VOCATION

Group vocations

• Psychology: people in systems
• Community and permaculture
• The rowing coach
• The architects of free software
• Rural villages at risk: an NGO to the rescue

The choir conductor
Carlos López Puccio of Les Luthiers reflects on the complex interaction between members of a musical group.

Virtual democracy?
Debate: has Internet contributed to global democracy? What promises and risks does the future hold?

Shared worlds: intercultural encounter
The SalzburgAcademy Program on Media and Global Change: university students from all over the world come together to consider how the new media construct global reality and the road ahead.

Globalized world
The financial sector, energy, health and terrorism are no longer national isssues, but global ones. How do these interconnected networks operate?

Wikireport
What is Wikipedia and how does it work? Champions and detractors of the people’s encyclopedia.

Médecins sans Frontières
The doctors who know no borders form one of the most extensive NGOs in the world. The job, the people and the philosophy.

From mail art to e-mail art
The collective art movement that first enlisted postmen and now relies on ISPs.

Thought in revolt?
Epistemologist Denise Najmanovich on Internet as the technological expression of unprecedented transformations in human beings and society.

NGO 2.0
In recent years, ONGs have proliferated all over the world. While many are praised for their humanitarian work, others have come under fire for the way they operate. A new model in the making: the network.

Copyright in the Internet Age
The new technologies have brought us knowledge-sharing, but with it also a piracy market which profits from the material produced by others. Amidst the tense atmosphere reigning between authors, consumers and industry, the debate about intellectual property in the 21st Century is now on.

ECOnomy
The environmental costs of many businesses today outweigh the economic benefits. Production goes to waste under short-term profiteering. What does “economy“ mean and how can it be made sustainable?

Neuronal connections
There is a  growing interest in neuroscience as it seeks to disentangle cerebral and mental activity. What are neurons, how do they interconnect and what are they capable of?

Coming soon: Ecosystems; The hive mind.

Hospitality Club
A worldwide network of people who offer a bed, a tour or assistance to travellers from other countries.

Virtual games in virtual worlds: real interaction
Games have always been made to be played by more than one person, whether Monopoly, Risk or chess. With the development of computer networks, particularly Internet, came networked games, where the only difference is the medium (in this case, digital). The Web has also enabled virtual worlds to spring up, where people interact in ways that would be unimaginable in the material world.