Showing posts with label Madhav Nepal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Madhav Nepal. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

To Iran, With Love (1)

To: Brad Feld, Subject: Iran And Me (Digital Ninja/Commando)

Hello Brad.

And to continue with our conversation. I am absolutely loving the public nature of this. This is going to enhance my efficacy and my credibility when I get into the thick of things with Iran.

My Background
  • I was the number one student in my class at the top school in Nepal for the seven of the 10 years I was there.
  • Out of high school I became Vice General Secretary to a political party with two MPs, members of parliament. Someone who was a central committee member at the time currently is a cabinet minister in Nepal.
  • I was Poet Of The Year 1995, International Society Of Poets, Washington DC.
  • I got accepted to the University Of Chicago ("not for your numbers, but your actions and words") but the money part did not work out, so I went to the school in America that has the best financial aid program of any, second to none, not even Harvard, Berea College in Kentucky, the number one liberal arts college in the South.
  • Within six months of landing as an international student I got myself elected student body president at Berea, first time in college history a freshman did that.
  • In 1999 I was one of the founding members of a dot com - Chaitime.com - that was trying to be the premier South Asian online community. The company raised $25 million, round two, before succumbing to the nuclear winter. Rediff won the race.
  • I was a volunteer with Dean 2004 in Indiana. That got Howard Dean's brother excited when he found out. Of all places, Indiana? My story might have played a small role in Howard Dean's "50 state strategy."
  • I was one of Barack Obama's earliest supporters in New York City and got to know most of the top volunteers in all boroughs. (NYC Video: 10 Hours)
My Recent Work For Nepal: Highlights
  • I was the only Nepali in the Nepali diaspora who worked full time for the democracy movement in Nepal that succeeded in April 2006. There were a lot of part timers who did great work.
  • Madhav Nepal was leading the largest party in the country at the time. In February 2006 he was put under house arrest. A month later his brother living next door managed to get him online the wireless way. The first person he contacted was me. We chatted on Gmail Chat.
  • January-February 2007 saw the Madhesi Movement, which was like the second phase of the April 2006 revolution, only more intense. This was with the goal of achieving equality for the Madhesi: I am a Madhesi. (Larry Ellison) Kind of like our own civil rights movement. Upendra Yadav was its most visible face. In July that year he was brought over to America, to Los Angeles where the Nepalis were having a convention. When he got off the plane, the first person he asked for was me. They took him to his hotel. He again asked, "Where is Paramendra Bhagat?"
  • I had never met Madhav Nepal or Upendra Yadav in person before. And I had talked to each of them on the phone only once. But both of them felt the reach of my intense work. Almost all my work was conducted in the digital realm.
  • Madhav Nepal is Prime Minister today. Upendra Yadav was Foreign Minister for about a year after the April 2008 elections to the constituent assembly.
  • I had a phone conversation with Ram Baran Yadav around February 2005 when he had run away from the country and was in Delhi after the king took over power in a coup. Ram Baran Yadav is president of Nepal today, which is not like being president in America, more like president in India, or queen in England.
What Did I Do?

In short, I moved the ball at all key junctures. And I used digital tools. What balls did I move and when? What tools did I use? How could I repeat the success for Iran? How exactly would I do it?

I will tackle those questions and more in subsequent posts. And I will also explain why I want 20 VCs starting with you to put in 5K each of personal money towards this work, why I am not approaching some other crowd.

The reason you were not able to find much about my Nepal work when you did a search at my blog is because you conducted the search not at my Nepal blog, but at Netizen, my technology and business blog. I have three active blogs. (Democracy For Nepal 1661 posts, Barackface 926 posts, Netizen 690 posts)

And I do understand when you invest in a company you put in the money upfront. You don't dole the money out in monthly investments. But perhaps my language was not precise, and hence the misunderstanding.

My Nepal Blog
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Sunday, February 08, 2009

Web 5.0 Is Da Bomb


Web 3.0 - Wikipedia technical and social possibilities identified in this latter term are yet to be fully realized the nature of defining Web 3.0 is highly speculative. In general it refers to aspects of the Internet which, though potentially possible, are not technically or practically feasible at this time.
Competing For the Web 3.0 Definition
Conceptually Diligent: Web 5.0 Is Repackaging Hello
Web 5.0: Face Time
A Web 3.0 Manifesto
Defining Web 4.0

When I tried to explain to a friend the Web 5.0 concept he said, but that is like repackaging hello.

I said, but Starbucks has been repackaging coffee. But Web 5.0 is more than saying let's get offline, let's get off the phone, let's meet in person, face to face. Web 5.0 is the stuff of revolutions. Web 5.0 is about face time, but it is also about mass group dynamics, it is about tens of millions engaging in concerted street action to pull down dictatorships. It is about grassroots organizing in an established democracy to take over the highest office in the land.



Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and Web 5.0 together could turn China into a federal, multi-party democracy. Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and Web 5.0 will bring forth a total spread of democracy in the Arab world, the only thing that will. Missile strikes will not. You are looking at a scenario where the tech industry will compete with the military-industrial complex. There is a grassroots way, there is a war of communications technology way to spread democracy.
(from some of my previous writings -- since I have made some tall claims)

* In 1999 I was one of the founding members of a dot com company that went on to raise $25 million during its second round before it went down during what in the industry is known as the nuclear winter. I was also team member number two of another dot com that sought to challenge then industry leader AllAdvantage that paid people for watching ads while surfing the web. That company also closed shop once the nuclear winter set in and there was a massive dot com meltdown. The founder Paul went on to Duke.

* The king of my country pulled a coup in February 2005 and took over. The country already had gone through a decade long civil war led by the Maoists in which 13,000 people died in active combat, twice that many committed suicide. The Maoists of Nepal had proven themselves to be the largest, deadliest ultra left group this planet saw since the end of the Cold War. At their peak they had 80% of the country.

In February 2005, three forces in Nepal were at loggerheads: the monarchists, the Maoists, and the democrats. Since February 2005 no Nepali outside of Nepal has put as much time into the democracy movement of Nepal as I have. I was so busy thinking about the 27 million people in Nepal - days, nights, weekends, it was a zombie existence - I literally was not thinking about myself. There would be piles of unopened mail on my floor. The work I have put into Nepal's democracy and social justice movements is going to win me the Nobel Peace Prize. It could happen in 2008, 2009 or 2010 by the latest. If it happens in 2008 or 2009, I will have broken MLK's record.

What happened in Nepal in April 2006, January-February 2007, and February 2008 was magic. If Nepal can become a multi-party democracy of state funded parties and one where at least one third of the legislature is female by law, what happened in Nepal during those three mass movements will have been the French Revolution for this 21st century.

* I am a Madhesi in Nepal. In Rwanda they got Hutu and Tutsi. In Nepal they got Pahadi and Madhesi. Jesus was a Jew. There are 13 million Jewish people on the planet. Buddha was a Madhesi. There are about 13 million Madhesis on the planet. That is how many black folks MLK had when he was doing what he was doing.

More than 40% of the people in Nepal are Madhesi. Of the 30,000 Nepalis in NYC, maybe 30 are Madhesi. That should tell you of the filters in Nepal that work against the Madhesis.

I am half Nepali, half Indian by birth. More than 99% of the Nepalis in America are not my ethnicity. More than 99% of the Indians in America are not my ethnicity. I need to point out the ethnic politics in countries like Nepal and India are way more complicated than the racial politics in countries like America. Barack did not have it tougher growing up.

* Barack knows me, as does Howard Dean. Terry McAuliffe knows me. I have a feeling the Clintons might be aware of my presence. All the top politicians in Nepal know me or of me.

* There is a concrete mathematical theory called the butterfly effect. A butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon forest could be the reason a cyclone hit Bangladesh. What happened in Nepal in April 2006, January-February 2007, and February 2008 were political cyclones. I was the butterfly flapping my wings in New York City.

* In April 2006, over a period of 19 days, about eight million people out of the country's 27 million came out into the streets to shut the country down completely to force a dictator out. The Maoists wanted to take credit but they had been pushing for an armed uprising all along. The seven democratic parties kept pushing for a mass meeting here, a mass meeting there, a daylong shutdown here, and a daylong shutdown there. I am the father of the concept of continuous movement in the Nepalese context. I pushed the concept from the very beginning. If there is a tortoise sitting on the fence, chances are it did not randomly get there.

All the political actors and parties that took credit for April 2006 were fundamentally opposed to the Madhesi movement of January-February 2007 that was a more intense movement than April 2006. February 2008 was the second chapter of the Madhesi movement and the third chapter to the April 2006 revolution itself. I was the one constant to all three.

* When Upendra Yadav, now leader of the largest Madhesi party and fourth largest party overall after the April 10, 2008 elections to the constituent assembly in Nepal, landed in Los Angeles in July 2007 for the annual conference of Nepalis in America, his first words were "Where is Paramendra Bhagat?" They took him to the hotel. He again asked, "Where is Paramendra Bhagat?" They had to fly him over to NYC to meet me.

I was at a Nepali event in Jackson Heights in Queens. Some MPs from Nepal were on stage. I was sitting in the front row. Hundreds were in attendance. In the middle of the program one MP got off stage to come sit one seat from me to get his picture taken with me. Then he got embarrassed and said he was trying to get the crowd into the background of the picture.

