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Thursday Mar 08, 2007

A Killer Example of Social Networking - the Open Architecture Network

Last year's TED Conference winner, Cameron Sinclair, had a wish of creating an online resource for architects, builders, and anyone involved in driving architecture in areas around the globe affected by displacement, natural disaster, or economic disruption. This wish led to the creation of the Open Architecture Network and Architecture for Humanity which enable pro bono work from architects around the world who have an interest in supplying their designs in an open source, creative commons fashion to communities in need.

Their mission statement? To “lift the living standards for everyone in the world.” No small task, but one that is aided by the concept of online community-based work to allow for the sharing of knowledge about materials, construction, climate, and environment.

Sun's latest edition of Innovating@Sun welcomes host Hal Stern, VP of Global Systems Engineering and his guests, Jim Manico, GIAC GSEC Professional and Certified Java Programmer, Scott Mattoon (photo), Chief Architect, Western U.S. Market Area, GSE. The group will discuss:

How Web 2.0 technologies/the “writeable Web” allow architects to collaborate

How open source technology and an optimized stack represent a very low cost of entry in terms of cost of software products used

Sun's AMP (Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack

Drupal, the open source system based on PHP that runs on top of a MySQL database and allows for multilingual collaboration in real time

The physical infrastructure supporting the media-intensive effort with its mechanisms for storage, collaboration and communication to distribute information on how to build better housing

How project tracking and Web 2.0-type calendaring work via collaboration with all participants

The acceleration of innovation by a responsive open source community