MIECO 2023 - Episode 3
This is final part of a four-part series where we reflect on MIECO 2023.
Mozilla's Internet Ecosystem program (MIECO) funds innovators building a better internet. It lives at the intersection of basic research, tech development, and ethics.
In this final episode, MIECO participants share optimistic visions for the future of collaborative computing in games, education, and life overall.
Collaborative Computing
Simon Wardley talks about three forms of competition, all of which are important.
- Fighting -> Conflict
- Working with -> Collaboration
- Helping -> Cooperation
Simon's work centers on special types of maps that provide a common language for people of many different backgrounds and roles so that they can work together to understand and solve problems.
Liv Erickson talks about how many of the most innovative research groups in the history of computing, from Xerox Parc to Bell Labs and beyond, were inspired by optimism for the future. They inspire us at Mozilla to imagine what the future can look like when we invest in pushing frontiers of computing forward.
Collaborative Computing and Games
Yoshiki Ohshima introduces Croquet Greenlight and Croquet Microverse. Both are realtime tools for collaboration. Greenlight offers a shared 2D media canvas for participants. It is something like Miro meets Zoom. Microverse is a 3D tool that adds a spatial element. Both tools allow users to modify the environment from within, which he believes is crucial for these tools to truly live up to their potential.
Collaborative Computing and Education
Liv Erickson and Simon Willison discuss the potential for "end-user programming", a vision for a future where individuals with no special training are able to harness the power of computing. If every human being can automate tedious tasks in their life, "that's massively liberating" says Simon.
Liv imagines that building software becomes so simple, that "it's like our alphabet". We learn it in school and can use computational building blocks to solve human problems we encounter in our daily lives.