21 Visionary Patrons: It is about innovation, free culture and open science

iCommons has been made an offer of $100 000 funding towards the upcoming iCommons summit in Dubrovnik in Croatia. The catch is the $100 000 must be matched by $100 000 to be raised by iCommons itself in 7 days! So iCommons, under the leadership of the remarkable Heather Ford, is campaigning for the balance using a very interesting approach:

A very generous sponsor will donate $100,000 to iCommons if we can raise a matching grant of $100,000 in just 7 days. Powered by our amazing community of bloggers around the world, we’re going to do just that by getting 21 Visionary Patrons to each name one of the base camps on the way to the Summit for $3,000 – taking us up 21 base camps to reach the $63,000 Summit (our sister organisation, Creative Commons, is raising the rest). Each base camp on this epic journey will be named after the sponsor, and sponsors will be able to display buttons indicating their support of this wonderful event.

So why would you want to support this effort? Well, for starters, iCommons is charged with promoting Creative Commons and related content licenses which enable meaningful collaboration and sharing of content. Creative Commons licenses are flexible tools that allow content creators to share their valuable and unique content with the world and yet have that wonderful material continue to support both them and their communities. In other words –

The iCommons Summit is an annual event bringing together 300 visionaries of the free Internet to map out strategies for fostering innovation, free culture and open science around the world. With thought leaders from the world’s top Internet companies who are leading the way in developing an innovative culture in which entrepreneurs around the world can be a part, this event is charting a brighter future for all of us. If the Internet is a part of what makes your business successful, or if you want to support an organisation that is helping to use the Internet for education, science and local innovation, you need to be one of our Visionary Patrons. (Find out more about this year’s Summit)

Old Mutual’s Tony Lankester said this about why they’re funding the Summit: ‘We are investing in the Summit because we see it as a vital incubator of great, innovative thinking around the internet. For the internet to grow to the next level there needs to be a step-change in the way we think about it, talk about it, engage with it, and use it. And that sort of change can only happen if a group of passionate individuals are given the space to pioneer the kind of debate and create a robust framework to take the internet forward. We like the spirit of Creative Commons, and we like the opportunities it can give us in the developing world to take this wonderful technology wider and deeper into society and become an agent of change in its own right.

If innovation, free culture and scientific development is important to you then support this initiative and either donate money yourself or speak to someone who can and wants to be one of the 21 patrons of the iCommons Summit and one of the inspired supporters of such a noble effort. Heck, if I had the $3 000 (roughly R21 000), I’d do it in a flash.

Then again, perhaps you could join me and pledge a donation quickly. Perhaps we, as a community, could be one of the 21 Visionary Patrons and let the world know what South African bloggers can do when inspired. What do you say? Why don’t we come together and be a positive force for change. Pledge what you can and remember the overall goal of R21 000. What do you think? I’ll come up with R1 000. Will you join me?

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