iCommons
‘a global conversation about
the future of the internet’

Why are we afraid of telling
people what we know?

How can we use the internet
to serve a better world?

Does openness always bring
abundance?

Does greater access to
information make us wiser?

“Never was the technology of peace, in
the form of the tractor, transformed
into a weapon of war, more ferociously
than with the creation of the Valentine
tank... so named because it was first
born into the world on the day of Saint
Valentine in 1938.”

How will the history of the
internet be written?

(a)
‘We were doing so well, but the
internet soon became a weapon
of war and control’

(b)
‘At the brink of a new world war, the
internet made the world re-think
ideas about
cooperation and common
development.’

Creative Commons
Free Software

opportunity

creators

read/write culture

21st century

‘The wealth of networks’

The iCommons Summit
‘Starting the global
conversation’

With human beings as creators
at the centre

a special kind of
conversation

models

Rio 2006

Rio 2006
• Education commons

Rio 2006
• Education commons
• Culture commons

Rio 2006
• Education commons
• Culture commons
• Business commons

Rio 2006
• Education commons
• Culture commons
• Business commons
• Heritage commons

Rio 2006
• Education commons
• Culture commons
• Business commons
• Heritage commons
• Public sector commons

Rio 2006
• Education commons
• Culture commons
• Business commons
• Heritage commons
• Public sector commons
• Scientific commons

Communities
• Open content (cc, Wikipedia)
• Business and venture capital
• Civil society
• Governments

iCommons incubator
‘models for innovation’

features
• modular task construction
• self-selection
• transparency
• communication
• humanization
• fairness
• norm creation

The Freedom Toaster

Open business

Open business

Open business

Open business

Open business

Open Publishing in a Box

The Rio Framework on
Open Science
1. contracts for open science (CC)
2. software for open science (dspace, eprints,
topaz, etc.)
3. evidence for open science (journal articles,
data)
4. momentum for open science (press articles
etc)
5. arguments for open science (to funders,
universities, journals)

iCommons iCurriculum

Cultural heritage and
living archives

R&D

build an ecology of
information

a blueprint for the
future

www.icommons.org
heather@icommons.org