Fellow Presentations: Day 2 (Carlos Miranda Levy)

Carlos Miranda Levy has been a major force in the creation of content for the Latin America web. He's created country-specific portals, as well as sites devoted to virtual communities, virtual libraries, etc. He focuses on quality of content rather than striving to update it continuously, using a publishing metaphor more akin to a book than a newspaper. The result is highly rated pages, even though they may go more than a month between updates. Carlos is part of a two-person team that maintains about 20 such sites among his other activities.

His RDVP focus is a rural mountain village in the Domincan Republic called El Limon. Formerly a forgotten "remote" (only about 5 miles from another town, but still far away...) village, El Limon was thrust into the spotlight when John Katz came from Cornell to create a mini-electric grid, using hydro electric power from the irrigation canals. The generator produces about 10 Kilowatts, enough to meet modest power requirements for 20-40 families, and to run a telecenter with 5 or 6 computers and wireless internet connectivity.

Carlos' focus is to provide opportunities for the young people of the community so that they feel they have options and can still experience personal development without flocking to the city. He works to make sure that there is not undue external influence in trying to "steer" the community, but rather that the community is free to choose its own course of development from among the wider range of options provided. By giving people more options and opportunities, you empower them to be responsible for their own future and that of their community.

Carlos also mentioned some tools that he uses that he thought might be of use to the other fellows, including:

• Drupal, a hierarchical content management system that allows cross connects in the hierarchy
  
• Moodle, an eLearning system that handles course management, quizzes, assignments, chats, etc