[IRPCoalition] Fwd: Michael Gurstein

Tue Oct 17 14:07:49 EEST 2017

Sad news indeed.

--

Best Regards,
Ephraim Percy Kenyanito
Legal Researcher/ Policy Analyst
Website: https://ephraimkenyanito.com/
Twitter: @ekenyanito <https://twitter.com/ekenyanito>
PGP Fingerprint: B0FA394AF73DEB7AA1FDC7360CFED26DE6BA8DC1

On 17 October 2017 at 13:40, Hanane Boujemi <simsima25 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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