Collabsake and the Victorian Tertiary Education System (VTES). This is the foundation of Collabsake. It can’t be understated the importance of VTES to Collabsakes vision. Our hope is to build an exciting partnership that Collabsakes very existence is dependent on and for VTES a grand awakening. Collabsakes’s mantra is “build an advancted society for the future”, so where else but in the epicenter of future endeavor could we hope to build that future out from to see the Creation of the Community Entity.
From a romantic perspective we’d like to consider this a renaissance. A romanticized notion, that of the Greek period of an education culture, and that the revival of this could begin far down at the bottom of the world in Victoria, transforming the way we live in a capitalist democracy. That truly is our desire. To have the tertiary education system a bastion of community, leading society on a greater path. It is our belief that society is being dragged along in a technological boom dictated by a soulless corporate world. Literally blinded to the imediate world, starring down at our gadgets, swept up in in an avalanche of dopamine hits. Carefully manipulated for profit crafted by the veil of reaching a shallow connected world. A slow and steady death of a meaningful reliance on one another by the generous nameless beyond. It’s the dreamer that dies first. The one with a foot in the future. Devoid of nourishing visions, their role in society is stripped laying bare reality, sowing the seeds of disrepair and descent into chaos and disintegration. Perhaps the inevitable cycle of renewal. Thou we don’t think it’s come to that yet. The human story hasn’t burnt out, the winds of change will stock the fire. A fire fueled with grand logs of hope not twigs of fleeting joy. The inferno of ambition for the future built in the furnace of the tertiary education system. Or at least it should be. We must, if only in the dreamers provide hope that we can build a magnificent future.
The corporate world is not an evil entity. Quite the opposite, it’s brilliance has made it easy for us to be reliant upon it, allowing ourselves to be consumed by it. The Community Entity must match it’s brilliance to create depth of society. This is why we must radically reshape the relationship between the two in addressing the power imbalance. Society yields to the capitalist function, not in betterment but for profits. Capitalism too yields to market demands, so creating a demand is the answer. An ingrained demand of community mindedness.
Ingraining a demand into the social fabric requires two things, teaching and preaching. VTES teaching and Collabsake preaching. This is precisely what Collabsake is intended for. Identifying what the community needs to gain a seat at the table of societal function and figuring out how to do it. We’ve identified VTES as critical in shaping an advanced society based in communal idealism. What we are proposing is generating a slight shift in how VTES perceive themselves. As VTES already in their make up have what’s required for building an advanced society, an adjustment needs to be made to place VTES at the center of a capitalist system to usher in a new archetype. It’s not Collabsakes intention to inform an institution on how they need to operate, merely to propose a concept outlining the benefits and impact, then facilitate it if seen to have merit. Collabsake want to have realized the potential locked in VTES and expand their reach deeper into the broader community.
We have the firm belief that VTES should be viewed as unequivocal foundation of society. Reasonably, within the walls of VTES institutions this may be a prevailing view but that’s not who needs to be convinced of it. An aggressive encroachment into the community, saying we have these tools at our disposal and we’re going to use them. A play from the Google hand book of do no evil but we are seizing power in shaping the world. Awaken a sleeping giant with a generation that proclaims look at me I’m the captain now and we’re changing course. There’s no shortage of entitlement in the first world environment, so an attitude of I may need you but you don’t know how much you need me, is a first world product and best given from a legitimate source. A source primed for revolution. A source that wont be indoctrinated into a live to work mantra but a work to live philosophy. It may sound extreme and outrageous but an old fashion shake up is whats required. Learning and teaching institutions come from a righteous place, their power lies in the mind and how it’s instructed. The only effective way of creating an advanced society must begin at the roots of influence where minds are molded. The more influential and embedded learning institutions are in a community the greater the chance and impact for positive change. To sell this idealism short would be an injustice to an end goal of transforming society and taking it to new heights.
Ideals are one thing but reality is another, this is why an institution like Collabsake is required. An institution with the purpose of bringing collective ideals into reality. This illustrates the need for a champion of community. Transforming society requires a collaborative effort and has to be orchestrated by a specialist with dogged focus on the agenda. Buildings aren’t built without architects and site managers. A carpenter can build the most amazing structure but cannot begin without the planning and coordinating of the build. Same to all the sectors of society in the need to function for purpose but brought together to operate in a grander project that doesn’t impede their ability, more enables it. Is this the domain of government? No. Change must be implemented by the players within the system. Functioning within the boundaries of a capitalist system in place. Capitalism can not be dictated. Such actions have to live or die by their own fruition if it aims to be a sustainable movement.
In terms of real world practicality of VTES in the community, it’s an open book. There are many VTES institutions that each can grapple with the idea. The idea of what can we do with our means and resources to be the foundation of society. Is it new branches in VTES and professoriate, not in subject but in administration? Can the scope of student learning’s be better integrated in community? The answer is yes. It’s the execution and vision barring in mind the goal of creating an advanced society for the betterment of community that gauges success. Elevating VTES from mere educators into custodians of community.
Why does it so heavily fall upon the education sector? The simple answer is, in a capitalist system there is less at stake comparatively. No where is there such a concentration and encouragement of freedom for growth, versatility and like/opposed mindedness as in the gathering of learning where the stakes are always known before entering. It is in itself a community for the future.
