have come to know me as an artist who explores life and shares discoveries in various ways, such as film, poetry, music, a blog on the Internet, and so forth.

I’ve been fortunate enough to see many places and meet many wonderful people. On a Québec farm, I helped a yogic, Belgian count named Michel De Meulemeester, who practiced Fukuoka’s ideas of no-till farming. One day, I followed around Ulrike Burghardt, a nurse who works at the hospice in Havelhöhe, a beautiful Anthroposophical hospital beside a lake just outside Berlin. In Montréal, I’m now collaborating with Douglas Jack, who’s lived with Doukhobor and First Nation communities, studied participatory corporations, and developed promising systems based on indigenous economies.

With these and so many other rewarding encounters, I have faith that we can create a peaceful world, pristine in its depths, teeming with vibrant human beings and surrounded by spirited ecosystems. My belief grows from the sheer vibrancy of other people’s ideas. I can’t help but think that if people were more organized and coordinated, less fragmented and more integrated into communities, their efforts would be much more effective. As civilization can attest to, communities of people are capable of doing marvelous things, and an idea from an individual can only go so far before it must be welcomed and fostered by a community.

I have designed SPRING as a tool to help individuals shape ideas and integrate them into communities. At its focal point is a free website that fosters the interactive documentation of local, community-building knowledge from all over the world. Firstly, a community-building concept is discovered and presented, and then SPRING helps the concept evolve and progress towards wise manifestations. As an organization, SPRING (Stewards of the Planet, Revitalizing Individuals, Nature and Gatherings) organizes, clarifies, and focuses modernity's profusion of information, finds patterns, collects results and commissions more communities to document their knowledge. It also generates big efficiencies in communication, and records the process of community development for posterity’s sake.

SPRING takes the idea of burgeoning online communities like facebook one step further, and is geared towards manifesting action outside cyberspace. Online community-building doesn't become a replacement for off-line communities, but a tool to augment those off-line, embodied communities, whose exchanges, interactions, and aspects of mutual support are deeper, and more dynamic than the versions confined solely to cyberspace. The idea of Wikipedia is adapted, too, with the evolution of knowledge being displayed in a visual manner. FTP sites, search engines, forums and chats would also be integrated seamlessly into the site. SPRING would be free for its users; it would be geared towards emerging communities; its visual interface would be very simple and easy to understand; and within minutes, people could jump into a project, start learning about it, and contribute.

Please refer to Fig. 1 for a way to begin visualizing SPRING (attached as a jpeg). This diagram looks somewhat like an archipelago, with water swirling around islands, offering a place where communities can unite, divide, and ideally grow in positive directions. In a way, SPRING encourages a biodiversity of ideas that may increase survival capacities just as it does in nature. The lines represent forces of influence, the circles equal major events, and shrinking circles signify the passage of time as our eyes move into the picture plane.

1. Concept: Promising concept is found and noted.
2. Honing: Others comment, offer critiques, notes and rewrites.
3. Sharing: Polished idea is distributed to others. Videos are made, literature written, real community forums organized. Details of these processes are noted.
4. Enacting: Community members do it, post scans of paperwork and note issues that arise.
5. Reviewing: People offer insight about the process up to this point.
6. Evolving: Initial concept is revisited, improved and integrated into current enactments.

Please refer to Fig. 2 for SPRING’s potential interface (attached as a jpeg). From the main menu, a user chooses to search community initiatives by location, time or subject. Upon finding an initiative like EOW co-housing (explained later), the user clicks on it, and the following image appears. Selecting a colored shape reveals more details about that stage of the enterprise. The evolution of the initiative is represented graphically, revealing details of its manifestation, not merely showing the users a venture’s most current, fixed, theoretical draft.

As a tool, SPRING is neutral, and capable of augmenting community-building within any family, neighborhood or nation. Hopefully its users would be influenced by SPRING’s vision.

“SPRING is responding to a current need to revitalize individuals, nature and communities. Through vibrant actions that are generated by thorough participation, SPRING aspires to create ecologically-balanced living groups that foster relationships, recognition and fulfillment. Our traditions inform us, and promising new methods complement our path.”

If SPRING is the trimtab, community is the rudder that can steer a lost ship back to shore. What follows are community initiatives that could use SPRING while they grow:

EOW
This co-housing project is about transforming neglected but resource-rich sites into community economies and settings. In Montréal, an abandoned, 120 foot-tall, concrete water tower has been donated to the Sustainable Development Association to convert into an interactive, ecologically-friendly apartment building, and will combine the average yearly incomes of 48 Canadians ($1.2 million—-based on Stats Canada, 2005). Please see Fig. 3 for designs, as well as http://dwell.ecube.info

For two years, people were working on this project, not knowing that anyone else on the planet had a similar idea. After some research, water-tower projects were discovered in Germany and the Netherlands. SPRING would have this information in its database, with details that could help others embarking on similar projects. Please see http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/10/01/wasserturm-umbau-water-tower-adaptation/

Orchard Farming
In certain civilizations, nut trees formed a backbone of production, intermixed with fruit, mushrooms, squash and herbs. United Nation studies have calculated that orchards absorb and transform 95-98% of solar rays into matter. Cereal crops only absorb and transform 3-5% of solar energy. Furthermore, orchard trees send roots 20 to 200 feet down, effectively thwarting desertification while also breaking down airborne pollutants. Douglas Jack, equipped with extensive experience, is in the midst of planning a 1.5 acre forest around a highway in Montréal. Is anyone else working on a similar project? What have they learned? What can they share?

Other blossoming community initiatives in Montréal are Greening McGill’s intentions for a city-wide composting program, the Rooftop Garden Project, Équiterre, 29 Éco-quartiers, École des énergies alternatives du Québec, and over 100 other organizations. Please see http://www.cremtl.qc.ca/fichiers-cre/membrescorpoweb.pdf

Prize money would start up the website for SPRING, and would purchase three servers, plus the usual gear, such as Internet connectivity, firewall, backups, power, etc. To minimize operational expenses, there would be an upfront capital cost of approximately $7,000, with $700/month spent on Internet access and proper hosting. Open-source software (Ruby on Rails) would most likely be used, and money would be spent on community-owned software, technological updates and additions.

Much of the budget would be spent on the time and experience that brings a project like this together. SPRING would require three programmers for six months; a project manager and a designer; a promotional director; and ongoing, part-time programmers for upkeep. I would manage the community contact/research, while others, two of whom are listed as references, would offer their extensive skills in web-based programming.

SPRING will make knowledge accessible to as many people as possible. Roughly 40% of people in developed countries aren't online, nor are 80% of people worldwide, and there is also the issue of illiteracy. Off-line community connection and public forums are tantamount to SPRING, especially under the steps of "Sharing" and "Enacting". Clear and simple writing styles will be encouraged, so as to facilitate translations by volunteers and staff. An extensive network of translators can even be created on the site: I could facilitate this since I currently work for a company that does translations.

To minimize both capital and environmental costs, great care will be taken at all phases of the project (e.g., when possible, purchasing hardware and services from companies committed to the environment's well-being).

SPRING is achievable, but will it be a success? Its aspirations are modest, and if it strengthens only certain community initiatives, it will have been valuable. And perhaps it will become a welcome tool for building knowledge and communities around the world.

Finally, I wish to thank you for reading my proposal. This competition stimulated me to gather my ideas and involve the help of many people. I believe, however, that the winner of this year’s competition won’t have nearly as much capacity as all the applicants pooled together. Perhaps you would consider forwarding my design to every participant of the competition once the contest is finished. SPRING is large enough to include all hopeful paths.