Nation.1 was a project to create what was described as an "online country" – a conceptual country based on the Internet. It was to be owned, populated and governed by the children of the world. Its borders were defined by the age of its citizens, as opposed to geography or ethnicity. The central goal of Nation.1 was to empower young people with a voice and representation in world affairs.
History
The Nation.1 concept began as a challenge by
Nicholas Negroponte to a group of young delegates of the 2B1 conference at the
MIT Media Lab in 1997. Several of these delegates had attended the GII Junior Summit in 1995, and others were part of the Generation Why Project in Olympia, Washington.
Nation.1 was announced publicly in a 1997 teleconference to the
United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, in a series of speeches at the
Massachusetts State House
The Massachusetts State House, also known as the Massachusetts Statehouse or the New State House, is the List of state capitols in the United States, state capitol and seat of government for the Massachusetts, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, lo ...
and in an article in ''
Wired'' magazine.
The project was further developed by delegates at the Junior Summit 1998 conference, during which it adopted the use of
Swatch Internet Time
Swatch Internet Time (or ) is a decimal time concept introduced in 1998 by the Swatch corporation as part of their marketing campaign for their line of "Beat" watches.
Instead of hours and minutes, the mean solar day is divided into 1,000 parts ...
. In the following years Nation.1 was incorporated as a non-profit organization for youth empowerment. The Nation.1 foundation, its executive director and its assets merged officially with
TakingITGlobal TakingITGlobal, which is also known as TIG, is a charitable non-governmental organization focusing on global issues by promoting awareness and engagement among global youth. It was founded in 1999 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada by Jennifer Corriero and ...
in 2001.
Although Nation.1 is not directly related to the
One Laptop per Child project, both projects were informed by the 2B1 conference, the GII Junior Summit '95 and the Junior Summit '98.
The Nation.1 project explored a variety of translation and governance technologies as well as a variety of concepts key to the construction of a country. New approaches to youth-empowerment and autonomous self-government through the use of decentralized internet voting systems were discussed, as were topics relating to citizenship, education, economic exchange, trust, identification, and a usable international definition on what constitutes childhood.
On this last question, an arbitrary boundary of 25 years of age and under was eventually established, although the variables of this boundary were widely discussed.
John Perry Barlow put in a request that the young at heart be admitted as ambassadors from the adult world, or at least be granted temporary
visas
Visa most commonly refers to:
* Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company
** Visa Debit card issued by the above company
** Visa Electron, a debit card
** Visa Plus, an interbank network
*Travel visa, a document that allo ...
.
Technology
Alan Kay recommended using a
wiki in the formation of Nation1, three years before the founding of
Wikipedia.
[.] His advice led to the use of a wiki to help form the founding texts of the nation. A database-driven website and email mailing lists were used as the initial communication system, while the central committee laid plans for multi-lingual chat system and a distributed decision-making system called the ''Democracy Engine.''
Key people
*
John Perry Barlow
* Brandon Bruce
* Terah DeJong
* Marco D'Alimonte
* Maitreyi Doshi
* Talena Foster
*
Alan Kay
* Lauren Keane
* Hayley Goodwin
* Ragni Marea Kidvai
* Kanetaka Maki
* Nick Moraitis
*
Nicholas Negroponte
* Dimitri Negroponte
* Thomas O'Duffy
*
Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux
Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux (born February 4, 1978) is an American entrepreneur and executive who serves as CEO of Global Space Ventures and was the president and COO of Escape Dynamics.
Early life and education
Born in Angers, France, de Cayeu ...
* Ryan Powell
* Warren Sack
* David Sontag
* Tannie Kwong
* Emily Kumpel
* Gerald Tan
[.]
* Nusrah Wali
* Ian Wojtowicz
* Jacob Wolfsheimer
See also
*
A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" is a widely distributed early paper on the applicability (or lack thereof) of government on the rapidly growing Internet. Commissioned for the pioneering Internet project '' 24 Hours in Cyberspace'', ...
*
Nationalism
*
2B1
Notes
{{reflist
External links
Nation.1's website archive
Information and communication technologies for development
1997 introductions
Organizations established in 1997
2001 mergers and acquisitions