náměstí Jana Palacha 1/2, Josefov
11000 Prague
Czechia
- Youth and education
We are building a new digital encyclopedia that will enable everyone to see the whole of the long-term socio-political reality in today’s world. Inspired by Wikipedia, we wish to bring an open-access educational tool tailored to the needs of non-professional audiences globally but with high-perspective descriptions created merely by selected specialists from international universities and other research institutions.
We aim at the system of gaining knowledge about the political and social reality of the world we live in. We observe that thanks to new media technologies, one can search for almost any existing correct/true information at any time. Having only an internet connection, we can, in a second, find out about the latest news all over the world, listen to personal stories of all or gain scientific knowledge about various special issues through Wikipedia and other online encyclopedias. And when a specific topic becomes popular in media outlets, one can quickly become an expert on any issue. The global internet has become a space of an indefinite amount of specific information accessible to all.
At the same time, we paradoxically observe how distorted our images of the whole nature of the world we live in are. And it doesn't usually concern merely reality on the global level but also in our own countries.
When exploring possible causes of this issue, specifically on the level of the global system of digital information and media, we also observe how putting all existing information together into correct and precise mosaics of the whole reality is difficult. Particularly for non-expert people without extensive knowledge of the broad context of individual issues or situations in individual world areas. All the more so for people who didn't have a chance to gain higher education in social or human sciences, media literacy or simply cannot afford to spend hours in libraries due to their work or existential troubles.
Thus we wish to help everyone who wants to understand the whole picture correctly, allowing them to see the mosaic of socio-political reality created by experts.
Inspired by Wikipedia and its success, we dream of a new open-access and highly user-friendly digital encyclopedia tailored to the needs of non-expert audiences, which becomes a similar collaborative platform for a global community of authors - social and human scientists from all over the world. An encyclopedia which will be specifically designed to systematically and from a higher perspective reflect on the whole of the long-term reality in individual countries, same as globally. Through the concept of big-picture panoramic entries and an interactive map of the world inspired by Google Maps, we will gradually compile the needed mosaic. No details and no ad hoc topics. Neither will we look at popular topics. We aim to launch a platform in which specialists in individual subjects and areas will gradually implement carefully prepared plans of needed topics to capture objectively and comprehensively the whole of reality in individual world regions.
We offer a unique academic platform that provides the general public with a reliable big-picture source of information, bringing together academics from the global North and South. The encyclopedia can accompany existing media outlets or educational projects and campaigns at European schools and non-governmental organizations.
We adhere to the ALN endeavour of intercultural and civil society dialogue. By joining the network, we would like to establish further cooperation with international research institutes, media and NGOs to participate in international projects and thus contribute to a more informed public debate in the European Union, the Mediterranean region and elsewhere.