[hackerspaces] Hacktivist?

[Stewart Dickson]

Hi,

Yes.   But, it's a bit bass-ackwards.  The MakerSpace is a working group 
of an Activist organization.

In December of 2009, I walked into the Urbana-Champaign Independent 
Media Center <http://www.ucimc.org/> and
proposed to organize a HackerSpace.   And so it came to pass.

The U-C IMC was a product of the 2000 Battle in Seattle.  It is a 501(c) 
non-profit.   It is staffed
by AmeriCorps <http://www.americorps.gov> Volunteers.   The 
MakerSpace-Urbana <http://www.makerspaceu.org> is a working group of the 
U-C IMC.

Chambana.net <http://chambana.net> used to be a vital core of 
Hacker-Activists.  Unfortunately, many of the most
effective of that group have moved on to *real jobs*.  The few remaining 
are active in the MakerSpace.

One current project of the MakerSpace-Urbana is a "Wireless in the 
Developing World <http://wndw.net>" reading group and a grassroots Mesh 
WiFi effort, which is a resurrection of something called C-U-Win 
<http://www.cuwin.net>,
which started eight years ago, before the advent of less expensive 
solutions like Mesh WiFi.

The MakerSpace-Urbana is also home to a twice-weekly Free Computer 
Help-Desk.

The U-C IMC is also home to the Public i <http://newpublici.ucimc.org> 
print publication and Radio Free Urbana <http://www.wrfu.net>, a project of
the Socialist Forum.  Last December, Brian Duggan, AmeriCorps Volunteer 
and co-founder of
the MakerSpace and I started doing a weekly show on WRFU called 
TechKnowLedge.  We do
talk about Net Neutrality, Concentration of Media Ownership, issues, 
etc. on our show.

If WRFU and Chambana.net get pumped-up enough, we will start streaming 
WRFU programming to the world, but that hasn't happened yet.   Right 
now, WRFU is working on a new antenna tower.

Cheers,

-Stewart, http://us.imdb.com/Name?Stewart+Dickson
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/10/vedic_math_machines_and_3d_zoetrope.html
http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/author.html?author=Stewart+Dickson
http://www.hastac.org/blogs/sdickson/makerspace-urbana-june-3-open-house-presentation

On 5/26/11 11:01 AM, Agent 5 wrote:
> I find there tend to be a few Computer Hackers sprinkled among the 
> generally accepted type of Hackerspace. SO my question to you is...
>
> Are you are Hacktivist?
>
> If so, what do you and your Hackerspace do in your community to raise 
> awareness in changes of online rights and technology and such?
>
> If not, what would you like to do or see?
>
>
> -David Johnson     -Agent5-
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

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