Empowering Human Connected Communities

• Main Author: Cerri, Stefano A.
• Other Authors: Système Multi-agent, Interaction, Langage, Evolution (SMILE), Laboratoire d'Informatique de Robotique et de Microélectronique de Montpellier (LIRMM), Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2012
• Subjects: [INFO.EIAH]Computer Science [cs]/Technology for Human Learning; [SHS.EDU]Humanities and Social Sciences/Education; [INFO.INFO-HC]Computer Science [cs]/Human-Computer Interaction [cs.HC]; Arctic; Argentina; Di Castri; inuits
• Online Access: https://hal-lirmm.ccsd.cnrs.fr/lirmm-00799140; https://hal-lirmm.ccsd.cnrs.fr/lirmm-00799140/document; https://hal-lirmm.ccsd.cnrs.fr/lirmm-00799140/file/EmpowRio2012Part2Handout.pdf; https://hal-lirmm.ccsd.cnrs.fr/lirmm-00799140/file/EmpowRio2012Part1Handout.pdf

International audience The keynote's goal is to reflect on emergent opportunities for human Discovery (in science), Creativity (in art & industry), and Learning (in education) as processes often occurring serendipitously in individuals and in communities empowered by dynamic Web connections in the global village. These reflections seem to fit best with the mandate of the CBIE Conference: sustainable education. Having been influenced by the pioneering work of the late ecologist Francesco Di Castri, former Unesco coordinator for durable development and main United Nations consultant for the Rio 1992 Conference, we envision major shifts in the societies of the future, concerning all aspects of their life in general and of their education in particular. We adopt his foundational view that local empowerment of isolated communities is enabled by bidirectional access to Information with a champion playing a catalytic role. The empowerment envisioned by Di Castri was described by him in several field studies, ranging from isolated islands in Polynesia such as the Easter Island, to isolated Inuits in the Arctic region, to peri urban regions in Argentina and Brazil, to rural villages in the south of India. At the time these studies mainly focused on the acquisition of primary means of survival, including self esteem from the recognition of a cultural identity. The observed phenomena did not register the enactment of mass sustainable innovation and development in rapidly developing Countries such as Brazil today. While the necessary conditions for development were postulated and experimentally verified, technologies were not yet ripe. In the talk I will argue that processes of human massive scientific discovery, creativity and learning may today easily occur by exploiting available Web resources -bidirectional access to Information- , under the condition to be accompanied by "champions", the new teachers playing a catalytic role in the autonomous, social acquisition of knowledge. These processes may be even ...