My experience is with problem-driven education and project execution in the area of industrial engineering and management science, usually involving Information Systems.

Information system tooling and e-learning/portfolio/coaching services could be valuable for the further dissemination, deployment and refinement of the KPA framework. Here follow some insights.

Asset dependencies (with spiraling-down drains, to be overcome by spiraling-up gains, as explained in the KPA handbook) are nested as depicted in:
http://is.tm.tue.nl/staff/jgoossenaerts/repository_structure.htm#H6

The “community” asset-maps (and problem/vulnerability registers) can be constructed in so-called “repository cells” (e.g. for a community, for a farm, for a telekiosk,… (making use of a community wiki));
social comparison (of “performance, vulnerabilities” among peers (community to community, farm to farm, with comparable characteristics) would then feed “problematization” and determine project priorities (community benchmarking).

Each community-selected project “walks through” a regulative cycle (see: 
http://is.tm.tue.nl/staff/jgoossenaerts/methodological_reference.htm#H1a

For a given “problem mess”, interventions could be designed (in case no proven practice is known within the peer-community), and (new or prior-designed) practices could be followed up for their effectiveness in communities with given asset and vulnerability characteristics (evidence reporting, evidence-based practice).

The distinct, complementary roles of consolidated asset/vulnerability maps (worksystem repository), and project charters is depicted as follows (primarily for change professionals)
http://is.tm.tue.nl/staff/jgoossenaerts/repository_structure.htm#H1

(note that these graphs could serve as “blueprints” for KPA-based service definition and implementation, they are not intended to be used by end-users whose views would typically be depending on their roles in communities - eg., teacher, public servant, NGO health worker, etc.)

Above cited documentation has been developed while coaching students doing projects during internships in multiple organisations; these students had received specific problem-solving and project training (in addition to having gone through a management science curriculum).

Specifying, refining and implementing tools and services for poverty alleviation is no-doubt challenging, but if this could somehow serve improved leveraging of community wealth in the fight against poverty, then we must not linger.

I appreciate these efforts to create models that capitalize on the wealth of indigenous systems and processes. Every effort should indeed be dispensed to facilitate the birthing of a new consciousness that enables communities to recognize their inherent richness and take full advantage of their built-in resiliency mechanisms.

A challenge however is how to bring this catalyst to the numberless “poor communities” in the world that they may benefit from this paradigmatic change in self-appreciation. My experience in Central Africa in facilitating community-empowering processes in more than 150 villages is that the majority of people are receptive to ideas and interventions that enable them to develop their communities by maximizing the use of local resources. Over time however, and with the breadth of external threats to community resiliency (including wars and conflicts, general economic instability and political problems), sustainability becomes the major challenge. This being a key issue addressed by the KPA approach, I see much hope for communities ahead…

Thank you Jan for your comments and insights providing connections to and parallelisms with problem-based Information Systems. These are quite useful in the next steps of KPA, particularly in providing the context and systems perspective in the project cycle. These are helpful in identifying relationships between project processes, as well as factors that might affect performance.

Perhaps the next step is to ask a series of practical questions: What frame of mind is necessary for projects to be done the KPA way? What tools, checklists, templates are needed in KPA projects? Who are the critical players to be considered? What is the role of external parties (such as you and me) in KPA-based projects of communities? There are just so many questions that need to be answered.

Maybe we can really start off the refinement process by asking the right questions, gathering these and organizing them in a structured way. Questions are welcome! Then the answers will be easier to find.

Thank you Jasmin for articulating these questions.

Regarding assets (as a community factor), it could be interesting to cross-check the KPA asset maps (one tool/checklist) with a comprehensive framework for describing the value of ecosystem functions, services and goods (as provided in the paper linked here:
http://www.citeulike.org/user/jago/article/1019882 )
Moreover, several vulnerabilities are linked to these ecosystem functions as well. Following validation, “a community wiki template” should minimally include an assessment of a neighbourhood for all its ecosystem functions, services and goods.

(Contributed in a role of a coach or “knowledge gate-keeper”: considering the know-do gap, the plentiful knowledge in the papers, the pressing problems in the communities,… bring to “doers” the RARE knowledge chunks that could inform their decisions.)

.. A (first) step forward: a course on KPA development/delivery hosted by an open source learning platform.

In case of sufficient interest, I commit to contribute to the course development. In this case, there is allowance for up to 150 students, worldwide, at no financial cost; for up to 5 courses).

IF this first step (with instructional input from KPA community, myself, and others ...) succeeds,
THEN the SECOND step could be the creation of a “Global Open Access KPA Academy” via the same provider, with a more scaleable solution, and i hope, course development/delivery in additional languages, targetting specific kinds of communities (e.g., forest, rural, urban, seashore, ...);
Cost figures for this second phase are at:  http://www.moodlerooms.com/academic-hosting.html

Content-wise, the basis would be the KPA handbook, and papers/books referenced at group KPA resources: http://www.citeulike.org/group/5647/library , adding training-method experience from the instructor (volunteers at first, with in second step, hopefully, and over time, adding suitable performance/result-based remuneration).

Academy-wise, (some of) the pattern to pursue has been realized by, for example http://www.interop-vlab.eu/ ; i have had some role
in the process leading to this “virtual lab”; see D4.1 at
http://interop-vlab.eu/ei_public_deliverables/interop-noe-deliverables/tfvlab-task-force-creation-and-implementation/
and i will be glad to contribute experience, knowledge, time (and limited seed-funding if required) to these proposed steps.

ACTION: If YOU are INTERESTED TO JOIN AS A STUDENT (or INSTRUCTOR), pls. introduce yourself, and explain your motivation! pls. also register at citeulike:  http://www.citeulike.org/ , and become member of the group KPA resources; pls. provide profile details there.

PS. in the introduction of INTEROP VLab, pls. replace industry and enterprise by community and household)

Declaration of interests: I have no interests in moodle, interop-vlab, and citeulike; above proposals are made in my personal capacity and not
on behalf of Eindhoven University of Technology

Thanks Jan for your suggestion. A course on KPA would certainly be very helpful in disseminating the framework and in carrying out our advocacy to eliminate poverty through the use of intangible assets.

There is a good number of empirical papers that can be used as part of the content. But we will have to have a wider application of KPA, preferably on a program basis, to gather more evidence to continue the refinement of the framework. We are working on this now. (Of course, this can also be done while the course is ongoing.) The ideal is to have programs that consider all aspects of KPA, from the provision of access to basic services, to the livelihood component, and to the macro-level components that may be beyond the control of the community but need to be examined as part of the Knowledge-Based Development framework.

If there are projects or programs that we can design and implement using KPA, do get in touch with us. We’d be very glad to provide assistance.