Rasmus Larsen

Greetings!

I work at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), primarily with our msc programme in Integrated Water Resource Management. Together with colleagues at SLU I am organising this upcoming workshop in ICT and Environment.

My most memorable experience in relation to ICT and environment may be the video-conference seminar we had in the Network for Integrated Transboundary Water Research (NITWAR) last yr with the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction based in Kampala, Uganda. It was a special feeling connecting across time zones and distance with Kennedy Igbokwe and his colleagues, and their partners from the university in Kampala as well as the district fisheries and natural resource management officials from Lake Kyoga. Students from the msc programme in IWRM were present and enjoyed a good two hrs dialogue.

My main aspiration for the workshop is that we may identify and see emerge effective ways of enabling fruitful collaboration amongst a diverse group of people all summoned by an interest in how ICT tools can be applied in the broad field of environmental work. I look forward to learn more about how technical solutions can be employed in harmony with values of democracy, gender, and stakeholder dialogue!

Best wishes
Rasmus

Hi there,

How do you stand on three legs and put equal weight on all three? How many intellectual legs can we develop? For me this workshop can give us an answer.

ICT is traditionally very technology oriented. Environmental issues are mainly taken up by environmentalists, and nowadays also by politicians. ICT and managing the natural resources and the environment is done by people, people with different ideas, wants, backgrounds, focus, capacity, training etc. This is why I think we cannot talk about environment without talking about people, we cannot talk about ICT without considering the people using the technologies.

For this event we are asking people to make an effort and try to stand on three legs: environment, ICT and people, in presentations, discussions and in other interactions. We are looking forward to an event where we can start thinking in new directions, triggered by meeting people with different ideas and backgrounds then ourselves.

I am an anthropologist by training, I have been working in the interface between science and practice for ten years. Since two years I am working as a project coordinator at SLU.

See you in April!

Welcome to the blog!

Dear Participant!

Warmly welcome to the blog and the preparatory exchanges before the workshop!

Preparations and introductions
We encourage you to introduce your-selves and your work by answering the three questions below:

1) What would you like us to know about you?

2) What has been your most memorable experience working with ICT and environment related questions?

3) What do you hope will emerge from the workshop in April?

You can answer these questions by composing and publishing a post here on this site - click 'new post' in the upper right of the blog. You can also use the 'comment' option below each post to respond to interesting topics raised by others. If you have any questions or comments pls contact the organiser at any time!

By sharing who we are and what we do in advance of the workshop we believe that the exchanges in Uppsala 7+8 April will be more fruitful. We look very much forward to the exchanges with you all on this blog and to meeting you in person in Uppsala! We encourage all of us to use the blog in an interactive way, and hope that the presentations may start various conversations, which may already before the workshop help us into a constructive dialogue.

Programme and more details
We will in few weeks time upload the programme for the workshop and the participants list!