***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 15:47:47 +0200
   [From]: rbo@icon.co.zw
     [To]: forum1@hkw.kbx.de
[Subject]: An opportunity with RBO

Hello forum-members,

This is Klaus Juergen Schmidt of Radio Bridge Overseas in Harare, 
Zimbabwe.

We have been monitoring closely the exchange of opinions, at the 
same time being busy to prepare ourselves for presentation as 
registered "Worldwide Project" of EXPO 2000, the upcoming World 
Exposition in Hannover / Germany.

The present discussion of possibilities to establish a more 
permanent basis of exchange on Internet triggered the idea to 
forward a practical proposal which may allow an exposure beyond 
the circle of people already involved. [I write this with Shahidu 
Alam's (Drik) paper in mind which - in my opinion - has been one of 
the most important contributions, focusing on concerns which have 
been voiced by Gerhard Haupt right from beginning of this forum.]

Out there are many Internet-projects which try to involve people 
who have limited or no access to connectivity. We, at RBO try to 
overcome such limitations by making available Internet-content to 
traditional broadcast media reaching the "poor man's window to the 
world", his/her battery-driven radio fed with programming by his/her 
local radio station. Others like Drik and the "Container"-people have 
surged forward on other paths.

At EXPO 2000, RBO with its project "GLOBAL VILLAGE VOICES" 
will realise in the "House of Worldwide Projects" an online-facility 
which could provide a chance to demonstrate many of such 
attempts by introducing, every day from June to October, not only 
Internet-surfers but thousands of visitors to a live interaction with 
potential partners. This could include text-/video-/audio-
conferencing. We are setting up a facility which could be made 
accessible to a wide range of online-projects. Apart from offering 
their work in an interactive way, they would help to break language 
barriers by committing themselves to shift-duties in a separate 
online-system for simultaneous text-translation, technically 
maintained by RBO through another permanent Internet-conference 
facility which would be displayed in selectable windows for different 
language versions.

The vision is to establish a lasting network, beyond EXPO 2000, 
which bypasses the prevalent restrictions of cultures and 
languages, remaining as a major stumbling block for commercial 
web-busters (those who shrink the net!), to create something which 
could only be done by committed individuals or groups: To add to 
the net a new dimension!

If we don't want to remain in our niches, if we don't want to hand 
over the net to the shrinkers - we have to democratice it ourselves, 
and we have to work for it beyond our respective interests.

For such an attempt, we had to pool resources, we may even have 
to identify - for the initial stage - some donors. Then we have to 
distribute some duties amongst ourselves, areas of work to be 
idenfied as well and reliably executed.

Is this a bridge we can build together?

KJS / RBO




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                           Radio Bridge Overseas
                             98 Ridgeway North
                            Borrowdale / Harare
                                  ZIMBABWE
                      phone / fax : +263 - 4 - 882483
                      http://members.forfree.at/~rbo