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Wanted: the real Web 2.0 revolutionaries

 The 2gether08 team are really excited that Umair Haque has confirmed he’ll be joining us to open the first day - providing a powerful boost to our exploration of how internet technology can be used to address major social issues.

Umair is uncompromising in his critique of 21st century capitalism, and the way it fosters destruction as well as creativity in an interconnected world:

The problem is that value creation isn’t just about productivity gains: it’s also about human welfare.

Consider this. When the last bubble was in internet technology, welfare was minimally affected – jobs were lost. When it shifted to housing and credit, welfare was affected more – houses and saving were lost.

Today, it’s shifting in large part to energy and food. What happens when hypercapitalism causes a food bubble? What happens when the masters of the universe in Greenwich bid up the price of food for India, China, and Africa’s huddled masses?

Here’s the answer: marginal starvation. Lives are lost.

That’s the very real toll that creative destruction extracts. It’s the price that a better food industry tomorrow demands of us today.

If that’s 21st century capitalism – maybe it’s time for a revolution. One where the price of a dynamic economy isn’t relentless damage to everything and everyone else.

Umair is Director of the Havas Media Lab, “a new kind of strategic advisor that helps investors, entrepreneurs, and firms experiment with, craft, and drive radical management, business model, and strategic innovation”. However, he is not impressed with many of the investors and so-called revolutionaries in the world of Web 2.0.

They’re lost in the economically meaningless, in the utterly trivial, in the strategically banal: mostly, they’re cutting deals with one another to…try and sell more ads. That is, when they’re not too busy partying.

So earlier this year he issued a challenge

If you’re a revolutionary, then be one: put your money where your mouth is, and fix a big problem that changes the world for the better - if you really have the courage, the purpose, and the vision, that is.

In fact, I’ll happily put my money where my mouth is. I think these problems are so important, I’ll take a bit of time away from setting up my new lab, to advise five startups, funds, or companies that I think have the greatest insight into fixing them - you know how to get in touch with me.

We think those of us attending 2gether08 should be able to rise to the challenge - and invite Umair to help develop our ideas.

• See also: Public service startups could partner with Channel 4
• The full programme here

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