Proposal to Design a GlobalVillageIndex for Hubs

Andrius: Richard and his Solaroof technology have been invited to be featured at an exposition this September, 2007 at London's South Bank with funding from the Shell Group and/or the Shell Foundation. I present my thoughts how our Minciu Sodas laboratory might work for him to support his efforts.

Richard wants to set up a temporary "hub" at the exposition, which is to say, a workplace where independent workers can work in a collective atmosphere on their individual projects for pay and for free. Such hubs are proving popular and taking a variety of forms, including incubators, unity centers and global villages.

I propose that for 10,000 GBP our Minciu Sodas laboratory:

• design a GlobalVillageIndex which would be a self-ranking tool for a hub to be held accountable for the breadth and depth of its spirit
• reach out to 100 hubs around the world that would participate in this self-ranking and self-promotion with assistance from our teams
• help at least 10 of these hubs and as many as possible to participate before, during and after the exposition by way of a variety of online tools to share experience relevant for Solaroof in an "open source" manner

I would dedicate 5,000 GBP for my own work to lead a public investigation as to What are the dimensions of the Global Village experience? and how can we measure them? I would then create an index by which a global village might evaluate itself along a series of dimensions. The village could self-rank itself. The self-ranking would generate expectations in others as to how they might engage the village, and they might confirm, along each dimension, whether the village is overestimating or underestimating its stage of development or whether they think it is presenting itself correctly. This would encourage hubs to pursue a holistic approach and to keep expecting more of themselves in all dimensions.

I would dedicate 5,000 GBP to support and mobilize our global team so that we might reach out to at least 100 hubs around the world and help them self-rank themselves and otherwise present and promote themselves. We would take a fractal approach much as we have with MyFoodStory with five or six leaders each focusing on a particular dimension and investigating what factors indicate the level of maturity of a hub for that dimension. Each team leader would lead a team of five or six people that would be engaging hubs also as to small projects that they might pursue together regarding Solaroof and other global village technologies, but especially with an intent to share real life experience in an open source manner regarding their technologies that they would like to feature, and perhaps to reproduce them in modest ways elsewhere in the world. We will look especially for technologies that foster agriculture and build on our stories at MyFoodStory.

We would then present at the exposition the ongoing work of at least 10 hubs for an open source sharing of experience regarding innovative technologies. We would especially make use of video bridges and a supportive combination of chat, wikis, blogs and other technologies as inspired.

The Global Villages Index will serve as a central point for an ethical index of businesses that "do good". A key point is that "good businesses" are supportive of a chain of human bonds that reaches from the heights of the most powerful corporations to the people who suffer the greatest isolation and disadvantage. The greatest structural obstacle to such human unity is the "corporate wall" by which corporations avoid the individuals who might work for them or swallow them into the corporation. The real good that businesses can do is to hire workers from hubs, especially hubs that score high on the Global Villages Index. Once the resources make it out to such hubs, then we know that they can easily reach the farthest corners of the earth, as our network of independent thinkers has shown.

This proposal depends on our ability to organize a Minciu Sodas laboratory working group around Richard Nelson as an independent thinker who periodically shares his vision and inspires us with his deepest value and investigatory questions and is held accountable to them for his growth and our growth by his example.

Also, we will keep to the principles of our laboratory:

• our work is in the Public Domain and any exceptions are limited and explicitly noted
• we understand that money can bring us together, but we can't be paid to care
• we seek for all to find a way to succeed

Rick, Thank you for alerting us to this opportunity that we might work for you. Please think and speak boldly regarding our interest to participate.