Re-Hacking Your World

Next week it’s my great pleasure to be participating in the Re-Hacking Your World conference taking place physically in Germany, but globally via pre-recorded interviews, IRC and Skype.

Re-hacking Your World examines issues of crisis and possibility by intervening in the relationships between environment, industry and culture. Has our cultural hardware and software become useless and unserviceable faced with the complex challenges that confront us? In order to prevent a complete takeover of commercial interests in the development of digital cultures in Africa, Asia and Latin America, it becomes essential to promote and strengthen the vocabulary of open source systems and develop fair use mechanisms.

With the worldwide largest mobile growth rates and promises of being connected to the global fibreoptic network soon, new possibilities are dawning on Africa’s horizon. Digital cultures in African countries are developing now. How do today’s digital developments impact on every-day life? Has the course been set by foreign companies’ emerging commercial interests and are donors’ preferences leading the way? Or are African countries creating their own visions and realities of digital cultures and societies? Digital islands are emerging, offering innovative, adapted solutions to specific local needs as alternatives to the mainstream. The session will explore some of these initiatives working towards self-determined, relevant, economically sustainable, and change-making paths into Africa’s digital future.

The overall questions/objectives:

• To understand the different streams of activities, what is really happening re: digital developments in Africa? What are the important / interesting / promising developments? And what do they change?
• What is already hacked, what needs re-hacking, and who is actively doing so?
• What is the role of Free/Open Source software? Why does that matter?
• Where is the journey going? Where do we want it to go? What do we need to take care of?

Re-Haking Your World takes place on Thursday, 29, 2009 beginning at Noon CET +0100 UTC

How to follow the live stream: http://www.transmediale.de/en/transmediale09-streams-help-page-en

How to join the chat: http://www.transmediale.de/en/transmediale09-irc