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Flexible networking, ICT and local economic development Print E-mail
Written by Sylvia Cadena   
Wednesday, 29 June 2005
This paper, produced by Michael Gurstein examines the impact of information technologies on rural communities and suggests new efforts to support local economies with globally connected networks.

The author explores the idea of how many in the real world are trying to use ICTs to create a world where they can actually participate, seeing how it provides a new and powerful set of tools to enable participation. In this context there is an opportunity to be productive and economically vital by being located in a particular place and also by being part of larger distributed networks where your location is considered an asset, a resource.

Michael Gurstein is Director of the Centre for Community & Enterprise Networking at the University College of Cape Breton in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada.

The document is fully accesible at http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue4_2/gurstein/index.html

* First Monday is one of the first openly accessible, peer–reviewed journals on the Internet, solely devoted to the Internet.