Towards Betterness with TelaSocial
This is a 2 year timeline taken from our blog site. It’s here and it serves as a mark so we can better move on ( as in betterness [1] ) and we can explain our history to investors ( everyone that is interested in the project and not only the folks using money but also whoever supports with code, time and attention, feedbak, or even listening/watching us .) February 14 is the date of our first blog post and not the actual initial date.
Phase Zero started in 2009 with an idea. I remember a few meetings with my friend Chris ( Hofmann @ Mozilla ) and our brainstorming activities about these and other related ideas. At the time I had a lot of ideas and demos and some early prototypes using Mozilla XULRunner technology so that was seed for discussions and growth. I also presented this project when I was invited to a Mozilla event in Chile, among with other contributions to Mozilla. It’s difficult to measure when the project was really born but I remember clearly the initial case, or wish. I wanted to have a LED-based panel to display messages, in english language, at the location where I studied Computer Science — ICMC in Brazil. This was my alumni wish and it came out this way because I love english language and I always wanted something where students could explore their visual space ( think the university physical state ) and to help others to learn. And learning via doing and learning yet having fun is something I am truly passionate and will continue to work every next day in my life. So this was phase zero and I am proud that it started with an use case in a school and it had to do with learning and languages and that it was towards the idea of cultural exchange.Phase one was 2010 and 2011 and many contributed with the project. From folks I hired to many others that accepted these challenges. Their names appear in many of the events in the past two year attachment document. This is now our 3rd year and we have a lot to achieve and to learn.
Some of the key areas for 2012 are:
- Better position as a system and project to allow participants to have a voice at their local communities; TelaSocial has to be stronger as a tool for participation;
- Better position as a system and project to allow participants to interact in new ways so they can have fun while learning and improving their social environments; TelaSocial has to be stronger as a tool for education;
And we plan to achieve this with ( yet to be polished and revisited ) some actions:
- Enter in communities, beyond universities ( which was our original scenario), to disrupt their environment in positive ways. And to connect people with cultures from other countries or local catalysts willing to help them to learn and to have a voice;
- Provide and interaction framework for creative development; We believe that everyone can be an author and that they can learn via doing, via providing a guide and an example and framework to others. We believe that an input, from a user, can be available to others as a map to follow, and that a creation should be acessible and shared;
- Continue to develop relationships with universities, government, and private organizations; help them to create participatory experiences at their locations and prepare them to the days that are yet to come where every single public space can be a place with honest ( as in transparent ) discussions and where creative input contributes to the locality in first place then to remote social environment.
[1] http://hbr.org/product/betterness-economics-for-humans/an/11135-PDF-ENG
