[bestbits] Michael Gurstein

Sat Oct 14 16:11:16 EDT 2017

Sad indeed, my condolences to Mike family.

Peace

Poncelet

On 14 October 2017 at 20:47, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ah! This is sad. Unfortunately it's a debt we all owe, Michael has paid
> his.
>
> I pray God's grace for his family during this trying period.
>
> Regards
> Sent from my mobile
> Kindly excuse brevity and typos
>
> On Oct 14, 2017 6:55 PM, "Nnenna Nwakanma" <nnenna75 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
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-- 
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