In 2 weeks time the world tunes into dialogue from Kenya. Whats being discussed, hows it being discussed, why is it important?

The 7th edition of the World Social Forum brings the world to Africa as activists, social movements, networks, coalitions and other progressive forces from Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Europe and all corners of the African continent converge in Nairobi, Kenya for five days of cultural resistance and celebration; panels, workshops, symposia, processions, film nights and much much more; beginning on the 20th of January and wrapping up on the 25th of January 2007.

Organizers in Kenya, throughout Africa and around the world will work together, both on-line and in face-to-face meetings, to build a temporary independent media center in Nairobi, Kenya, to provide communication during the January '07 World Social Forum. This "convergence-based" IMC will provide text-based, audio, and (potentially) video coverage of the World Social Forum, both on-line and through a local low-power radio station, enabling independent media coverage of the WSF during the forum itself as well as access through the world wide web to the WSF by an international audience.

The IMC will also be a hub for trainings and hands-on media-making workshops throughout the World Social Forum. Thousands of organizers will be coming to the World Social Forum from around the globe, especially from Africa; this IMC will empower activists (especially those in Africa) to create effective independent media institutions in their countries. Also, all the equipment purchased for this IMC will remain in Kenya for use by the Kenya IMC and other Kenyan independent media projects. The IMC plans to be open from January 13 to January 25. The WSF itself takes place from January 20-25.

:: Global Radio nodes project ::

This is a proposal to Syndicate content from different nodes in social centers and other alternative media outlets during the WSF and combine it with content from Nairobi also. A kind of global collaboration on both virtual and physical.

Basically getting more social centres and other spaces to open up during WSF as local nodes around planet to go to to firstly listen to stuff live from kenya, but also maybe where they could have 2 way systems: being able to participate in forum without physically being there.

How?

1 - terrestrial and web radio stations can tune their stations into the radio streams from Nairobi. hopefully there will be many streams coming out of Nairobi during the WSF.

2 - physical spaces outside Nairobi can open for duration of WSF, or part of, with radio speakers playing the audio live from Nairobi, and video stream if it happens. these physical spaces can have information, exhibition, films etc about the social forum project... possibly also computers tuned into imc-kenya for the duration of the forum, in the hope that the imc-kenya site becomes an active resourse during the wsf and beyond... local forums or discussions can happen in these spaces about some of the issues raised within the WSF or about the nature of the WSF itself, where it is now, where its going etc...... already collectives in Dublin, Barcelona, Marseilles, Philidelphia, Ohio, Genoa are offering support.

3 - while the WSF is on, perhaps there is possibility of those outside Nairobi at home in their own spaces trying to experiment with the limits of how we can communicate as a global network while wsf is on. this might happen, who knows....

For more information also see:

World Social Forum, Nairobi 2007 Independent Media Centre - World Social Forum, Nairobi 2007 WSF, attempts to widen the discussion (global listening nodes) world social forum on WIKI

(architectural footnote: for many, both the process´s outlined here are attempts to work at the critical edges of architecture today in 2007. Firstly by working with both real and digital worlds in an open exploratory way and secondly by participating in the content of the discussions that will be happening in Kenya: slums, urbanism, agriculture, housing, eco design...)