Recently organized a talk by the founders of Inveneo at my real-life job. There were several stand-out moments.

First, met Bob Marsh and learned about the Homebrew Computer Club during the hey-day of "garage-days in silicon valley" (coming to a theater near you). He was a little prickly at first, and I'm imagining it was because he hadn't as yet recognized the inner (and really 'outer' if you look hard enough) geek in me behind the carefully selected formal robes I had on for just this event. I'd like to think that the few moments crawling under tables, ferragamo sandels notwithstanding, to hook up laptops and projectors brought us onto the same wavelength.

Second, I learned about pedal-powered PCs (no kidding, its a bycycle hooked up to a computer) and their invention in Laos by Laotians (as Bob candidly described -and I must say, with the joy of a geek recognizing the talent of a fellow geek). Inveneo, btw, provides really cheap, durable, replicable infrastructure for basic communication and information needs of villagers in remote areas of developing countries. Currently they're testing their stuff in Uganda. And any company that has a Chief Geek who's Okay can't be all that bad. (Scroll down on the linked page to get this very bad joke)

The folks from Inveneo felt like good people, enthusiastic and with a love for their work and its potential. I do hope they advertise that inventions and innovations are not the sole purview of those of us explicitly named in the West. After all, the politics of who's named and who isn't will by default relegate the inventors of the pedal-powered PCs to 'the people in Laos', or 'people', or 'Laotians', not Inveneo or Your Name Here.

I did come into the talk with real skepticism for anything that might sound like 'the tech panacea for poverty' (a la 'the tech panacea for education in the U.S.') but I left feeling at least like there was some humility around the problem - and the relative contribution of their solutions to peoples lives.

I remain conflicted about how these (tech/science) approaches, with great intentions, and indeed positive short-term impact, by their very preponderance compared with (the much harder) systemic approaches addressing core issues such as poverty and its real causes, can shift the discourse and therefore the possibility of truly sustainable and effective long-term change. In the meanwhile, 3 cheers for Inveneo.

Met some great folks the other day. Walked into a home, crowded with pieces of a long life waiting, it turns out, to get out. My hosts, Peter and Juthika Stangl, were moving and their life needed to be off the walls and floors of their Palo Alto home to make sure that others could reimagine their own lives in the space.

First, Peter and Juthika warmed me immediately. In short order I learned more about the foundation they've been running for a while now - Shadika - my Saturday blind date for volunteering hours. Not that I did any volunteer work that Saturday, but I did a lot of volunteer basking in the glow of something very very good.

Shadika garners funds from the SF bay area, and delivers it to the door of projects that serve sex workers and their children in Kolkata (the Calcutta of my past). I thought - aha ! isn't this the same domain as the film 'born into brothels' that just won the oscars? So up I piped with (the obviously obvious) tip - why not use the publicity around the film, and screenings of the film, to help fundraise? The depressing answer: we contacted the film maker, but after what seemed like a positive start, we were told, that a deal was made with a distributor, and when the time was right we should talk to the distributor.

I stood aghast. I know I know there are multiple complex politics on who represents, who uses, who gives back to the represented, academic articles, activist tomes, many hours of many peoples lives discussing - but this was just very simply unbelievable. A film made to highlight the plight (and creativity from disaster) of the children of sex workers in Kolkata was not available to those who have worked to serve these people for more than a decade. I can think of many well-meaning ways to explain the mindset of those behind this travesty, or the series of small decisions made, and larger ones never considered, that brought us to this point, but the thing of it remains too hypocritical to comprehend. Perhaps its because I'm immersed in a world where we already understand the implications of default copyright, restrictive distribution agreements, etc. But help me, anyone, to understand how this makes sense.

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