Digital Democracy

We have been working on Handheld Human Rights, a mobile component of the Virtual Community Center. We just entered it in UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge being presented by Netsquared. The mission of this challenge is to encourage innovations for applying mobile technologies for human rights investigations and advocacy. Handheld Human Rights provides [...]

Last week Mark traveled to Washington DC to attend Drupalcon, an unconference for Drupal users and developers. Drupal is an open-source content management platform, with which we’re considering building the VCC. The users that attended this event had the opportunity to learn how to use the platform from the people that are creating the code, [...]

This past Saturday, Mark and I attended the Mobile Tech 4 Social Change Barcamp in New York City hosted by MobileActive.org at Hunter College’s Integrated Media Arts Program. A barcamp, also known as an unconference, follows a more informal model from standard conferences: it’s designed to promote conversation and collaboration that may otherwise occur among [...]

Mark and Emily spent this week in Boston where they met with several people at MIT’s Center for Future Civic Media. In addition, they were the guest lecturers at Digital Democracy, an undergraduate course taught by Patrick Meier at Tufts University. Before the class, the students were encouraged to post responses to assigned readings (including [...]

This past week completed a long month of proposal-writing for us. When we’re writing, it’s hard not to get wrapped up in a single proposal, or the smaller themes that run throughout each one. After we’ve completed one, we like to get an overview of our work, to see what is and isn’t being emphasized [...]

Recent news reports have been detailing attempts by Rohingya refugees to enter Thailand after fleeing Bangladesh and Burma, and the horrific treatment that has ensued. Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic group originally from Rakhine State in Burma. Considered stateless because Burma denied them citizenship, and due to increased violence against the group, Rohingya were forced [...]

Welcome to our new site! We’ve made a lot of improvements in layout and design, and added some images that give you a more visual idea of what we’re all about. It’s easier to search archives of past entries on the right side of this page, and on the top of this page you can [...]

Our co-directors spent this past week in Washington D.C., witnessing history and looking to the future as responsible citizens. D2 presented our research on technology in closed societies and had several exciting meetings with groups doing incredible work, some of whom might turn out to be great partners. Inspired by the quick call to action [...]

In December we applied for a 2009 Echoing Green fellowship. Recipients of this fellowship receive seed funding and technical support, as well as support from a large network of organizations and individuals. We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve made it to the Semifinals!

As 2008 came to a close we were able to take a look back at the highlights from the past year, the places we’ve been, the people we’ve met, and the many milestones we’ve been able to reach as Digital Democracy has continued to develop. Our travel took us around the world, starting the year [...]