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Visiting indigenous communities in outback Australia…

I just returned from a trip to the Northern Territory in Australia’s outback where I had plenty of time to think about stigmergy. It will probably take a little time for my many thoughts to coalesce into something more articulate (I pondered a good deal on human stigmergy). In the mean time, there were many beautiful termite nests (above), and ant nests (below) to witness.

However I was there as part of an IBM sponsored program, SWIRL program run by Lawry Mahon (a living legend IMHO).

We visited five different indigenous communities in which groups of student teachers were developing digital stories with young indigenous students.

My role was/is to help develop an online (stigmergic) collaborative environment for this course. Having run now for 11 years without hitch and with a great many success stories, I’m hoping this wonderful bunch of people and fantastic program will provide an excellent environment for exploring stigmergic collaboration across geographic, political and cultural borders.