Network One Closes School in Bangkok & Opens Source Code

This decision is in part due to the Thailand’s political situation & the fact that the leaders of both sides are not fighting for the people of Thailand, but for their own personal gains. “The most shocking fact about war is that its victims & its instruments are individual human beings, & that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own,”  Aldous Huxley

 

It is horrifying to know that unarmed people have been executed by army snipers in Bangkok. The tragedy of the situation is that the protestors believe in a corrupt ex policeman who abused his power when he was Prime Minister to steal billions from the Thai people. Thaksin has committed atrocious crimes. He should be in jail, for policy corruption, human rights violations & burning down Bangkok. However, the current government should also be held responsible. Taksin provided 30 baht health care, the Student Loan Fund, under his rule rural income increased significantly & he was one of the first to support the One Laptop Per Child Initiative. But after the coup the military dictatorship cancelled the 600,000 laptops he ordered & the standard of living for those who were already poor plummeted. Taksin was the only person who helped the poor, albeit it for his own interest. He wouldn't have a fraction of his power if the government actually cared about its people. 

 

However, it is not the executions or arson or the corruption that will have the greatest impact on Thai society, I believe. It’s the censorship laws that Thaksin, the military & the palace elite will continue to enforce to keep their power in place. “The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.  If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth:  if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception & livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

 

“Manipulators rarely advise you to seek new & diverse information or to ‘learn & research for yourself,’ it tends to be safer for exploitative & irresponsible leaders to keep their citizens in the dark; in their view less independent thought is better. Independent thought leads to an inquiring mind, a mindset that eventually leads to the questioning of authority figures, & that is the one thing that inadequate leaders do not want. When a leader discourages questioning of his/her leadership style, actions, & motivations, that is a sign that they have something to hide, that they may not be worthy of the public’s trust. A responsive leader welcomes & encourages questions from the citizens that have entrusted them with their safety, economic stability, & their confidence that a certain level of civility in society will be constant. Responsive leaders would be appalled, disappointed & disgusted if the public did not question such factors.” Teresa Stover

 

Thai culture prevents individuals questioning anybody who is perceived as a superior. This is deeply ingrained in business, education & almost every part of life. Free speech can be punished by harsh prison sentences & access to thousands of websites has been cut off. Information is hidden because the Thai politicians & military want to hide their corruption & murder. I hope someday that the Thai people understand that their country will always be corrupt while they allow their government to censor their crimes. With transparency of information, like what they are doing in the US, for example, http://mapyourtaxes.mo.gov/ corruption will become more difficult to hide. Please, if you are Thai, take the time to watch an eloquent talk by David Cammeron http://www.ted.com/talks/david_cameron.html with great ideas on how people can use technology to create smarter policy. 

 

The decision to close Network One in Bangkok, however, is not just due to the troubles in Thailand. It’s also due to personal reasons. I created Network One with the goal of making education more creative & enjoyable. But these days I spend more time working on the administrative tasks of running a company that creating the online learning space I imagined. Although Network One is profitable, it simply does not have the resources to create amazing elearning technology. 

 

I believe that I can make a bigger difference by opening our source and providing it for free to schools, enterprises & universities. I believe in free software & I am seriously worried about loosing our freedom & privacy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOEMv0S8AcA Network One's software is designed to allow students create groups around subjects they are interested in & collaborate within a secure social network. It is build to foster privacy & freedom of expression & I hope someday students will use it to assess their teachers in Thailand. 

 

In the meantime I am open to new ideas & looking to work with schools & internet companies who are innovating in elearning. 

 

Best wishes, 

 

Tony O’Connell

Managing Director

Network One