WELCOME

The Arctic Perspective Initiative (API) is a non-profit, international group of individuals and organizations whose goal is to promote the creation of open authoring, communications and dissemination infrastructures for the circumpolar region. We aim to empower the North and Arctic people through open source technologies and applied education and training. By creating access to these technologies while promoting an open, shared network of communications and data, without a costly overhead, we can allow for further sustainable and continued development of culture, traditional knowledge, science, technology and education opportunities for peoples in the North and Arctic regions.

Open Design Competition Winners Selected

Three architects – Richard Carbonnier (Canada), Giuseppe Mecca (Italy), and Catherine Rannou (France) – have been selected as joint winners of the Arctic Perspective Initiative open architecture competition. The challenge of this international competition, announced in early 2009, was to design a mobile media-based work and habitation unit, capable of functioning in extreme cold as well as in temperate climates, and incorporating the use of renewable energy, water and waste recycling sytems.

From geopolitics to climate change, the global community is increasingly focused on the circumpolar regions.  This was evident in that API received a staggering 103 architectural and engineering submissions from 30 different countries and territories, proving that the earth’s polar regions and communities lie at the heart of a critical global junction.  With progressively more access to these regions - and consequently more interest by domestic and foreign governments and corporations in their natural and economic resources - API is committed to the empowerment and sustainable development of Northern communities through the collaboration and combination of science, arts, engineering and culture.  Out of the 103 submissions, the jury is proud to award three prizes each worth 1.500 € to:
 
Richard Carbonnier, Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet - Nunavut, Canada)
Giuseppe Mecca, Florence (Italy), and 
Catherine Rannou, Plouezoc‘h (France)
 
For Complete Details on the winning projects and the Jury process, please see here.

2009 FOXE BASIN TRADITIONAL SITES REVISITED

The Arctic Perspective Initiative Nunavut crew consisisting of Matthew Biederman, Marko Peljhan and Nejc Trost has returned from a 21 day working session in Iglulik, Foxe Basin and Baffin Island. API was invited to work in the area by Paul Quassa and took part in the Igloolik Isuma Productions organised visit of traditional Inuit sites with elders from the area, who used to live there. Together with our guide Ikkiraapik Harry Ituqsarjuat, we have landed and worked on several islands and peninsulae in the Foxe Basin and Baffin Island, and stopped for longer periods on Qaggiagvik Island, Maniqtuuk Island, Ikpik river mouth area and Ilutulaaq Kangiqllu.  We have spent long periods of time talking and learning from the elders about the life on the land in the past and potential futures, we tested environmental monitoring capabilities for "citizen" sensing solutions in Nunavut, long distance data and voice communication systems and  in collaboration with C-Astral Ltd. conducted unmanned aerial surveying of the Ikpik bay area and Iglulik.Read more

FOXE BASIN 2009 EXPEDITION IN PROCESS

Time: 01:41:32 UTC
Date: August 9, 2009
Current Location: Manirqtuu Qikiqtaq (Koch Island)
Coordinates: 69.74026, -78.39437
Local Environment: 7.31C, 99.12%rH
Teams: API, ISUMA, Igloolik Elders, C-ASTRAL

Detailed Expedition log to follow upon our return.

2030 North Conference VideoStreams

API was at the 2030 North conference in Ottawa, Canada from June 1st, 2009 to June 4th, 2009.  We've posted all the streams on our site for your convenience. 

The conference was co-hosted by the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee (CARC), Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) and the University of Calgary's Centre for Military and Strategic Studies (CMSS) Read more

OPEN DESIGN CALL NOW CLOSED

Please note that the open design CFP for the MOBILE MEDIA-CENTRIC HABITATION AND WORK UNIT competition is now closed. We received 103 submissions from 30 different countries out of which 33 applied as teams and 70 of them as single applicants.

The greater number was male (75), but also some female teams, single female applicants (13) or mixed teams (12) contributed their ideas.


In detail these are (name country and number of submissions):
Belarus 1, Canada 7, Caracas 1, Chile 2, China 1, Denmark 1, France 5, Georgia 1, Germany 18, Great Britain 7, Greece 1, Hong Kong 3, Hungary 1, India 6, Indonesia 1, Italy 4, Japan 2, Kuwait 1, Mexico 1, Netherlands 2, Pakistan 1, Poland  1, Romania 1, Russia 5, Slovenia 3, Spain 4, Turkey 1, Ukraine 1, USA 19, Yakutia 1

The jury will convene in Reykjavik, Iceland between September 15-18, and shortly after we will publish the results here.

First Germination

We're getting the first sprouts from the Montreal Hydroponic Test Unit (MTLHTU).  About 48hrs after seeding, the rapini and the swiss chard seeds are starting to pop.

We'll be making the full set of hydroponic data aviable here shortly.

CDPDU at ICC Tokyo and Futur en Seine

CDPDU at the ICC Tokyo

The first two COMMON DATA PROCESSING and DISPLAY UNITs (CDPDU) will be on display simultaneously in Paris and Tokyo.  The Common Data Processing and Display Unit (CDPDU) is a data display and processing architecture built to open hardware and software standards. The CDPDU will serve as one of the public faces of the Arctic Perspective Initiative project throughout its duration. The first prototypes of the data collection units are installed in Montreal, Quebec, Santa Barbara, California, Ljubljana, Slovenia and Igloolik, Nunavut. These collection units are all sending their data in real-time to the CDPDU in order to be processed and displayed for the public.

 Read more

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