Michel Bauwens

Michel Bauwens (born 21 March 1958) started his career as information analyst and reference librarian for the United States Information Agency (1983-2000), worked as information manager for British Petroleum (1990-1993) (where he created one of the first virtual information centers and is credited for coining the concept of cybrarian), and is former editor-in-chief of the first European digital convergence magazine, the Dutch language Wave. He created two internet start-ups, the intranet/extranet company E-Com (sold to Alcatel) and the interactive marketing company Kyberco (sold to Tagora holding). He was European Mgr. of Thought Leadership for MarchFIRST, and ebusiness strategy director for Belgacom, Belgium’s leading telco (1999-2002).

With Frank Theys, Bauwens is the co-creator of a 3 hour documentary TechnoCalyps, an examination of the ‘metaphysics of technology’. He taught and edited two anthologies on the Anthropology of Digital Society, together with Salvino Salvaggio. 

Bauwens is the founder of the Foundation for Peer to Peer Alternatives, which researchers peer production/governance/property and the open/free, participatory, and commons-oriented modes of human cooperation. He is the author of a number of on-line essays, including a seminal thesis Peer to Peer and Human Evolution and The Political Economy of Peer Production (CTheory). For the P2P Foundation, he functioned as community manager responsible of an ecology of collaboration consisting of: A wiki which reached 7,000 pages which were viewed 6 million times; a blog with a Google PR rank of 7 and 2,000 readers per day; a Ning community forum with daily activity by 300+ members; and several mailing lists.

He has taught courses on the anthropology of digital society to postgraduate students at ICHEC/St. Louis in Brussels, Belgium and now lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he has taught related courses at Payap University and Chiang Mai University. He is a Research Fellow with the Primavera project at the University of Amsterdam and outside expert with the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (2008). He is member of advisory boards such as the Union of International Associations, Shareable magazine, and The Hub. He is assisting Richard David Hames with the development of the Asian Foresight Institute.

Michel is a member of Kosmos Associates’ Advisory Board and was published in the Spring | Summer 2008 & Spring | Summer 2011 issues of Kosmos Journal.