A single thread, with a hook attached to its end, and a skilled fisherman holding its rod, often results in a few succulent fish on a successful and leisurely day out. But what happens if we combine all those fine threads, crisscrossing them through one another and binding them? Suddenly, we have a tool to catch enough fish to feed a village. The earliest uses of the net go as far back as any of the major civilisations: Rome, Egypt, Greece, China and many other places. Their obvious utility made their use ubiquitous. Such a concept, the welding together of individual components to produce an interconnected device of cornucopian magnitude is the reason the word ‘net’ has lent itself to the word ‘network’.

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It has clearly dawned on us humans that we tend to work better in collectives than we do as individuals. When we allow ourselves to rely on others, we also allow ourselves to become more skilled and specialised in what we do. Most of us cannot build a house, drill for water, or make clothes, and yet these products form daily aspects our existence because we allow others to specialise in those areas so that we can get on specialising in what we do. 

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Aside from its utility to reinforce and strengthen, the concept of interwovenness also connotes effective communication. We network because we want to get in touch with more people, and the greater our network, the greater our access to information. This notion goes back not only thousands of years but millions. Trees are known to expand their roots and weave them through the ground, meeting and interacting with mycelium (fungi) which allow them to transfer nutrients between each other in times of drought or other crises. They can also communicate warnings of sort to warn each other of these things. The obvious value in networking isn’t lost on our green oxygen-providing friends, and nor should it be lost on us.

Even one if one finds themselves to be an ardent individualist, what is the individual mind if not a series of neural networks connecting the mind to the body and producing those strange and miraculous things called thoughts. Neurons fire away through complex circuits in ways reminiscent of a supercomputer. Indeed, it is from such computers that we browse what we refer to as the internet, which translates directly to an interconnected network; individual units of data combining and exchanging ideas within a scope and speed beyond comprehension. The concept of these connections, these networks, seems to be a discovered rule of nature rather than a human invention.

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Italcham has cherished its opportunities to cultivate such connections and grow such networks, as roots through the soil connect individual trees of all kinds, or threads in a net hold the weight of the ocean and its fruits. Of course, this is impossible without the threads themselves, or the trees. One cannot lose sight of the importance of each individual component in our network, but nor can one lose sight of those individuals’ role in a greater tapestry which benefits all. We encourage our members to make full use of what this network has to offer, as it continues to grow.