Archive for May 10th, 2004

A quiet but monumental event took place at Geekcorps on April Fool’s Day, although it was no joke: Ethan Zuckerman tendered his resignation from Geekcorps and our parent corporation, the International Executive Service Corps (IESC).

Most people who know about Geekcorps know Ethan’s name. Ethan spawned the idea of a corps of international technical volunteers assisting developing nations, largely as an offshoot of his Fulbright Scholarship in Ghana about ten years ago. While in Ghana for two years, he recognized a burgeoning ICT industry and infrastructure, but he also realized the need for technical expertise. In the following years, after he returned to the United States and became a pivotal figure in the growth of Internet community pioneer Tripod, and later vice president at Lycos, the idea of the yet-to-be-named Geekcorps continued to simmer.

In late 1998, Ethan relinquished his position at Lycos and turned to Geekcorps full time. Over the course of a year, Geekcorps gained a name, a mission statement, a dedicated staff and a passionate leader – not to mention a cool logo. The organization was officially founded in 2000, the same year that our first volunteer team left for Ghana. Since then we’ve placed seven volunteer teams in Ghana and a total of nearly one hundred technical volunteers in a dozen nations, along with merging with IESC. Equally important are the impact our volunteers have had within growing economies and the relationships we’ve made around the globe.

There are a few major points that set Geekcorps apart from other volunteer and consulting organizations; the central one is that Geekcorps volunteers don’t just hop on a plane, perform an assignment and leave. Instead, we strive to impart core ICT skills that continue to spark creativity and new directions long after our volunteers have returned home. This facet of Geekcorps’ model was inspired largely by Ethan’s beliefs in the power of ideas, the ability of individuals to teach what they care about, and the critical value of technical skills in developing nations.

In a nutshell, were it not for Ethan, Geekcorps wouldn’t be here. His passion and motivation catalyzed Geekcorps at the outset, and his personal investment of capital, time and thought kept it moving forward. Every Geekcorps assignment is a collective effort involving recruitment, management, on-the-ground support and volunteer efforts, but Ethan had the original vision and made it happen.

Ethan has moved on to the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School and the Open Societies Institute (OSI), where he will be performing research, lecturing, and – of course – traveling, and we all wish him the best of luck in his new endeavors. But it’s also worth noting that, while he’s no longer the Geekcorps Executive Director or an IESC vice president, Ethan remains the founder of Geekcorps. Some things will never change.

If you want to keep track of Ethan’s new adventures, follow his blog, “My Heart’s in Accra.”