Peter Burgess Connections
Tobias Eigen

Some dialog from April 2013

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

RE: Catching up ... and thinking about the future

Tobias Eigen
Nonprofit Leader
To: Peter Burgess
Date: April 29, 2013

Hi Peter! Sounds very interesting. Can you email me details? tobias@saidia.org. We can also skype to talk more.

-T

Dear Tobias

Our paths have crossed a little bit ... and I am wondering to what extent I am on the same wavelength, but maybe with a slightly different skill-set and experience.

You are clearly trying to 'make the world a better place' which I argue is about the best possible way to conduct oneself professionally.

But why is this so difficult to fund ... and why is this so inconsequential compared to making millions organizing soft drink sales or hamburgers or designing some really trivial Internet app.

I argue we absolutely have to change the metrics and get away from the tyranny of the terrible trio: (1) money profit for business; (2) stock prices in capital markets for investors; and (3) GDP growth for politicians and pundits.

I call my initiative in the area of metrics TrueValueMetrics (TVM) and aim to push this into the area presently occupied by money profit accounting. TVM is not only about accounting for money flows and measuring money profit, but also accounting for value flows and measuring state, progress and performance with quantification of value.

With the IT now available, it should be possible to do this ... and indeed do it on top of a mobile platform. Can I do it? Probably not. I go back to the days of vacuum tubes and mainframes with huge air conditioning systems ... but have some understanding of what is now possible, including the potential to analyze 'big data' in meaningful ways.

Maybe metrics on their own is not enough. What else might be useful?

I am looking into complementary currency as a way to decouple the real economy from the money economy. I am encouraged at the activity there is in this space ... but not sure yet which of the various IT platforms will turn out to be the most appropriate.

I think that TVM may be able to help solve the problem of 'backing' for the currency ... a problem that seems to hang up a lot of the people engaged in this space. If TVM quantifies the state of the community, organization or individual in terms of value, then it is this value that is the backing for the complementary currency. This is different from the money wealth of the community, organization or individual being the backing ... or time hours ... or some other formula. The natural value of society is surely the backing that makes the most sense.

I have a feeling you might be able to push me in some useful directions ... or stop me doing something quite stupid. Maybe what I am trying to do resonates with you in some useful way.

All the best

Peter Burgess

Who in the world is Tobias Eigen?

An early computer communications pioneer, Tobias (CV) set up his first Fidonet BBS at the age of 14 on an IBM Portable Personal Computer. After graduating from the International School of Kenya in 1990, he studied linguistics and African Studies at Georgetown University. There, inspired by his own experience with Fidonet, his love of Africa and the idealism he inherited from his parents, Tobias discovered and joined the ICT4D movement in 1992.

Tobias founded Kabissa Communications to support international organizations and NGOs including Transparency International, Africare and Volunteers in Technical Assistance. He ran a private e-mail network for the USAID Famine Early Warning System, connecting field offices in a dozen countries across the African Sahel region with each other and their Virginia-based headquarters. In 1995, he went to Benin to help the West African Newsmedia and Development (WANAD) Centre to set up a BBS before moving to Europe, where he continued his ICT4D work with organizations such as oneworld.net, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and UNESCO-UNEVOC. In 1997 he acquired his MA in Culture, Race and Difference at the University of Sussex.

In 1999, Tobias was hired by the Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture (OMCT) to coordinate and monitor an Internet capacity-building project for ten Nigerian human rights groups based in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Abuja and Kaduna. His experience there directly inspired him to found Kabissa to help them – and other civil society organizations like them throughout Africa – put ICT to work for the benefit of their communities.

Originally focused on providing website hosting to African nonprofits, Kabissa went on to create the powerful social justice email newsletter Pambazuka News, together with Fahamu and SANGONet. From 2002-2007 Tobias co-ran Kabissa with Kimberly Lowery out of Washington DC and trained thousands of African civil society organizations through the innovative training program Time To Get Online.

Now Kabissa is a low-cost online platform run by volunteers and supported by donations that connects people and organizations working in Africa for social networking and peer learning. Kabissa members work throughout Africa on advocacy, healthcare, education, poverty and more.