Grants/Creative Commons Latam Conference 2010
Describe the project you are proposing as clearly as possible in just five sentences.
'CC Latam Conference 2010' is a two day regional conference organized by 'Bienes Comunes A.C.' (the affiliated institution of 'Creative Commons' in Argentina) where Latin American free culture communities and Creative Commons Latam chapters will gather together to share experiences and discuss common projects. This will be an important meeting for CC Latam communities to enhance ties of friendship and cooperation while providing a venue to build networks of open-education, open-business, open-government and open-science at both regional and international level.
Detail the tangible project output (e.g., paper, blog post, written materials, video/film, etc.; this would be in addition to the final written report that successful grant recipients will be expected to deliver to CC at the conclusion of the project).
[1] The two-day conference and its meeting results as blog posting, photos, and video-clips;
[2] A Spanish guide of Creative Commons licenses (about 20 pages) to share in paper with the public of the Conference and publish it on-line to spread free culture worldwide;
[3] As final written report, a Spanish compilation (a book) with reports / papers of each CC Latam chapter: such as, licenses status, open-education, open-business, open-government, open-science experiences.
Describe the community you are targeting. How would the project benefit the community?
CC Latam affiliates and its communities will be the main target of this Conference. The meeting is intended to focus in the interests of artists, governmental actors, researchers, academic professionals, culture activists and many others who support free culture in Latin America. We hope this gathering will contribute to develop more strong networks among CC and free culture communities in the region.br />
'Bienes Comunes A. C.' is the affiliated institution for 'Creative Commons' in Argentina. Is the responsible of the translation, porting and management of CC licenses in Argentina. We have actively participated in previous CC Latin American meetings and we maintained close dialogue and friendship with our partners. Specifically, 'Bienes Comunes A. C.' was part of the CC Latam meetings in Chile (2008) and Ecuador (2009). In the last meeting in Loja (Ecuador) 7 jurisdictions of Creative Commons in Latin America decided to celebrate the forthcoming regional meetings in Argentina (2010), Mexico (2011) and Peru (2012). 'Bienes Comunes A. C.' is part of these communities that we are targeting and this year we are the host. In addition, we have considerable experience organizing (together with others institutions) many local / regional meetings associated with free culture.
How will you measure and evaluate your project’s impact - on your main participants? Other contributors? On the larger community?
We will evaluate the Conference in many ways. Some of them, maybe the more tangible ones, are:
[1] Quantity of participants related and non-directly-related of the free culture communities and the quality of discussions and contributions of each sessions;
[2] Spreading and downloading of the Creative Commons Spanish Guide and the Compilation after the Conference;
[3] A survey oriented to improve the forthcoming CC Latam Conferences (Mexico and Peru).
How many participants do you expect to be involved in your project? How will you seek and sustain their involvement?
There are nine Latin American jurisdictions with Creative Commons ported licenses (Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Perú y Puerto Rico) and more jurisdictions in the translation licenses process. For the Conference we expect as speakers and regional invitees (at least): one representative for each cc-latam jurisdiction (eight persons), a representatives from Creative Commons HQ and many participants of the CC-Argentinian local chapter (ten persons more). As general invitees and participants we expect about 200 persons: including researchers, government officials, artists, IT experts, free software communities, free culture activists, professors, etc. We are planning to draw attention and encourage participation through promotion in major portals, websites, social networks and blogs.
Describe how your project will benefit Creative Commons' mission to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in "the commons".
With this conference's design we look for (at least) three level of contributions for the Creative Commons mission of strengthening “the commons”. [1] At the Conference level, we are looking for the improvement of regional dialogs and discussions about Creative Commons' tendencies. The Conference will be the opportunity to communicate these results directly to the free culture communities. [2] We are also planning the production and free distribution of a Spanish Guide of the Creative Commons Licenses for the public, general users and creators. [3] Finally, we will write collectively the status and development of the Creative Commons licenses in Latin America through a Spanish Compilation composed by CC-Latam chapters. The Conference will be a place to produce innovative ideas and new projects for the Creative Commons mission.
Describe what technologies and tools your project will use. What kinds of technical skills and expertise do you bring to the project? What are your technical needs?
There are not high-tech requirements for this project. We need more “collaboration” than “technologies”. In other words, we will use actively the advantages of on-line digital technologies to improve the collaborative production of all kind of intellectual works (such as social networks, mailman, wiki, blogs and microblogging). Maybe the face-to-face working could be the most important necessity to solve in these kind of projects.
What challenges do you expect to face, and how do you plan to overcome them?
We have two kinds of challenges in this project. The first one is related to the high costs of the Conference and the hard task to obtain local and regional funds. This one is the biggest challenge in every Latin American project. The second one is associated with the quality of the Conference and its results. There are many works to think and write in few months. We expect start the Compilation and the Creative Commons Guide (at least) four months before the event (November of 2010).
How do you plan to sustain your project after the Creative Commons funding has ended? Detail specific plans. How do you plan to raise revenue to continue your efforts in the future?
Once the conference ends 'Bienes Comunes A.C.' will share the outcome with the participating jurisdictions and other interested parties. But the conference is more than an annual meeting. This project is oriented to define a structure of meetings for the forthcoming conferences in Latin America. The main idea is develop this Conference and also establish a “minimum standard” for these free culture meetings in the region. One of the most important discussion topics with all cc-leaders will be the funds for meetings in Mexico and Peru. Do we have better ways to sustain these meetings? Do we have any solution (books, magazine, services, researches, consult, etc) to better support annual conferences in Latin America?
How can this project be scalable, or have a scalable impact?
During the last meeting in Loja (Ecuador) 7 jurisdictions of Creative Commons in Latin America decided to celebrate the forthcoming regional meetings in Argentina (2010), Mexico (2011) and Peru (2012). This was the first steep to produce this kind of Conferences in the region. More than think about "scalability" we need to think on the "sustainability" of this Conference format. Maybe this “scalability” could be designed toward the development of local / national meetings. In other words, could be very helpful think about national annual meetings (organized by any cc-chapter) before the regional Conferences (about two months before).
What resources and support do you expect Creative Commons to provide to your project to ensure its success (if any)?
The most important support from Creative Commons Corporation is the financial support through Catalyst Grants. This help is critical for the success of the 'Creative Commons Latam Conference 2010' in Argentina. In addition, will be very helpful for the project's outcomes (conference, guide and compilation) if people from CC-HQ could share with us some information about local chapters.
Describe how your organization currently communicates with its community members and network partners. (100 words)
We are currently using on-line channels, such as websites (http://www.bienescomunes.org/), blogs, mailman, emails, social networking tools or mobile phones. In addition, we also have face-to-face meetings to discuss issues of different local / regional projects.
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