[bestbits] Michael Gurstein

[Nnenna Nwakanma]

Just reading this on Facebook..

= = =
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.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/bestbits/attachments/20171014/88ba0f07/attachment.htm>