In February 2006 Madhav Nepal, then leader of the largest political party in the country, was put under house arrest by the royal regime. A month later he managed to come online wireless. His brother lived in the house next to his. The first person he contacted was me. We chatted on Google Talk. Madhav Nepal is a Pahadi.

* Nobody in the Nepali diaspora put as much time, effort and talent into the democracy movement in Nepal as I did.

* I am the un-Bin Laden. I mean no disrespect to Christianity and Christ and if I use this metaphor it is because it is such a vivid one. Bin Laden is the anti-Christ, I am Christ. If 9/11 has been the modern day Pearl Harbor, the first major revolution of the 21st century happened in Nepal. Between eight years of a Barack-Hillary presidency, a possible Mayor of NYC who will get behind my idea of a new definition for voting rights in this city to engulf everyone who lives inside the city boundaries, and my tech company that will work to get hundreds of millions of new people online, I think you are looking at a total spread of democracy by 2020. The day all Arab countries have been turned into democracies is the day the War On Terror ends. There are two aspects to that war. There is the part about killing mosquitoes. The US military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies working with their counterparts in other countries get to kill mosquitoes: that is not my area of expertise. Someone like me helps drain the swamp. Everybody you need to spread democracy everywhere on earth lives right here in New York City. America needs me, and America needs me to be in New York City.

China is also going to be a multi-party democracy. But likely it will become a multi-party democracy of state funded parties, and the Chinese Communist Party will continue in power for a few more decades. Taiwan and Tibet will be states in a federal China.

My company is the best thing I could do for my country and countries like mine. Not everyone has to come to America like I did. The Internet is what will bridge the gap between the First World and the Third World, between the west and the rest. I could not work on my company in Nepal. I have to be in New York City to grow my company. I am going to list my company on NASDAQ. I am going to turn this into a Silicon City. I am going to be the reason the center of gravity of the tech industry shifts from California to New York.

* Warren Buffett once said he could not be CEO of General Electric. My management and leadership style by now places a heavy emphasis on Web 2.0 and a heavy consumption and production of mind food. The worlds of academia, media, politics and business are seamless. I might have more in common with a theoretical physicist than your stereotypical MBA.

* America is a concept, America is an idea, that concept, that idea is democracy, it is the market mechanism. When was the last time an immigrant into America played a larger role for democracy and social justice in his country of origin and intends to play a similar role for all countries that are not yet democracies? The medium is not the message, but my role would not have been possible before the advent of the Internet. I am a new breed revolutionary intending to wage wars with communications technology. I am a digital democrat. I am the un-Bin Laden. Neither of us seem to need states or standing armies. He is for violence. I am for nonviolent militancy, the kind where you shut a country down completely for three weeks to bring a dictator to his knees.

* Burma did not have a Paramendra Bhagat or Burma too would have succeeded. Tibet did not have a Paramendra Bhagat or Tibet too would have succeeded.

* Revolutionaries like MLK, Barack and me
We create new space
People like Rangel fill up that space
Over decades

I did for Nepal, a country of 27 million
For no money
What Bush has not been able to do for Iraq
A country of 27 million
For a trillion dollars

Nobel Peace Prize 2008: Making A Case For Nepal (2)
Nobel Peace Prize 2008: Making A Case For Nepal
The First Major Revolution Of The 21st Century Happened In Nepal

I moved to NYC in the summer of 2005. I poured a few years into Nepal's democracy and social justice movements. Then I was one of the earliest Obama volunteers in all of NYC: Barackface. From doing those two things to now having become a full time tech entrepreneur is not a career switch.
There is a very concrete mathematical theory called the butterfly effect. My application of it has been cutting edge.

Spread Democracy
Revolution

I am going to compare that Web 5.0 achievement to the search algorithms of the two Google founders.

There are three buckets of paint, the three primary colors.
  • Vision.
  • Group dynamics.
  • Engineering.
The first two are my strengths, engineers you hire.

Mine is a Web 3.0 company. (IC) It has not been a career switch. It has been a slightly different application of the Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web 5.0 interplay and dynamic.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2010 has to go to Nepal. It perhaps will be shared. The three mass movements will see their climax in the new constitution by the summer of 2010. Then the time will be ripe. I intend to lobby hard.

The talk of the center of gravity in the tech industry shifting from California to New York is less about how wonderful I think I am as a person, and more about the Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web 5.0 classification. As the web matures to the higher planes, NYC stands to cash its advantage. People from every little town on earth live here. This city is the Amazon forest of humanity. And that is why it is going to be key to Web 3.0 and Web 5.0. It is about the city, not me. It is just that I want my company to play a role.

My Third World People Don't Get To Vote In This City

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