Contact Information
silvia@got.net
831 426-0690
Santa Cruz CA
U.S.A.
My name is Silvia Austerlic and I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1965. I studied graphic design at the University of Buenos Aires, where I was a teacher of art history from 1990 to 1997. In 1995 I began an independent research, from a design perspective, on the cultural impacts of the information revolution in developing countries. I have coined the term info-design as an umbrella concept, which main concern is to tap into the collaborative potential of the Information and Communication Technology to give voice to new actors (women, children, grassroot communities, indigenous people) in ways that both protect human nature and transform their cultural identity. In 1997 I helped set up the Virtual University of Latin America www.kanslis.lu.se/latinam/uvla/mani.htm and participated in the first Global Learn Day www.bfranklin.edu/gld1/argentina.html.
In 1998 I left my hometown Buenos Aires and came to the U.S.A. I have been living in Santa Cruz since 1999, where I study web design and digital media at Cabrillo College www.cabrillo.edu. My future plans are to continue my design work/education, focusing on developing new virtual ways of thinking, communicating, and using the collaborative potential of the new digital tools. My info-design purpose is to help create local and global communities as a context for giving voice to new actors; and to support process of personal growth and social change, so that we can relearn to see the world anew, both the "real world" and cyberspace.
You are welcome to read more of my design thinking at the Seminario Latinoamericano de Filosofia e Historia de las Ideas www.kanslis.lu.se/latinam/virtual/virtu10.htm; visit my website Relearning to Think, Communicate, and Collaborate in the Age of Internet got.net/~silvia/ and or contact me about Design Voices, A Newsletter for Educators of the 21st. Century.