Michael Gurstein
| Michael Gurstein | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 2, 1944 Edmonton, Alberta, Canada |
| Died | October 8, 2017 Canada |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Education | Ph.D. Sociology, University of Cambridge |
| Occupation | Academic, researcher, policy adviser, civil society |
| Years active | 1972-2017 |
| Spouse(s) | Fernande Faulkner |
| Children | 2 |
Michael Gurstein (1944 - 2017) was a Canadian best known for his work in the development and definition of community informatics as the area of research and practice concerned with enabling and empowering communities through the use of information and communications technology. He was a native of Edmonton, Alberta, but grew up in Melfort, Saskatchewan and did his first degree at the University of Saskatchewan in Philosophy and Politics.
Gurstein held a PhD in Social Science from Cambridge University.
Gurstein worked as a senior civil servant for the Province of British Columbia (1972-4) and for the Province of Saskatchewan (Department of Northern Saskatchewan) 1974-5. He then established and ran a management consulting firm, Socioscope, undertaking research linking organizations to information technology. While working as a management adviser at the United Nations in New York (1992-5) he was offered a post as Associate Chair in the Management of Technological Change at the University College of Cape Breton. While on Cape Breton Island, he founded the Centre for Community and Enterprise Networking (C/CEN) as a community based research laboratory (what has now come to be known as a living lab) exploring possible applications of information and communications technologies to support social change in what was then one of Canada's most economically disadvantaged regions. C/CEN, established in 1996, was a pioneer in among other areas online conference management (and did the first online conference with simultaneous translation using IRC and court translators to provide text translation in French simultaneous to the direct meeting being transcribed in English). The Centre also undertook the first NetCorps placement (in Angola) as well as providing online support to the local Cape Breton music industry.
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