Local Contexts Global Commons

A project, funded by the Ford Foundation, to develop leadership by countries in the South (Brazil, South Africa and India) to better understand and report on relevant issues around intellectual property in the developing country context.

The 18-month long project is a South-South collaborative initiative between academics, researchers and activists. The project aims to enhance, add to, challenge and highlight key global commons’ themes based on the experiences, priorities and realities of the developing world.

The project outputs are being achieved through the following five main channels:

The iSummit ’08 workshop
Held in January 2008, representative from Free Culture organisations met in Johannesburg with the goal of developing a structure and plan for a creative and engaging iSummit programme in July 2008.

iCommons.org
In partnership with Brazilian web development organisation, Overmundo, we launched this website in June 2007 as an online community platform that was a space for dialogue and resource-creation for members of the Commons community around the world. Read the Local Context Global Commons articles submitted to the website, here.

The iCommons Annual
The iCommons Annual is a collection of articles, interviews, reviews and other writings that both showcase the research undertaken by the projects contributers, and inform and compliment the Summit. Download the 2008 edition here, and the 2007 edition here.

iCommons Summit ’07
Held in Dubrovnik, Croatia brought together pioneers of the free Internet to make sure that, at its crossroads, we guide the world along a path that will enable the kind of free culture and decentralized innovation that has characterised the early years of the Internet.

Open Cultural heritage platform
An investigation into the cultural flows that are catalysed when cultural heritage is freely shared using free, fully localisable software. More information at http://iheritage.org.za

Project Partners: