A Trip to the Mountains

Not a new site to Second Life but, nevertheless, probably one you've never heard of is UNCEM.


UNCEM - the Italian National Union of Mountain Municipalities, Communities and Authorities - is a national organisation which groups together and represents those Italian communities that are entirely or partially mountainous - some 356 in total. It also includes some administrations and authorities (provinces, consortia, chambers of commerce) that operate in mountain districts. Altogether, it covers 54% the entire area of Italy (10 million people). Apologies for the awkward English - but I was translating from the translation.

UNCEM aims to contribute to the promotion of the development of mountain districts from a social, economic, civic, territorial and environmental point of view. Hence the establishment in Second Life of a UNCEM island, attached to 4 mountainous sims. Their Second Life campus offers teaching facilities, libraries, social networking spaces and fun stuff too. There are many links to local municipality websites where a visitor can find out more.

It seems to have been around for some time. I found references to Second Life and UNCEM from a conference held in Rome in Feb, 2005. However, there seems to have been virtually no further official announcements about it since around March of 2005.

The islands exist, so someone is paying for the upkeep and, indeed, development. However, there seems little effort going in to promoting the site. A point made by a an Italian blog reader recently, responding to a blog entry about the SL Swedish Embasssy.

I could find only one recent reference to the site: "BarCamp RomeCamp", held in Janary, 2007 - where UNCEM provided SL facilities for virtual attendees. For info: "A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants." Sounds ideal for SL then.