Constant Flux

Apparently not much. iSummit seems a great and noble venture, but it seems to be more disconnected from reality with each passing year.

It completely ignores the aspect of access. It’s being held in Japan this year. In Japan! Can you afford a ticket to Japan? Didn’t think so. You can try to attend the Second Life event… if you have a fast broadband land-line connection (Second Life claims wireless isn’t good enough), lots of data traffic to burn, and a monster computer with an excellent graphics card. I don’t. It’s estimated that only 1% of all South Africans have broadband access, but that figure includes 3G wireless access. Is the summit using IRC? Forums? Wikis? Blogs? Speech transcripts? Videos? A DVD production of past summits placed on Freedom Toasters? Not that I can see.

They’ve got mailing lists for some workshops, but workshops are for attendees. Among other things, these workshops will ponder conundrums of earth shattering importance - such as “What makes an organization global?“. Yarp. That’s really gonna make a difference in my day-to-day life.

The iSummit About page also makes some wild claims:

Advancements in information and communication technology have, for the first time in human history, enabled a host of opportunities that have seen societies leapfrogging out of underdevelopment, artists and creators regaining control over their expressions and people around the world working on distributed projects that benefit all humankind.

The iSummit offers a picture of that promise - bringing together activists, change agents and new world social entrepreneurs to chart and reflect on a positive path for a more fair, more just, more creative world in the Information Age.

Uh, exactly which societies have been leapfrogging out of underdevelopment? ‘Cause apparently South Africa isn’t one of ‘em. I’m still stuck up to my ears in the digital divide. The second paragraph is slightly more frightening. These people who can afford to fly to Japan for a summit are going to “chart and reflect” on a better world for us, the common people. What is this, an Oligarchy? Creative Commons is meant to empower the common people! All I see the summit doing is gathering the Digital Elite.

Does this summit actually accomplish anything concrete? Does it even try?