iCan
"iCan" – Youth + Technology for Sustainability, Prosperity, and Freedom
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In a world facing environmental, social, and economic challenges of historic proportions, the tech sector is at once a focus of controversy and a source of extraordinary opportunity.
The controversies are well-known: information and communications technology (ICT) is systematically criticized for:
The human costs of Conflict Minerals in the Congo, where militia-controlled coltan, cobalt, and other mining activities for the ICT sector help fund repression and war.
Internet censorship and repression in Iran, China, Egypt, and the US, where governments use western ICT to tap, track and suppress dissent.
Hazardous electronic waste dumps in the developing world, where poor workers - often children - put themselves at risk to separate toxic materials from used computers and electronics.
These challenges are real, complex, and compelling. They require action.
ICT brings an arsenal of potential solutions to help solve these problems. But even more important, we can harness ICT more fundamentally, to help advance the sustainable, peaceful, and prosperous future that many stakeholders seek. Consider:
SUSTAINABILITY: ICT is fundamental to a low-carbon economy. For the 600 million affluent in the developed world, ICTs could profitably drive a 15% savings on emissions by 2020, without mandates or subsidies, according to Smart 2020, a study by the Global E-Sustainability Initiative. More important, ICT can enable the world's three billion poorest in China, India, and Africa to leapfrog pollution-intensive industrial technologies, and move into a more advanced, locally based, low-carbon future.
PROSPERITY: ICT empowers the poor and helps preserve their communities and cultures. Nearly 800 million cell phones in China link village-based farmers with better-paying markets in the cities, and hundreds of millions of Internet connections enable the poor across Asia and Africa to access microloans by UnitedProsperity.org and Kiva to begin or expand their small businesses, and sell their products into the global market.
FREEDOM: ICT undermines repression and drives freedom. Ubiquitous consumer electronic products made possible Iran's post-election Twitter revolution, blogger activism in Vietnam, and the monks' uprising in Burma. Ushahidi.com maps text messages to visually track reports of ethnic violence in Kenya, document voter fraud in Sudan, and reveal labor abuses in China. FREEGATE enabled activists in Iran to organize protests against fraudulent elections, and labor organizers to quickly publicize supply chain violations in China. Virtually every ICT advance makes repression more difficult, and liberates people to make their own choices.
But the positive side of ICT has only begun to be tapped. As the industry and stakeholders gain more direct experience with ICTs' possibilities, they have the potential to combine forces to advance Sustainability, Prosperity, and Freedom.
"iCan" – Youth + Technology for Sustainability, Prosperity, and Freedom
iCan is a multi-stakeholder initiative to demonstrate how ICT in the hands of young people can advance sustainability, prosperity, and freedom, in the developed and developing world. It will link companies with youth groups and technology providers who can together advance systemic solutions on human and labor rights, supply chain transparency, and environmental sustainability.
We will document the solution capacities of ICT via:
Case Studies documenting how NGOs, businesses, and youth groups use ICT tools to advance sustainability, prosperity, and freedom.
Risk and Opportunity Reports on how to minimize the negative and maximize the positive impacts of ICT on the three issues.
We will communicate the solution capacities of ICT via:
A Website Clearinghouse of case studies, organizations, tools, services, and reports that document the current and potential impacts of ICT on sustainability, prosperity, and freedom.
An E-Newsletter with compelling news, bulletins, and resources that companies and citizens can use ICT to minimize the negative and maximize the positive impacts of business
We will advance ICT solutions via:
Direct Engagement between ICT companies and stakeholders, to drive understanding and promote collaborative solutions to the three issues using ICT Partnerships between companies and stakeholders, to drive specific ICT-based solutions
Benefits of "iCan"
Better Knowledge of the organizations, companies, stakeholders utilizing ICT to drive sustainability.
Better Understanding by NGOs and companies of how to advance ICT's positive potential.
Better Relationships between companies and stakeholders.
Better solutions that leverage ICT to drive sustainability, prosperity, and freedom.
Contact Juliette Terzieff through 1-800-655-2020 or , for information on iCan and Future 500's Labor and Transparency Initiative.
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