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	<title>Digital Democracy &#187; Mark Belinsky</title>
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	<link>http://digital-democracy.org</link>
	<description>Educating 21st Century Citizens</description>
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		<title>Iraq Tech Training</title>
		<link>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/07/27/iraq-tech-training/</link>
		<comments>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/07/27/iraq-tech-training/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:32:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Belinsky</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iraq]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digidem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[erbil]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[foss]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ICT4D]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[irex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kurdistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[open source]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[smallworldnews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[training]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digital-democracy.org/?p=1968</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;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.&#8221; ~Anes (trainee)
I recently returned from a trip to Erbil, Iraq, a city [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote><p>&#8220;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.&#8221; ~Anes (trainee)</p></blockquote>
<p>I recently returned from a trip to Erbil, Iraq, a city in the north stationed in semi-autonomous Kurdistan. I was invited by <a href="http://smallworldnews.tv/" target="_blank">Small World News</a> to join them as technical trainer in a project they were performing for <a href="http://www.irex.org/" target="_blank">IREX</a> on new media and technology.  My own question was whether these tools actually matter in a war zone.</p>
<p>Erbil currently exists as an anomaly in an otherwise dangerous country. I saw no major military presence, no hummers, and even found myself bowling one night. However, the trainees had driven by car from other parts of the country not nearly as quiet like Basra, Kirkuk and Baghdad. Reminders of the war mainly took the form of rolling electrical blackouts and foreign investors from China. All said, not much different from a developing world context.</p>
<p>I was paired with <a href="http://twitter.com/louis_abelman" target="_blank">Louis Abelman</a>, a web producer at <a href="http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/author/louis-abelman/" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>. Between his knowing how to innovate within an old hierarchical structure and my technical skills within a closed society developing context, we made for a good pair. He also made a beautiful film, <a href="http://www.gomafilmproject.org/" target="_blank">Lumo</a>, on rape as a tool of war in Congo.</p>
<p>Quickly we ran into problems unique to the country. For instance, there are three mobile providers with minimal interoperability. Having several SIM cards and or phones is common. Until a few months ago, Kurdistan was actually a long-distance call from the rest of Iraq, given it&#8217;s autonomous standing. A picture of the power lines (below) should give a sense that power is generally unreliable as well, failing often with rolling blackouts. Generators are rare and fuel surprisingly expensive.</p>
<p>Problems with the mobile provider proved to be a good lesson for our training on <a href="http://www.frontlinesms.com/" target="_blank">FrontlineSMS</a>. After installing the system and showing it&#8217;s Arabic version, the demonstration failed when messages couldn&#8217;t be sent or received. After some head scratching, one of the participants realized that SIM cards get canceled after w certain amount of time, and replaced the SIM in the USB modem with the one in his own phone. Problem solved. The whole group jumped to celebrate an Arabic SMS sent through gateway also translated in Arabic. For me as a trainer, I&#8217;m going to purposely make sure the SIM is expired or doesn&#8217;t have money to encourage the solution coming from the trainees.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 510px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaldemocracy/4832159628/"><img title="Iraq Tech Training" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4124/4832159628_69c14465c0.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">#IraqTech Training</p></div>
<p>Our <a href="http://ushahidi.com/" target="_blank">Ushahidi</a> training was similarly greeted with intrigue. The simple complexity of a text to map interface captured their imaginations. We first taught the, about <a href="https://github.com/" target="_blank">GitHub</a> and social coding. I&#8217;m a big fan of using this to explain transparency and accountability through code. And it puts the power into the users hand where they can fix problems rather than waiting for the company to release an update. Installing it as a  web app offline using <a href="http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html" target="_blank">XAMPP</a> demoed this further.  While fairly complicated, everyone got it to work, some after tweaking the MySql database a few times, others after going into the PHP and adjusting a time zone error. While the group was technical, some even with programming experience, none had a good PHP editor. <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/syn/" target="_blank">Syn</a> was a good and quick FOSS solution. And of course <a href="http://filezilla-project.org/" target="_blank">FileZilla</a> as a free FTP application.</p>
<p>A game to create the best looking and most interesting crisis map held over one half of the group while the others hacked the code to get it to work. After demoing Small World News projects like <a href="http://aliveinafghanistan.org/" target="_blank">Alive in Afghanistan</a> and Digital Democracy ones like <a href="http://handheldhumanrights.org/" target="_blank">Handheld Human Rights</a> and <a href="http://handheldhumanrights.org/nyc" target="_blank">Future Now</a>. What they came back with was pretty astounding, from documenting instances of stolen oil and mapping media centers throughout the country, to loading layers showing green zone borders and tracking instances of violence.</p>
<p>An added benefit to installing a web app like Ushahidi means a small learning curve to learning other web app installs like Wordpress and <a href="http://drupal.org/" target="_blank">Drupal</a>. To go over the details of blogging, we initially set up <a href="http://techiraq.wordpress.com" target="_blank">techiraq.wordpress.com</a> after talking about the benefited and detractors to some of the other blogging tools. A wide consensus kept coming back to the issue of localization being crucial to adoption. While many trainees were of Kurdish descent, I was surprised that there wasn&#8217;t more knowledge of the system since word press actually exists in Kurdish (though they don&#8217;t speak the Sorany dialect).</p>
