Digital Democracy

I’m in Port-au-Prince, Haiti for the next week to follow-up on the great trip Abby Goldberg and I took this spring. I began my trip distributing cameras for the Life In A Day project – the first user-generated feature film. I’ve also been distributing photos from our workshop in April and I ferried some films [...]

This summer we’ve had two new faces around the office and we couldn’t be more pleased. Arielle & Ellen have been helping with communications and our Haiti work, and as the city – and our schedule – has continued to heat up, it’s been a huge help to have them around the office. We’ve also [...]

Project Einstein started as photo training with a group of youth in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, so named by one of the participants because “Einstein was a refugee but could still do great things.”
We’ve since expanded the project, working with youth in Pretoria, South Africa, a Burmese refugee camp in Thailand, and the town [...]

Abby and I just returned from an inspiring and full week in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We couldn’t have done it without your support, and we’re thrilled to announce that, thanks to a donation we received this week, we have met our fundraising goal of $7,500 for the trip! Thanks to all the donations, we were able [...]

Tomorrow morning Abby and I travel to Port-au-Prince to focus on the needs of Haitian women. On our trip we have two objectives, and we need your help to meet them.

Investigating how technology can be leveraged to protect women and girls from gender-based violence.
Conducting media trainings with women and leaving them with equipment to [...]

In Haiti, a second humanitarian crisis is unfolding: Haiti’s women are under siege from increasing insecurity, which has grown steadily since the earthquake devastated the country in January. Facing violence and rape, Haiti’s women operate within discriminatory legal structures which prevent them from accessing aid and taking an active role in their country’s redevelopment process.

This [...]

We just wrote about the power of the volunteers who have worked on Haiti. However volunteers are not only useful in times of crises. Digital Democracy’s core team is small, and we accomplish our work through partnerships and collaborations. Our volunteers and interns play a crucial role, and today we want to highlight the work [...]

The power of new technologies has made a lot of headlines recently, but behind these new tools is a deeper story – the power of the people who wield them. When it comes to open-source and particularly crowd-sourcing tools, those people are so often volunteers, and they are the true heroes [...]

Digital Democracy is delighted to announce that we have been awarded a grant from the Clowes Fund of Indianapolis, Indiana. The grant will support the launch of Project Einstein Indianapolis, a digital penpal program that teaches 21st century skills while facilitating cross-cultural dialogue. Project Einstein will connect young Burmese refugees and their classmates in Indianapolis [...]

Today we’re honored to have a guest blog post by Digital Democracy Advisory Board member Sean McDonald, taking a look at the US State Department’s focus on Internet Freedom. Sean, Director of New Media Business Development at MetroStar Systems, brings a background in journalism, law and peace & conflict resolution.
The Unfortunate Simplicity of Freedom
By Sean [...]