Tobias Escher at the OII

Rooted in a belief that modern information technologies can be a force for good, there have been a number of projects that wired up local communities. Usually that means providing Internet access for its residents and community mailings lists and so on to enable communication among the people living there. The most famous projects I knew about were in North America and have been running since the 90s: Toronto’s netville and Virginia Tech’s Blacksburgh Electronic Village.

Studies of these communities tried to establish whether there are positive effects associated with the provision of this technology. Broadly speaking, findings indicate an increase in social capital for members that are connected to the network in these communities (e.g. people know more of their neighbours, more voluntary involvement, feeling of community etc.).

I just came across Cybermoor, a UK-grown effort that has provided broadband access, communication tools and computer literacy courses to about 400 people in the remote village of Alston in Cumbria. Although I am a bit astonished how they managed to spent between half and a million Pounds on wireless broadband, the returns seem to have justified the project: more jobs and an increase in property prices of 25%. Have a look at the nice little video below and if you like what you see and you are British: please notice that the European Union gave money for this project

[youtube]hNziJDdVDzE[/youtube]

Thanks to Rolf Luehrs for that tip.