Smári McCarthy is an Icelandic/Irish innovator and activist. He is a co-founder and board member of the Icelandic Digital Freedoms Society (FSFÍ) and a participant in the Global Swadeshi movement. He was the spokesperson and one of the organizers of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative

Icelandic Modern Media Initiative

The International Modern Media Institute is an international institution developing havens for freedom of information, speech, and expression. It creates supportive and attractive jurisdiction for the publication of investigative journalism and other threatened online media...

. He has spoken at Oekonux

Oekonux

The originally German Oekonux project was founded to research the possibilities of free software to fundamentally change the current political and economic structures....

 and has been keynote speaker at FSCONS

FSCONS

FSCONS is a Nordic conference trying to bridge the gap between software and cultural freedom held each autumn in Gothenburg, Sweden...

.

He proposed the Shadow Parliament Project, a project intending to "crowdsource democracy". The project launched Skuggaþing (Icelandic for "shadow parliament") in early 2010.

He has written on technology, anarchism

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

, and Icelandic culture at Yaxic.org and Anarchism.is. He is also an active member of the digital fabrication movement, having operated a fab lab

Fab Lab

Fab Lab is a British television programme designed for pre-school children. It is currently aired on the CBeebies channel. It is an introduction to science, nature and technology for young children....

 in Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland, and worked with Fab Labs elsewhere, including Jalalabad

Jalalabad

Jalalabad , formerly called Adinapour, as documented by the 7th century Hsüan-tsang, is a city in eastern Afghanistan. Located at the junction of the Kabul River and Kunar River near the Laghman valley, Jalalabad is the capital of Nangarhar province. It is linked by approximately of highway with...

, Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

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