Web 2.0 and Internet2

[Stanislaus]

One of the reasons we've been interested in Web 2.0 (and beyond) social networking is because we're looking at creating and sustaining a virtual community of people interested in or participating with the International Polar Year or IPY, which runs through at least March 2009 and focuses on scientific studies of melting ice and snow, the situation facing millions of people living in the Arctic, the role of carbon in the climate system, and how polar science has global linkages.

The current IPY (there were several prior including the original international year in 1882-83) has tens of thousands of scientists, boat loads of educators, artists and enthusiasts, and our efforts to build community have been fledgling but somewhat successful, including the Virtual Balloon Launch on March 1 that had 250 schools or science centers around the world participating in local activities to help celebrate the start of IPY.

The current IPY website is limited in terms of what it can do to build online communities and networking, but we have plans for a next generation "My IPY" website.... pending funding.

Meanwhile, driven in part by my own dislike for long airplane rides and looking to the future when the casual and fairly inexpensive air travel may be a thing of the past, I've been boning up on Internet2, and in particular the Internet2 Commons Internet2 Commons for creative collaborations and high-definition quality video conferencing. A parallell network of fibre to the Internet we all love and hate, Internet2 and its international partners use Internet2 for education and science purposes only.

No commercial commerce is allowed on it, though private enterprise, say, Microsoft Research, can participate. (In the corporate realm, telepresence is increasingly being used for meetings, with companies like Cisco and Polycom developing state-of-the-art high-end video conferencing systems, though these tend to run in the +$100k range rather than the $10-$30K range for Internet2 high-def videoconference systems.

What I'm particularly interested in is merging some Web 2.0 tools and tricks and the robust, high quality vehicle of Internet2 for linking up science and technology centers, schools, researchers, artists, educators, first with International Polar Year projects, and then down the line to focus on creative solutions to climate conundrums...like how will we be able to meet and greet and collaborate with our friends and colleagues in the future when 1) by circumstance and design it might be much more expensive and/or difficult to jump on a plane to fly to a meeting around the world and 2) we need to find radical, effective ways to massively scale back on our carbon footprints.

Yes, we'll be burning up plenty of electrons, so to speak, to run the video screens and computing power, but it will be much less energy all told than flying around the world. Increasingly I run into people who tell me (and I agree) that they are sick and tired of air travel for all kinds of reasons. And increasingly I'm hearing from young people (often very bright and motivated) that for environmental reasons they simple won't travel because they take reducing their carbon footprint seriously. But they would like to have alternatives to participate in various meetings and workshops. Combining Web 2.0 and Internet2 seems like a very ripe and potentially powerful tool to explore to build sustainable, resilient communities (virtual and otherwise) for the future.