[General] Introductions

[Eleftherios Garyfallidis]

Hello all, 

Our group has grown considerably the last days and people don't know each other. Can we please introduce ourselves? 

I suppose I should start.  I am a Computer Scientist and Neuroscientist finishing my PhD thesis at the University of Cambridge and I have experience with OpenSource projects. I am also the lead author of Dipy (dipy.org) and I have a general interest in Science, Education, Philosophy, Politics etc.

 

The idea for this project started developing many years ago (>10) but it seems now it is the right time to make this happen. I remember I first contacted Alexandros and Dimitrios who are developers with expertise on web platforms - as this project has a considerable amount of development - and then started contacting people from law, marketing,  engineers, management, biology, social sciences, political economy etc. All the people I contacted had the following characteristics:  talented in their field, cool to work with and with social sensitivity.

It is great to see that there is a great interest for that project and that most of the people find it exciting and useful. Then last Thursday Ioanna contacted me with the idea of participating in the Startup Weekend held at the Microsoft Innovation Centre where there was a case to find possible investors. I thought that was an awesome idea and I hope the others will get inspired by the leadership and momentum that Ioanna created. For  purpose of the event we changed the direction towards CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) as the meeting was mostly business oriented. However the initial project was thought to start in the following way: 

"""

Can we see the Internet as it was meant to be? A problem solving platform evolving many?

The World needs a way to collectively discuss, decide and act upon their decisions. The Web looks like the perfect place to start this. Lets make it!

We aim to build a web app that will facilitate collective and productive decision making evolving many individuals. We want to make this application safe, transparent and simple. 

We believe it is better to start this as an OpenSource project and as a Non-Governmental Organization. An OpenSource architecture will attract better developers and an NGO type of a company  

will give us more flexibility and attract more volunteers. 

"""

And I think we should stick with that plan. So, what is your STRONG? Introduce yourselves!!

Best wishes,

Eleftherios

p.s. I am adding information in the document http://tinyurl.com/letsdecidetogether which is publically available and it can be edited hopefully from all of you. It would be nice to have all the most crucial information in one document until our website will be online.