OneVillage Initiative
From Open Digital Village Wiki
Our Methodology and approach is a reflection of our aspiration to design programs that uplift community spirit while providing a way to practically integrate various approaches in a comprehensive approach to sustainable development, involving partners from various fields in what is called a Multi-sectorial or Multi-sector approach.
oneVillage Initiative (OVI) first takes a holistic approach to exploring problems. Then it seeks to develop multi-stakeholder alliances to begin to solve those problems also from a holistic/whole system perspective.
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An Integrated Approach
A Holistic ICT for EcoLiving approach considers the need to develop a more ecological approach to living and doing things. The organic development of the Internet (in that it is more interactive, egalitarian and dynamic that traditional top down approaches to management, communications and education) can actually be used to help facilitate a more ecological/relationship based approach to learning.
OVF through its research has identified the critical leverage points to address World Urgent Issues through the development of OVI:
- OVI is a comprehensive, community-based approach still in the development stages which aspires to promote the rapid replication of ecologically and socially sustainable systems around the world.
- OVI is an Assets Based Community Development model (ABCD) that identifies local needs and designs systems that address those needs.
- OVI evolves this process by developing a integrated development model that promotes local self-reliance, while also increasing competitiveness within the global economy as appropriate to community needs as well as ecological considerations.
- Holistic ICT for Development model considers the relevant ICT infrastructure to enable this process.
- OVI builds on existing programs and accomplishments of the stakeholders in relation to various areas of focus for the groups involved such as ICT training and education, health awareness and sustainable agriculture.
Pillars & Integrated Knowledge Wheel
OVI is a comprehensive platform for sustainable economic development, built on six ‘pillars’, which are the foundation of oneVillage Initiative Sustainable Development Ecosystem.
The Importance of Physical Convergence Points
As part of a Holistic ICT approach Physical Convergence Points connect the virtual with the physical everyday life of people living in the communities that are the targets of this approach. The idea of the physical convergence point as a "Unity Center" is one of the most important considerations to real sustainable development. Many communities around the world, regardless of income and classification as developed and developing, have been fractured through the modernization process. Prevailing modern values stress individualism and competition at the macro-scale over the need for locally based and designed micro-scale collective actions through group consensus making and building process. The idea of a Multipurpose Center in a community is seen as a way to encourage a holistic approach by developing a host of services, relationships and interactions upon which a symbiotic and synergistic Ecosystem results - organically. Initial infrastructure at the Multipurpose Centers can be utilized to provide basic analysis and development services for these groups as well as provide opportunities for talented youth at local institutions to excel using these tools and develop new mode of thinking for solving problems.
Under current OVF operations, these centers are initially being developed as Open Digital Villages (ODiV). Open Digital Villages help to concentrate efforts for local community revitalization and improvement on a comprehensive and focused strategy that with the most realistic and immediate needs, while featuring the most relevant sustainable practices and technologies as the solution-sets.
OVI is a process of thinking that is best located within centers that operate as physical convergence points, analyzing local conditions and challenges and considering stakeholder needs and opportunities, particularly those relevant to the partners and stakeholder groups.
EcoPartner Networks
OVI encourages the development of a EcoPartner Network. What this means is that OVI looks at the problems facing humanity taking the idea of thinking globally and acting locally to a new level. Ecology teaches us a natural order to the evolution and development of systems that is governed by a balancing of cooperation with competition. From this a series of complex symbiotic relationship develop between organisms, other ecosystems as well as inanimate systems like the ocean, the geological landforms and the weather/climate.Human systems we believe should not operate outside of these natural processes. The idea of a ecological/ecosystem based approach is based on such thinking.
Developing Collective Intelligence: Empowering Global Networks Dedicated to Socially Just and Sustainable Forms of Human Development to Rise to their Full Potential
As part of the EcoPartner Approach OVI seeks to formulate a generalized operating methodology and approach that can form the basis of effective network collaboration as a practical manifestation of what is termed by future theorists such as Doug Engelbart and others as Collective Intelligence. The primary tenets of this approach are as follows:
- Encouraging Community Participation - oneVillage Initiative is an Assets Based Community Development Process (ABCD) built upon the six pillars of the Integrated Knowledge Wheel. The Pillars are the foundation of the oneVillage Initiative Ecosystem and include: education, governance, economy, ecology, wellness & healthcare, and culture & tradition. The pillars, and the concentric rings around them, describe the ecology of community revitalization.
- Connecting People Together to Promote Best Practices - On a practical level our projects connect people together to encourage a more concerted global effort to resolve urgent world issues that is grassroots oriented. Building on the Catch IT Young youth Information and Communications Technology (ICT) clubs program that we have prototyped in Ghana, we plan to develop an eLearning and collaboration system that will enable various networks around the world to effectively work together online.
- Improving Collective IQ - By addressing the barriers to effective communication through the effective utilization of ICT in concert with the oneVillage Initiative approach to human development, we will begin to increase collective IQ in a way similar to Networked Improvement Communities concept put forward by Dr. Doug Engelbart of the Bootstrap Institute.
- Promoting a Global Human Culture and Economy Based on Mutuality and Trust - Information and Communications Technologies through the development of a online eLearning and collaboration portal will be used to develop an "end-to-end human services" infrastructure enabling knowledge and resource sharing between communities of people located in different countries and regions.
