[IRPCoalition] Fwd: Michael Gurstein

Tue Oct 17 13:40:53 EEST 2017

Really sad news! He will be greatly missed.

Hanane

On Tue, Oct 17, 2017 at 10:57 AM, Marianne Franklin <m.i.franklin at gold.ac.uk
> wrote:

> Dear IRP Coalition.
>
> I am fowarding to you all the sad news that Mike Gurstein has passed away:
> an obituary is below.
>
> Mike served on the Steering Committee of the IRPC in the early years and
> contributed to the drafting processes that led to the IRPC Charter, and the
> Ten Principles. He was also an active member of the IRPC list during this
> time and on other lists. Mike had firm views, he was willing to share those
> views and argue his corner with verve, and passion.
>
> We wish his family strength at this time.
>
> best wishes
>
> Marianne F
> 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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