Empowering each other through collaboration and innovation

CM believes that innovation through the empowerment of individual skills can create new localized markets for a world where society can and will be well. The question that drives the development of the CM Community and platform is this: How could we help the people of our communities to collaborate and empower one another through the unique talents we each have? CM's answer in short: Media for the people; by the people, it's the vision of CM to create a revenue share system that's transparent in each and every way encapsulated in a co-op. What CM brings to the table is the ability to connect people through a secure and eventually fully open technology platform to enable communication and the sharing of experiences, knowledge, products and services to create value within and across local communities ultimately scaling to a embrace communities globally.

The Solution: What does it look like? 

What the project proposes is to create a scalable model for connecting the unconnected world through an integrated system of community-oriented technology, projects, services and skills. The fact is a number of the components of what CM is proposing to do already exist and CM is in no way proposing to re-invent the wheel. The technology is more than a web-site. Web-building tools exist. However, by eliminating the need for user technical expertise, the CM technology platform becomes a tool for building scalable, distributed networks that merge complex technologies, data, services and skills through a single interface.

In the initial phases of the project working with iDE, the platform will feature (1) participatory farmer groups featuring mobile-enabled forums for sharing information/knowledge, and expressing views; (2) tools for the collection, consolidation, and analysis of data to support crowd-funding initiatives; (3) language translations; (4) GIS system for locating farmer operations.

The Benefits: A new environment for impacting change

By interconnecting distributed networks, the CM technology platform becomes an extranet of regional hubs that unite community initiatives through vibrant collectives of communication. The activity created in these collectives mobilizes entrepreneurial activity, giving voice to words and sharing renewable technologies, and results in and leads to scalable, self-sustaining models that help communities throughout the world to achieve financial independence. 

When you consider that the global economy in its traditional industrialized form is slowing down, opportunities created through advancing technologies and social networking are what is now creating real change in our world. However only 30% of the global population are online and compounding this, is the fact that the wealth gap is getting wider. By creating a new environment for impacting change, the key to securing CM's success rests in its collaborative, grounds-up approach for building tools and strategies that give voice to people on the edge of freedom. Unleashing individual skills for manifesting hidden economies that bring financial independence to communities around the world – giving people a direct means to help themselves, CM converts speculation into meaningful action. An exciting aspect of the project itself is that the basic technical components, shown in the graphic to the right, have already been built.

Building community based economies: A Practical application

Solutions like the one we are discussing provide real value on the ground in disadvantaged and rural communities in the developed and developing world. Diving a little deeper and looking at Africa: When you consider the communication and data needs in rural Africa they are quite broad and different than one might expect. The ability to provide transactional(currency) functionality and data collection/analysis/distribution are important aspects when they are coupled with value creation. That is what is important not to miss though, the value creation.

As a first step, real needs are around community communications that enable member communities to simply communicate, exchange information about experiences and products, and to create value outside of the traditional economy within their communities based on those exchanges.

From experience we have found that the value creation chain needs to start at a community level where individuals can contribute and exchange value, a 'community based currency' if you will, based on what they already know how to do and to be able to exchange their products and services with each other and between communities, knowing that they each have value and what they have to offer is seen and accepted as being valuable.

This is important simply because in these environments you are working in communities in which traditional currency is a scare resource, just like water, food, shelter, education and other basic items. By creating systems that generate 'community value/currency' first, it creates the first small 'wins' in the communities that they need to sustain themselves and the energy and drive to continue going forward. It also supports creating real opportunities as they move forward to leverage the community from their community based economy into the traditional economy and to convert their community-based currency/value into traditional currencies/monies they need to grow and take next steps in supporting real needs around food, water, education and healthcare as part of a new sustainable community and value model.

The communication system is a key factor in being able to exchange value with other communities and creates the connection between communities and the outside world as it grows. The real bonus is when you have a system and platform, like the CM technology platform, that combines communication, access to resources, value creation and transaction functionality into simple to use technologies that are highly accessible and have simple user-interfaces, like mobile phones, all in one place.

As Steven Putter of Imagine Zambia says, "The ability to trade, not only in a particular currency or country, but the ability to trade inter-community, to establish value for not only produce, but capacity, service, especially value added, is more important than ever.

This initiative brings organizations together with their specialties, their knowledge and resources to connect in a system of cooperation. Real time assessment and design with the focus on Whole Systems design and implementation is what will really get humanity working towards Ecological Sustainable Economic Development with emphasis on Health, Nutrition and Education."

Get involved: Support the proposal in the Knight Foundation challenge by posting your comments on their site

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