www.oreilly.com — interview with Ethan Zuckerman

O’Reilly, favourite publisher of geeks everywhere has an interview with my friend, some-time mentor, and often inspiration Ethan. He founded GeekCorps, and has incredibly managed to transport a geek ethic and fascination to a sector which is hardly known for innovation and quick feet.

In 1993, Ethan Zuckerman was a Fulbright scholar working in the West African nation of Ghana. He was amazed that virtually no one in the country had Internet access: “There was, in the whole country, I think, one person who was regularly online, and he was getting online by dialing AOL in the U.K., and checking email once a week,” Ethan says. After the Fulbright, Ethan returned to the U.S. and became tech employee No. 1 at Tripod, which was later bought by Lycos. In 1999, at the height of the dot-com bubble, he looked around to find himself far wealthier than he ever imagined he would be and found himself thinking about Africa again.

One thought on “Ethan, friend and inspiration”

  1. hej, nu mens jeg læste interviewet med Ethan, kom der en masse tanker, associationer, ideer, som måske er brugbare, måske ikke. måske bedst transferable hvis jeg fortæller mine associationer: som du ved samarbejdede jeg engang med MRG International, som inspirerede mig til at starte MRG-DK i 1990. MRG-I kunne så bruge os til at få en stor del af sit budget dækket først fra Danida, senere fra Nida og Sida og Fida eller hvad de nu hedder alle sammen! Danida var meget mere villig til at give penge til en intrnational NGO end til en dansk. Til gengæld var MRG, og jeg, en dansk mini-NGO uden kapital, deres garant for at der var danskere der garanterede… som loven vist kræver det. Vi fik intet, London fik alt. Og virkelig meget, fik dækket en lang række projekter. Som de så delvist outsourcede til MRG-DK. Dvs offixielt fungerede vi som rådgivere, garanter og implementatorer. dette er en tolkning et årti efter, men contentwise ikke helt ukorrekt. I praksis fungerede det sådan at Alan Phillips, MRG-I director forhandlede med det danske UM og ind imellem gik jeg med til møderne og smilede. Måske kan modellen adapteres??? mor sender hilsen

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