Re: African development project
Subject: Re: African development project
From: Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com>
Date: 5/22/10, 07:36
To: jcommu@gmail.com
CC: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>

Hello, Justin,

I am Clark Robinson. My role in Project PM and the integral Africa Development Project is to inquire about your interests, skills and available time, then match you to some work that is interesting to you and moves the project forward.

Right now we are:
Setting up a charity, and
Getting ready to start a blogger/journalist network.

The blogger network will be driven by new forms of internet collaboration; we also want to develop the best ways of working together online for the charity and for governing our activities. What we learn in setting up the charity will be applied to media network.

On an immediate basis we need help in:
Developing network collaboration tools for the charity,
Collecting and implementing the best ideas to create a flexible charity that raises funds efficiently, and rapidly identifies projects of interest,
Working through our start-up tasks (organizing/incorporating), and
Documenting what we do (do well or do poorly) as we go, for our own learning.

Tasks: Take a look at our two collaborative documents: (1) Given your technical skills, I would like you to work with me to find better ways to create these documents, to keep them indexed and searchable and to make them more interesting and useful to other project members. (2) I would also like you to contribute knowledge and analysis to the discussion in the documents, based on your Africa-related expertise and experience.

You may write in the document itself or send e-mail to me (which I may later share or paste into the documents). Or both. As you will see, we are considering switching from Google docs to a wiki.  Also, you can see that while we are moving from discussion to proposed actions in the legal/financial document, the "main" document is not progressing.  We can refine your tasks more when you tell me what you think after looking at the documents.

If you can describe your time available to work on the project, that would be helpful to me (though I know it may change).

Clark Robinson
217-722-8680

I understand Barrett has shared both documents with you--if you don't have editing access, e-mail me.







On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 10:48 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
Justin-

Thank you for getting in touch.

You'd be extraordinarily useful both to the ADP and to Project PM's governing network in general, and I'd like to have you involved in both. I'm sending you a link to both the ADP main collaborative doc as well as the branch financial issues doc (I imagine you'd have more to contribute to the former, the latter is simply for us to make decisions regarding red tape and fundraising), and will also be sending a link to another doc that we'll be using to make specific decisions as to how the governing network ought to run in case you have any interest in participating in that discussion.

Also, you'll hear from Clark Robinson soon; he's a retired lawyer out of Chicago whom I've put in charge of the ADP temporarily and who will be overseeing and orienting our new participants as we build up our entity into its final form. He can assist you in figuring out what exactly would be the best way for you to contribute, although you can also decide that for yourself by looking over our notes thus far and seeing what we've been discussing in terms of development assistance.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss any aspect of what we're doing, feel free to call me at your convenience. Thanks again for joining Project PM; I can guarantee that the time and effort you put into this will result, both directly and indirectly, in more positive change than would more orthodox activities. 

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 3:14 AM, Justin Commu <jcommu@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello!

My name is Justin Commu and I was referred to you by Timothy Ellis.
I am a recent graduate of the University of Toronto who studied a triple major of Anthropology + African Studies + Computer Science.
I have a great deal of experience with both historical and contemporary issues on the continent with specific regard to issues of sex, gender, and policy, particularity regarding western and southern countries.

As a computer scientist I have been heavily trained in problem solving through mathematics, logic, and software development. Currently, and during my studies, I have striven to merge my technological prowess with my passion for African politics. In the last 3 years of my degree I formulated, and implemented a wireless mesh network for doctors to use for the sharing of patient records in areas where political unrest ruled out the laying of fiber optic or copper cabling.

Tim has filled me in on your work and I have taken the time to read through the PM webpage so as to acquaint myself with the project.
I have attached my resume (more tech oriented) to give you a representation of my studies and work experience, if you feel there is anything I could do to help
with PM or ADP please let me know.

Kind Regards
   Justin Commu



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302