I have been awarded a Shuttleworth Fellowship to change the world; my first reactions « petermr's blog

"The Shuttleworth Foundation has done me the honour of appointing me as a Fellow, starting today. The remit (http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/fellowship/ ) is: 'The holy grail of every funder is sustainability, an idea and approach living long after the money has run out. That is why we fund people not projects. The only true way to sustainability is not a business plan but a champion, someone who will drive an idea through an ever changing landscape, to make a real difference in the world. We are looking for social innovators who are helping to change the world for the better and are seeking support through an innovative social investment model.'   My new entry is here: http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/fellows/current/peter-murray-rust/ This is incredible. I’ve had a week or two to adjust but I’m still finding new ideas, visions, people on a daily basis.  So this is a first reaction. I am going to change the world for the better. Yes. Over the last few years when people have asked me what I want to do I reply “change the world”. It’s what we should all aspire to. And this is the most concentrated  time of innovation in the history of the planet and it’s much easier. In the past heroes such as Diderot had to rely on print to reach people – I can reach millions of people with a few keystrokes. It’s this ability to create communities that makes us different from our predecessors. As exemplars I look to my own immediate circle of electronic communities: Wikipedia, Mozilla, Open Knowledge Foundation, Creative Commons, Open Rights Group, Blue Obelisk … All started by people – often just one. And all self-sufficient without their founders. That’s my immediate model for sustainability. I don’t know exactly *how* it will happen , but I am certain it will. (Certainty is an essential ingredient of success). So the goal is to build a community of vision and practice. This year I have undertaken to liberate 100, 000, 000 FACTs from the scientific/technical/medical literature. FACTs belong to the world, not individuals and not corporations. I use uppercase to stress that they are not protectable as Intellectual property (IP). FACTs save lives (think helicobacter and ulcers). FACTs help to create new materials. FACTs lead to better decision making (e.g. climate change). FACTs generate new information-based industries which generate new wealth (the 4 Billion USD invested in the human genome generated 700 Billion of downstream wealth.  (I’ve blogged a lot about the Content Mine and I’ll be blogging a lot more, of course). Because it is freely available to everyone on the planet who can connect to the Internet. Put most of all I must thank the Shuttleworth Foundation. They have a wonderful vision and wonderful people. There’s a lot I am discovering ..."