From Ted Byfield, nettime
I worked with Mike in Cape Breton (Sydney and elsewhere); his work
intersects in so many ways with Furtherfield.
Very sorry to pass this on.
- Alan
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2017 19:10:06
From: t byfield <tbyfi...@panix.com>
To: Nettime-l <nettim...@kein.org>
Subject: <nettime> RIP Michael Gurstein
I'm sad to pass this news on.
T
< https://www.facebook.com/gurstein/posts/10155671874752457 >
Michael Gurstein
October 2, 1944 - October 8, 2017
Michael Gurstein was born on October 2, 1944 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to
Emanuel (Manny) and Sylvia Gurstein. While still an infant, the family moved to
Melfort, Saskatchewan where Manny grew up and his family still lived. In Mike?s
youth, Manny and Sylvia ran a successful retail store. There, the family grew
with a younger sister, Penny.
Mike excelled at school. He spent his summers working at a golf club in
Waskesiu and graduated from Melfort Composite Collegiate Institute high school,
and then completed an undergraduate degree in philosophy at the University of
Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. Mike was driven by pragmatism and curiosity about
the wider world that motivated his doctoral studies in Sociology at the
University of Cambridge in the U.K. While a student, he began his life-long
exploration of the world, with trips through North Africa and a long journey
from Southeast Asia through Afghanistan and Iran and back to the U.K.
Upon Mike?s return to Canada, he worked in politics and policy, as a senior
civil servant for the Province of British Columbia under Barrett?s NDP
government (1972-4) and for the Province of Saskatchewan under Blakeney?s NDP
Government (1974-5). While teaching at York University, he ran unsuccessfully
for the NDP in the riding of Parkdale.
Mike moved to Ottawa in the late 1970s where he met his wife, Fernande
Faulkner. Together they had two children, Rachel (1981) and Marc (1983). He and
Fernande established and ran a management consulting firm, Socioscope, which
studied and guided the social aspects of the introduction of information
communication technology. In Ottawa, Mike also built and managed a real estate
portfolio. In 1992 the family moved to New York, where Mike and Fernande worked
for the United Nations.
In 1995, Mike became Associate Chair in the Management of Technological Change
at the University College of Cape Breton. There, he founded the Centre for
Community and Enterprise Networking (C/CEN) as a community based research
laboratory exploring applications of ICT to support social change in one of
Canada's most economically disadvantaged regions.
Grown out of his early experience in rural small town Saskatchewan and his
later experiences in impoverished but culturally and communally rich Cape
Breton, Mike's work provided the conceptual framing for ?community
informatics?. He published the first major work in the field, and introduced
the term "community informatics" into wider usage as referring to the research
and praxis discipline underpinning the social appropriation of ICT. Within the
area of community informatics a major contribution has been Mike's introduction
of the notion of "effective use" as a critical analytical framework for
assessing technology implementation superseding approaches based on the more
commonly accepted frameworks such as that of the "digital divide".
In 1999, the family moved to Vancouver to be closer to Mike?s parents and
sister. In 2000, Mike and Fernande returned to New York, to work at the New
Jersey Institute of Technology and the UN, respectively. Mike returned to
Vancouver in 2006 and established the Center for Community Informatics Research
Development and Training (CCIRDT). With this platform, he traveled the world to
consult with governments and civil society organisations, present at
conferences, and conduct research.
Mike was the founding editor of the Journal of Community Informatics and was
Foundation Chair of the Community Informatics Research Network. He was at the
time of his death the Executive Director of CCIRDT, and formerly an Adjunct
Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies Vancouver Canada,
and as well as Research Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in
Newark, New Jersey, and Research Professor at the University of Quebec
(Outaouais). He was also a member of the High Level Panel of Advisers of the
UN's Global Alliance for ICT and Development. He has also served on the Board
of the Global Telecentre Alliance, Telecommunities Canada, the Pacific
Community Networking Association and the Vancouver Community Net.
In recent years he was active as a commentator, speaker and essayist/blogger
articulating a community informatics (grassroots ICT user) perspective in the
areas of open government data and internet governance. Through all of his work,
Mike was motivated by his commitment to democratising access to the tools of
information technology and the advancement of civil society.
Mike passed away peacefully at home on October 8 after a two year battle with
prostate cancer. He is survived by his wife Fernande, his mother Sylvia, his
sister Penny, his children Rachel and Marc, his step-children Bruno and Nina,
his grandchildren Emmanuelle and Daniel, step grandchildren Patrick, Emilly,
Jessica and Erica, and niece, Natasha.
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