“Telluride InfoZone” by Lowenberg
Conference:
Type(s):
Title:
- Telluride InfoZone
Program Title:
- Interactive Communities
Presenter(s):
Project Affiliation:
- Telluride Institute
Description:
The InfoZone is a community networking project that provides enhanced education, government, healthcare, business, and cultural opportunities to this southwest Colorado region. It is also a research program that promotes an “ecology of the information environment.”
A project of the Telluride Institute, a not-for-profit research, education, and cultural organization, the InfoZone has grown from broad-based community master planning and pro-active cooperation among regional institutions, businesses, and individuals. It is designed to be of service to the health, diversity, and sustainability of the Telluride regional community, by endowing sources of local education, health care, participatory democracy, economic opportunity and culture with greater information access and intelligence. It is also designed to serve neighboring ranching and former mining communities in the Southwest Rocky Mountain region.
For SIGGRAPH 95, a special public forum has been created, with various special-interest project folders on education, the arts, tele-community planning, and live chats (“Tellu-Tell Me”). Topics of particular interest to many include: community health, environmental issues, Native American writers, cultural master planning, and salons. Dedicated networked computers at SIGGRAPH 95 allow visitors to connect with users throughout the Telluride Region, at home, and via public access telecomputing sites at the Library, the School, the Bank, the Medical Center, the Arts Council, Agriculture Extension, the Steaming BeanCafe, and the Telluride Institute. The system allows for participation and exchange with text postings, audio, and images.
The InfoZone is a pilot project for broad-spectrum community development and education in rural areas, using information and telecommunications technologies. It was planned as a pragmatic answer to real issues facing the town of Telluride, and as a test-bed for systems, services, and the long-range social, economic and cultural implications of “telecommunities” in our “information society.”
As governments and corporate interests form alliances and position themselves to create a new National Information Infrastructure, there is a growing movement among regional and local urban communities of dedicated individuals more concerned about shaping a more human, socially serving direction for the telemediated future.
http://infozone.telluride.co.us/InfoZone.html
CommunityNet (First Class BBS): +1.303.728.5553