There’s no way of any individual being able to see how this will play out or to what level VTES can rival the largest of corporations for influence. Communities build themselves out of sparks idealism and belonging. It’s the idea that deep rooted in ourselves we all want a better world and VTES is best placed to be the vehicle of change. Community can be fickle and changing the paradigm of society is a mountain to climb. Can we afford not to take thous first steps in that climb when a soulless, stagnant, communal future is evident.
Central to developing community mindedness is the realization or enhancement of the Community Entity. That’s why Collabsake wants to build a vehicle for this realization and VTES a player in it’s construction. That vehicle is currently known as the Ideas Competition. It’s a simple concept but could have profound reach made easy by the fact the ground work for it’s development has already taken place in the broader community in the saturation of our lives in social media and the internet. Social media in it’s infancy had enormous potential for good. Then as it evolved and was monetized the dark side emerged. We’re all aware of the bubbles and misinformation social media has created but the core concept of connectivity and information delivery is intact. The challenge of social media is stifling the dark side and promoting the positive. Current social media sources are essentially entertainment vessels with the exception of the likes of Reddit and You Tube to some degree, that do have some merit in cooperation and helpfulness. Social media identifying as an empowerment vessel can give rise to a different approach. Releasing the shackles of dopamine algorithms of entertainment social media demands a different approach to information delivery not reliant on biological manipulation. A hook is still required though for users to want to brows your content and attract participation. That’s where we throw in our cheeky one of manipulation of a big carrot. An annual $1m prize up for grabs. Arguably an empowerment tool in itself, as to stay on brand.
Sites like Reddit and Wikipedia give examples of peoples willingness to freely give information in a cooperative nature. This provides evidence of positive participation on the internet, that there is something there in that. If we want to create a social media site that has an empowerment ethos, knowing there is a positive participation desire out there that needs to be nurtured and grown upon, it’s the delivery and navigation that is the nut to crack for its on going participation. We think we have cracked that. Our approach appeals to users existing motivations. Using those existing motivations to navigate not directly by content but by information given prior to content delivery. Developing identification and a democratic evaluation of content prior to viewing. Changing navigation from titillating and overbearing browsing to focused purpose based browsing.
How this relates to VTES, well that’s who’s going to build it, if we could be so bold. Social media built by the community for the community. More detailed information on the social media site can be found in the Ideas Competition post. This would be an example of how VTES can use the tools available to it in building a tool to reach the broader community to blur the lines between the larger world at hand and education. What we have to try to imagine is if this site can even have a quarter of the participation of sites like Facebook there will be enormous opportunity in fielding information on what the broader community ambitions for the future are. Opening the door to untapped collaboration that students can have direct access to real world involvement and purpose. This could be an amazing tool and dramatically change how educating can be done. In allowing for a space that gives a voice to perhaps otherwise unheard ideas and actions from the comfort of ones home or office, gives traction that’s required to make them reality in a way that’s not being fully understood to date. There currently isn’t anything in existence that fully addresses a collaborative avenue for innovation outside a business frame work. Our social media platform would allow students, educators, government, think tanks and business a way to have input in a creative space with the potential for reward for effort that a profit motif may otherwise stifle. We see VTES as the place best positioned to embrace and spread this form of collaborative effort. Whether it be sharing their newly found knowledge or as a tool in developing and enhancing their field, students of VTES could be greatly advantaged in it’s adoption by way of it’s reach and transparency into the community.
What Collabsake wants to achieve by collaborating with VTES is the development of a new social media platform that will provide a new way for society to collaborate and distribute information. We want to forge the environment that weaves education more broadly into the community directly and indirectly through a wide range of measures that allow for greater impact in improving society. We believe VTES institutions should rival the largest of corporations for influence in shaping the future because of what they fundamentally stand for as trusted organizations in driving future endeavors. It would be our aim for VTES institutions to be viewed as custodians of community in that to engage in them is to shape the broader community from the outset of involvement. That their output is more deeper than just educational. Only though VTES can the platform of an advanced society can be achieved. It will be a complex and tremendous but plausible transformation.
We have to heed the potential available, it’s up to those on the ground in seeing direct application to have it evolve to meet that potential. Beginning with the Ideas Competition, it’s fundamental principle is simplification, in a similar way that Googling simplified browsing the internet. Consider the ideas competition an auditor of society. The world is infinitely complex in its structure and requires an all hands in approach to lay bare its functionality. Every facet of society requires the chance to be examined with the broadest possible scope. The ideas competition provides the focal point to examine the encompassing reality of the inner working of society. For all the worlds seemingly progressive nature there is no audit on its efficiency and purpose towards social function that is broadly and easily accessible in assessment. The result is a disjointed progression. What the ideas competition would provide is knowledge efficiency. By using this platform an environment could be created where AI can understand human en-devour by way of using the information identification in the form of badging on content and the backing of democratic response to it. AI is coming and the wild west of the world wide web has not the conscience of the system we propose. AI requires information of the gravity of the content. This is why it’s so critically important that we as a society can display the good sided nature of human beings in our willingness to work together to achieve a better society so it can be programed into AI. It’s why Collabsake is reaching out to all of the VTES to propose the open source transparent development of the ideas competition. This could be a significant development in using the immense potential of AI to identify consensus of the broader community. Significantly even without any AI the need for a platform to allow for a focal point for societal function is required to meet the needs of rapid technological advancement. It’s important to identify that government and bureaucracy implement societal function though a custodian must be in the position to maintain and develop and VTES is best positioned to do so.
The future is knocking and we have to ask ourselves when we open the door, where do we want it to lead us? How are we developing direction and function?
Please engage us in the forum to discus.