When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. ~ Paul Hawken, 2009

I am the Founding Collaborator of the Internet4Change and collaborating4change groups here at Ned, the retired founder of Life in Africa and a member of the Ned.com Board and the Board of a co-working space for social enterprises called HubBrussels. Right now I am coordinating http://cosi10.com, a webbed event series that will entail events around the world connecting in the cosi10 online event space here at ned.com.

http://cosi10.com

Culturally, I am an American who has recently relocated (again) to Brussels, Belgium after more than a decade in East Africa. My lifetime has included 46 countries traveled, worked in or lived in so far. My global gypsy family is dreaming of heading out to Asia to live for a while by 2012. The work that I am doing now has that in mind.

One of my main passions during my 10+ years in E. Africa was finding ways to use the internet to create meaningful grassroots change in African communities. I became an Ashoka Fellow in 2001 after creating the first microfinance program in Africa driven by global online donor relationships. That work later evolved toward a focus on job creation, as well as community building - both online and off, including connections between the two. I have "experimented" alot, as a social alchemist. Occasionally there was magic. Always, there were lessons learned about how communities can and are using the Internet to collaborate for good.

My dream is to participate in an important way in co-creating systems that can help us to do that better on a global scale. I've got a 10 year plan in the works that you can learn more about at http://Evolutionize.It, the non-profit social enterprise I've just launched in Belgium.

I'm thinking a lot lately about how events catalyze our work, and how to use online tools to leverage that.