The prediction, in brief:

Networking will enable citizens and their local businesses to create and pursue entrepreneurial opportunities through global niche markets. The Internet will accelerate the evolution of an electronically-connected global economy … Global niche markets will become accessible even to individual entrepreneurs. Small manufacturers will have the option to contract with other manufacturers and to co-market products with unprecedented flexibility. The emerging telepreneurial potential is limitless.

Predictor: Odasz, Frank

Prediction, in context:

The 1995 book “Public Access to the Internet,” edited by Brian Kahin and James Keller carries the chapter, “Issues in the Development of Community Cooperative Networks” by Frank Odasz, the director of Big Sky Telegraph, Western Montana College of the University of Montana. He writes:”Networking will enable citizens and their local businesses to create and pursue entrepreneurial opportunities through global niche markets. The Internet will accelerate the evolution of an electronically-connected global economy … Global niche markets will become accessible even to individual entrepreneurs. Small manufacturers will have the option to contract with other manufacturers and to co-market products with unprecedented flexibility. The emerging telepreneurial potential is limitless.”

Biography:

Frank Odasz was an assistant professor of computing education at the University of Colorado and the director of Big Sky Telegraph, a popular community network of the time. He was widely known as a speaker on community networking and educational technologies. (Technology Developer/Administrator.)

Date of prediction: January 1, 1995

Topic of prediction: Economic structures

Subtopic: General

Name of publication: Public Access to the Internet (book)

Title, headline, chapter name: Issues in the Development of Community Cooperative Networks

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 117, 118

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne