The conference was really diverse -- with everything from how to make the Sabbath greener to one man's experiences walking to the North Pole -- it was hard to absorb everything, let alone write it up. Here are some things that struck me. I'd encourage you to search for different blog posts and perspectives on the many inspiring talks.

Ed Scotcher talked about helping people in developing nations of Africa. He sees enabling communication technology as the key. During the contentious Kenyan election, citizens started to use new communications methods to take control of the situation from their point of view. They used Web 2.0 tools to map and highlight instances of bribery, violence, and other politically motivated crimes in Kenya. This form of online activism spread to Zimbabwe, as seen on this highly detailed map of election crimes reported by Zimbabwe citizens. Ed suggested that technology tools from the West can help Africa without stifling local innovation.

Bruno Taylor, an art and design student, talked about how we've stopped designing public spaces for our children. He did an experiment that put swings into bus stops to see if adults still had the ability to play. Bruno noted that public spaces are frequently designed for use, but often design that makes the lives of working people more effective and fun excludes other groups of people.

Mitchell Sava explored e-government as a tool for change, and discussed ways to empower civil servants to use technology more effectively. He proposed that user-generated content can get the public more involved in creating government policy. He was keen to encourage politicians to put aside their fears of technology and use the Web for collaboration with knowledgeable individuals outside of government,

Ben Saunders talking about his trip to the Arctic. Ben reached the geographic North Pole on May 11, 2004, after walking solo across the ice from Russia. It was his second attempt. The first time around he was attacked by a polar bear, among many other difficulties! He talked about the difference in conditions during the various years he's spent in the Arctic --during the summer melts of 2006 and 2007 an area of ice twice the size of France was lost.

(Thanks to Adam Scourfield for the image.)

Beyond the issues of climate change, Ben also talked a lot about developing as a person:

I'm not an explorer, I'm not drawing maps. I'm exploring human limits not physical ones. Consistently I've amazed myself. I wanted to get other people thinking about their own challenges. As a species two of our biggest challenges right now are sustainability, and cultural conflict. We are clearly not leaving the planet as we found it. We are not doing what we could be doing.

I think this last point really summed up GeeKyoto for me. There was so much startling and wonderful material to digest, but seeing people focused on a range of meaningful efforts and seeing what Ben could accomplish in the Arctic gives me hope. We choose where we put our energy, and I'm proud that I work for Yahoo!, a company that takes this stuff seriously.

Tom Hughes-Croucher
Yahoo! Developer Network