Understanding GKP

From this website and from the annual reports I have difficulties to understand the GKP. There are many information pieces, similar to puzzle stones, but I can't make them fit together. I would like to find win-win-situations for GKP, organisations I'm connected to here in Austria, and me. E. g. there is the KF University Graz, a pioneer in it's ICT usage to reach out to remote places and villages. There are local governmental structures on various levels, from the county down to small regions and villages. There are various NGOs. There is even village to village partnership from the village Kirchbach, Styria to a village Lampao, Thailand; using the "global villages concept" of Franz Nahrada as a theoretical framework.

It's clear that the GKP had a kind of "golden age" in the past, around the World Summits on the Information Society 2003 and 2005, where the GKP played a big role. Time and situation has changed. Now GKP seems to restructure and reinvent itself. But it is not clear where GKP wants to preserve the past, and where it needs and wants to change. There was ICT4D as a big topic, an ICT4D platform. Now this is seemingly lost, the referenced domain ict4d.org even in the hand of domain grabbers.

There is this 100+ body of members, many big names. There where years when 40+ member applications came in and only 10+ were accepted. Are the existing names too big to allow for no-names? Or is there the feeling of a self-sufficient club? On the other hand, if you look into the English (or German) Wikipedia, there are no entries for GKP. Nor for it's past and present leaders. In a virtual sense, GKP is not existing. What does this mean?

Where would Faceook be, if they had stopped at 100+ members, or targeted an exclusive membership? Can GKP live up to it's ideal of "inclusion"?

Helmut

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Helmut Leitner on March 5, 2012 at 9:18am

some problem with the editor.

Permalink Reply by Helmut Leitner on May 15, 2012 at 9:21pm

I finally went into Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/helmutleitner42, at least to understand what its all about.

After a while I found https://twitter.com/#!/GKPFoundation. It was active in Dez 2011 (11 tweets=postings) and Jan 2012 (32). Then Feb (0), Mar (0), Apr (0), Mai (2).

Shouldn't be that way, or should it?

Permalink Reply by Helmut Leitner on May 18, 2012 at 7:42am

Though my last posting hasn't been answered, there have been 20 Tweets on the @GKPFoundation Twitter account within the 48 hours since then.

Permalink Reply by Franz Nahrada on May 18, 2012 at 8:14am

Thanks for the observation. I think its really not a big deal to get these things going. I will write a blog post about the Geneva Workshop which could underline that point. It became increasingly clear to me what exactly is the void that GKPF can fill in with meaning and action.