Digital Democracy

In 2003, I went to Armenia and started working with youth on “blogging” before the term blogging was actually in the lexicon. Back then, access to computers was hard to come by and the internet was crawling along. I was working with a documentary film company, Bars Media, and found that young people were not [...]

“Saddam tried to use the indictment of Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal to show how shameful and perverse the United States is. The message that Iraqis heard was that in America, no one is above the law. Not even the President.” ~Anes (trainee)
I recently returned from a trip to Erbil, Iraq, a city [...]

Liz Hodes represented Digital Democracy today while testifying to the New York City Council Technology Committee on Open Data.
Introduction 029-2010, seeking to establish open data standards for all city agencies. Int. 029-2010 (formerly Intro. 991-2009) aims to increase government transparency and facilitate easier access to public data.
Beyond the ‘good government’ [...]

Violence is closely correlated to elections in the minds of many voters in young democracies. With elections and democracy correlated as well, there’s a dangerous chance that people will draw causation between violence and democracy.
We launched Ethiopia Vote Report with a local partner in Ethiopia knowing that the turnout would be low. The project was [...]

What does real-time mapping with NYC school kids look like? On Saturday, Digital Democracy was invited to work with 120 young people from all 5 boroughs as part of the Department of Education’s “Future Now” program. Having gone through the system myself, I jumped at the chance to help them innovate. While technology access is [...]

On the border of Thailand and Burma/Myanmar, I met Aung Zaw, who told me about risking his life  to document human rights abuses performed by the government of Myanmar. His hope was that this information could help to defend his people. At the end of our talk, he asked if we could become Facebook friends. [...]

Elections are an important part of any democracy, but only when they’re properly executed. When an election happens, how can one be sure that they’re actually free and fair? Is it international monitors that ensure this or local grassroots organizations? The answer is complicated and varies in different places.
That’s why it was so exciting for [...]

What is the connection between media and peacebuilding? This is the question being tackled at the upcoming “Seizing the Moment” summit being put on by the United States Institute of Peace and the Independent Television Service, in collaboration with Sesame Workshop. I’m proud to announce that Digital Democracy is an online partner for this [...]

For the amazing work that has been done by the Ushahidi volunteers at SIPA, Tufts and elsewhere, our advisory board member Patrick Meier received an award this past weekend from Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global University Initiative. Well done Patrick!
Humble as he is, he dedicated the Clinton prize to all Ushahidi volunteers. Congrats again [...]

On January 12th, a devastating earthquake shook Haiti. We had a team of people on the ground working with young Haitians. Thankfully they all survived, but what was life like before and what can it be like after? Today we’re proudly publishing our report from the research they were conducting, looking at the economic livelihoods of  young [...]