Free Culture @ GT

I’m excited to announce that the Georgia Tech chapter of Free Culture has a new maintainer for Spring 2010! Jordan Killpack, our previous maintainer from Fall 2008 ceded the reigns of power (i.e. the list and blog) to myself after I expressed interest in coordinating some rabble-rousing under the Free Culture flag here in Atlanta. I’m a Senior undergraduate in the School of Public Policy, Atlanta native and seasoned social activist.

My passion for access to knowledge led me, in 2006, to work with the community radio advocacy group, Prometheus Project, to build a low-power FM radio station for the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in Greenville, SC. In 2007 I cofounded the Georgia Tech Students Organizing for Sustainability organization and successfully led a Sustainable Food campaign which has now become institutionalized. From 2006 to 2008 I worked as a private consultant on cutting-edge online social media and networking web sites and in 2007 my clients included Public Broadcasting Atlanta, WABE 90.1. Spring 2009 I dropped out of university to enroll in the autonomous, commons-based, international invisible university. I did public electronic art installs with the Analodge Hackspace in Chapel Hill, NC and hitch-hiked around Europe visiting hackspaces in Germany, Denmark and Sweden. Now I’m back in Atlanta and excited to work with all of you on the Open University campaign to bring access to knowledge to all people of the world!

So, less about me, and more about the revolutionary work for us this upcoming semester. As many of you know the central campaign of the international Students for Free Culture society is the Open University campaign. Simply stated, we wish to open up the university system to all people through objectives currently outlined in the Wheeler Declaration from the 2008 Free Culture conference. We believe that free access to knowledge for all people will usher in a new era of innovation and creativity for humankind and it starts with US, campaigning on our campuses hand in hand with students from across the world. at this time, the open university couldn’t be more necessary for the continuation of a successful Georgia educational system. As a crisis created by reckless executives and managers in our national financial industry wrecks havoc on the State’s budget the Georgia Board of Regents is clamping down on educational services and penalizing us for risks we never took. The Open University campaign offers an opportunity to respond to this with a fresh perspective on how universities can and should operate.

This winter break I will engage students, faculty and workers on the Georgia Tech campus through our Free Culture organization to join me in drafting an informed and critical strategy for our local Open University campaign. I’m looking for people to form core teams to establish and maintain several tactical projects. If you are interested in building inter-city alliances with communities on the dark side of the digital divide by partnering with the Freeside hackspace, rallying students to demand open access course materials to offset the costs of illegitimate student fees while fighting to end the imposition of these fees in conjunction with active students at Georgia State, hosting informative events and discussions regarding open source licensing and free culture in general for our campus and the Atlanta community, or whatever you please- please join our mailing list and email us! I will provide you with all the information and resources you need for your project to be immensely successful. In addition, I will work hard to secure funding for active members who wish to attend the exciting 2010 Free Culture Conference in Washington, DC this February.

For a knowledge commons,
Liam Rattray

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