that this work was the most extensive on what  Michel Bauwens and P2P was doing that had ever been written up by third-party. Finally, under current conditions getting access to capital will be difficult for Ecuador and with regard to this problem the work that I have done earlier this year on the John Day and his re-cursive Internet architecture - a complete rewrite of the TCP/IP-based Internet that will be open source and publicly available in 2014 is knowledge that can contribute to the policy planning in Ecuador. This software will be incredibly useful. And finally I have the only complete writeup of the answer to over provisioning of bandwidth on the Internet that, properly implemented, enables throughput of the hardware technology necessary to support the network to more than double. The implication here is that for a set capital expenditure, the output of the resulting network can be doubled or more."

=Stream 5: Commons’ Infrastructure for Collective Life, Janice Figueredo=

NORA commons ontology
Wolfgang Hoechsele and the Commons Abundance Network

Rural Commons issues
Fran Quiroga, fran.g.quiroga@gmail.com

I have been working and studying in the field of rural affairs for the last five years. I have been studying about commons in Galicia, following the work of Elinor Ostrom and have simultaneously participated in the study of the use of internet by the rural population. The project www.graxafamiliar.com, in which I was involved, worked as a platform to sell products from family farmers, and was awarded the 2012 Prize Foods from Spain by the Ministry of Farm, Food and Environment in the category of Best Selling Initiative. Finally, I am currently studying in the Study Group of Ecologies, New Territory and Landscapes in the Contemporary culture Center “Matadero” in Madrid. At the same time I am the leader of the area of study about Rural Commons, in the Lab of Commons, Medialab Prado, Madrid (Spain). As well I am co-coordinator of the cultural project O Monte é noso_sacando procomún, this project has three dispositives: Space of Communal Investigation, Expanded Cartographies and Intervention in local context (http://montenoso.net/ ). In my blog http://semillasdeinnovacion.wordpress.com/ you can see more information about my works.

Urban Commons 1
Michael Mehaffy, michael.mehaffy@gmail.com, Structura Naturalis Inc.

Michael Mehaffy is Executive Director of Portland, Oregon based Sustasis Foundation, a think tank that researches and develops neighborhood-scale and peer-to-peer tools and strategies for human and urban development. Among fellow board members is Ward Cunningham, inventor of Wiki and a leader in development of open source and peer to peer methods. Michael has consulted extensively in Latin America, most recently on the Yachay City of Knowledge project in Ecuador. His focus was on opportunities to use cities as "social reactor networks" to expand human capacity and quality of life.

Urban Commons 2
Marco Casagrande, marco@clab.fi, Biourban acupuncture

Marco Casagrande writing. I am happy to learn about your co-operation with Michel Bauwens on his operation with Ecuador. I would like to support from the angles of local knowledge interpretation in architectural, environmental, community and biourban development. For the bio-social restoration of existing cities I would be happy to produce methods of biourban acupuncture in co-operation with Dr. Stefano Serafini / International Society of Biourbanism. Marco Casagrande, Architect Principal / Casagrande Laboratory / Finland www.clab.fi                +358.50.3089166

Ecological and Sustainability Issues
Nicholas Anastasopoulos, aqua@hol.gr, PROMETEO CANDIDATE

Theory and practice on concepts of sustainability, resilience and their relationship with the Ecuadorean principles of buen vivir/ Sumak Kawsay and Pachamama, informed by systems and complexity theories. Collaboration with FLOK Society research program/Quito (Michael Bauwens); the Los Andes University Bogota, Colombia (Complexity Research unit/Angela Espinosa). Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICREA/ Giorgos Kallis). More collaborations are expected to be fostered along the way with national and international, (Latin American, North American, Australian and European) Institutions. "