[Mesh] Let's get real

How de we get here?????? Disclaimer: I've been in Puerto Rico for 23 years, more than any other place I've ever lived, even good ol'e Kokomo. I've visited back to the states as often as I can, but living on a retired veterans income places it's own limitations on mobility. So this is all I really know. I know other places share similar behaviors and traits. My frustrations are the same as the FUD resistance for any community. Oh yeah, please don't judge me if my observations are harsh. Sometimes science can be cruel. A brief riff on FLOSS, community, and the IT industry in Puerto RIco Let me preface this by saying that I believe that science is the route I will follow at the beginning of this. The post-Maria disaster presented some very significant findings and they must be documented to move things forward. So, here we go, take a deep breath. We're about dive into a hard answer. Lately I've been trying to look at my observations from some very open places, so that I may gain some perspective. So this is the first forum where I'm trying share this new view. I believe that there are some very strong communities on the island, but only a few are what we might call technology communities. Let's take car enthusiasts as an example, the coherence within these groups is high, they meet regularly and openly share tech, ideas, values, etc. They are active online and connect regularly. Coming from the Midwest, racing and cars are common. Enthusiasts pursue a strong community for the love of racing and cars. Some can make a career and/or profit off of the base, most do it because, as we say here they are "fiebru." Translated it basically means they have a fever for the topic of their obsession. I believe that these groups are the future of community in Puerto Rico. Now let's look at the tech arena. To my knowledge, there only a couple of "open" communities. One is the social media arena, but they don't have a core group, more like a core group of people from varying orgs. Some groups have come and gone, but none has withstood the inherent pressures of being the "lead" group. there some quazi-tech groups which are parts of other purpose groups, like a local sales and marketing association. The other group has an information security focus and they have been operating for about 6 years now. They are a talented group and I'm sure they will help. I know the founders so, I hope that we're good (more on them later). In the 23 years I've been here groups come and go, but most (all?) fell prey to market forces. My new theory is that these types of communities fail because of the intersection between business/career interests and the welfare of the community. An associate of mine from the prPIG days shared this observation recently. Only 3.5 million peeps, and dropping quickly, live on the main island. Maybe 1.5 million households. We are just too small to have any technology niche. Negative forces on community: 1) Due to our small population, just how muchy technology talent do we have? With low high-school graduation rates, it probably at the low end of any national norms. 2) PR has a very low incoming migratory rate. As opposed to the 48 contiguous states, you just can't drive to relocate here. Most immigration we have is from the Dominican Republic. 3) PR has a very high migration out of island, the infamous brain drain. Yes the hurricane has accelerated the process but we retain very few of the most talented of our new graduates. They are heavily recruited on campus. Outside the scope (or is it?) of this research is the brain drain within the medical community. We face an uncertain public health issue with the very real lack of doctors. Many have not reopened after the hurricane and have relocated. It is unknown if they will return to their practices 4) Many participants within technology communities are more interested in personal advancement. No different than most places, but bear with me. 5) Finally, if you accept that a community is strongest when it is driven for the love of it, and not merely to advance the community, then what happens when the leaders of the organizations, which are meant to address deep social problems (literacy, media literacy, a free and open Internet, the digital divide, etc) siphon off the energy from their communities for personal reasons? Happens everywhere right, but what if this behavior was systemic. After applying all of these forces, we are limited to a very small population of technology enthusiasts who are just not enough to keep a community alive (the negative forces grind them down until they move on to something else). It is not unheard of someone coming into a community to spread FUD within the ranks, especially when the advancements of the community would have threatened an established player. Bottom line, my theory is, to get enough nodes to create a viable network, it will come from a community of communities (collective of collectives). I further believe that public safety might be the in for this rich tapestry of fiebrus across the island. Sorry if this was too long, but there are no easy answers when it comes to community in Puerto Rico. BTW, IMHO for the gold-standard metric of our IT industry, look at the Puerto Rico economy at a glance. https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet It goes back to 1990. If you will notice, the size of out IT industry has been in sharp decline for a while. Without effective leadership we will have nearly erased all of the job growth back to when I first came in 1995. Meaning, there are no more IT jobs today than there were back in the mid 90's PS: Eve, I would love to hear more about the ham relay system. Since I'm still doing research so I don't know enough yet, but I've heard of ham radio based tcp/ip, which sounds very promising. -- Kevin Shockey Artist, Scientist, Activist Twitter <https://twitter.com/shockeyk>& Instagram <https://www.instagram.com/shockeyk/> <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> Virus-free. www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>