20 years on
It was 20 years ago today that the Association for Progressive Communications was founded.
Finding like minds online during the early days, as APC was forming, was a source of both inspiration and motivation. Those pioneering days were the result of a small hand-full of people, some who have remained within APC and others who remain close, as friends, but have moved on.
I first met APC colleagues face to face for the first time at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, 1992, Rio de Janerio. The generosity, enthusiasm and passion shared amongst ourselves often over-rode many other projects I had been involved with… and finding that many of these people had once been musicians, poets, intellectuals, journalists… creative people with a penchant for social justice that was unshakable.
Another personal APC milestone was sharing a preliminary report on the extent of computer networking in Asia (the first Pan Asia Report) to APC colleagues and members of the fledgling Internet Society at the Internet Society conference in Prague, 1994. It was ground-breaking research at the time, both in how it was conducted and what it revealed. APC, in the very early 1990′s, had more countries net-connected (through advocacy movements and organisations), than the Internet.
20 years on I am still involved with the APC, writing at this very moment from Quiet Mountain, Hekpoort, South Africa, at an APC Board meeting. It has been a privilege and an honour.