<p>My favorite thing about installing web apps in Iraq was shouting LAMP stack! Explaining the Linux &#8211; Apache &#8211; MySql &#8211; PHP stack that makes up so much of the web these days was particularly fun in the land of  <em>The Book of One Thousand and One Nights</em> because I could keep referencing Aladdin&#8217;s magic LAMP. Mnemonic devices are different depending on context and this one certainly makes me smile.</p>
<p><a href="http://freedomfone.org/" target="_blank">Freedom Fone</a> is an interactive audio programming system that allows for info dissemination beyond the barrier that some groups face: illiteracy. Unfortunately we ran into an additional barrier that prevented us from demoing a full-on install: Windows 7. How does one get to the root or boot from an external drive? I still have no idea.</p>
<p>I can&#8217;t stress the importance of having an integrated approach to trainings and explaining the various aspects of these tools, such as security. Handing over these systems without going into protection from the dangers in addition to leveraging the opportunities is irresponsible. We were able to cover the basics of security and anonymity, explaining how internet systems are structured and how to use the knowledge of that system to get to content that matters or hide oneself from being targeted. I was surprised that most had not used Proxies nor VPNs and did not even have a sense of SSL encryption. Their IPs are hopefully a little safer, and those with android phones feel a bit safer knowing about the <a href="http://guardianproject.info/" target="_blank">Guardian Project</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;But there is no censorship.&#8221;<br />
&#8220;We don&#8217;t have security issues.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Two popular refrains that are unfortunately more lip service than reality. After a bit of prodding, people started to talk about a famous case from the previous year of a Kurdish blogger, Sardasht Osman, who <a href="http://www.iwpr.net/report-news/concern-over-kurdish-journalists-unsolved-killing" target="_blank">was killed for speaking out</a>. Despite writing under the pseudonym Sardo Zardasht, this didn&#8217;t protect him. His <a href="http://kurdistanpost.info/kurdistanpost-english/May2010/10_5_10_I%20heard%20the%20first%20ring%20of%20death.htm" target="_blank">final words</a> are a haunting testament to the process of democratization, a place where one can be <a href="http://www.mideastyouth.com/2010/05/16/die-for-your-words-a-farewell-to-sardasht-osman/" target="_blank">killed over a poem</a>.  In a transitioning society it is always important to remind people that a relative lack of problems doesn&#8217;t mean that they don&#8217;t exist. When describing our work in other closed societies and the reasons why open source is important for security, there were many nods of understanding throughout the group.</p>
<p>Low bandwidth is another issue like security that is rarely addressed in contexts where they&#8217;re most important. While lecturing and walking around the classroom, I noticed people looking at CNN, YouTube, Al Jazeera. 15 people feeding off one WiFi node in a hotel with one connection. And the IP of that connect was listed in Somalia at that. Needless to say it was crawling. The USB modems that were handed out didn&#8217;t help either. Introducing RSS feeds, readers &amp; podcasts are key. Download in the background, overnight when Internet is fastest, and without ads. Plus, RSS can be useful for other sites, such as Ushahidi.</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://twitter.com/digidem" target="_blank">Twitter</a> for techies overview included signing everyone up mostly to explain API architecture, how desktop apps function, and interoperability with other systems. One of the nice things about Ushahidi is that it takes and spits out info through the system. But what about a plant with a USB stick in the soil that is connected to Twitter and let&#8217;s you know that it needs to be watered. I said this referencing a conversation with <a href="http://www.ascentstage.com/" target="_blank">John Tolva</a> from IBM who noted in a recent talk that by 2012 we&#8217;ll have more censors online than humans. At mention of this, a collective hush fell over the crowd. Something I look for in trainings as a sign that I&#8217;m doing something right. How else can it be used? Synapses started firing. We started the hash tag <a href="http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23iraqtech" target="_blank">#iraqtech</a> to keep the conversation going</p>
<p>One of the participants, Saad, brought up an interesting challenge.  He has website that has no domain name, just IP address. The reason being a mafia-type system whereby since most Iraqis don&#8217;t have access to credit cards, they need to go through go-between who can order an international domain. One of the problems is extra charges but another quickly becomes security and efficiency. Want to create an independent citizen election monitoring site? Good luck explaining that one to a local man running a business. And Iraqi domains (.IQ) are currently tangled in a big web of state controlled bureaucracy (yes I will be buying MyBelinsky.IQ for a hilarious new startup once it changes. Think Myers-Briggs meets tongue-in-cheek).</p>
<p>To demo the social power of Twitter, I sent a message about the domain problem on my own Twitter account:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://twitter.com/mbelinsky/status/18908104731" target="_blank">@mbelinsky: Hosting sites in Iraq: pay a local in cash to use their credit card for Swedish host. Profit by then holding it hostage #iraqtech</a></p></blockquote>
<p>The response I received was from a friend doing <a href="http://mapkibera.org/" target="_blank">MapKibera</a> in Kenya:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://twitter.com/mikel/status/18908393211" target="_blank">@mikel: @mbelinsky same  ridiculous problem here in Kenya. we&#8217;re waiting for mpesa integration  for domain registration</a></p></blockquote>
<p>The fact that a potential answer to an obstacle came almost instantly from halfway around the world was a powerful (and unplanned) testament to the new ways that the world works. Overall, the #iraqtech conversation that I started was joined by people in Netherlands, Morocco, USA, Egypt, and Italy, and followed by many others.</p>
<p>A key part of our training of trainers program was to push a Do It Yourself (DIY) model. Introducing &#8220;<a href="http://ar.lmgtfy.com/" target="_blank">Let Me Google That For You</a>&#8221; (Arabic version) was a fun way of taking tech support people and showing them that they can be so much more by applying their technical skills to more than just doing search queries for the people in their company. We disseminated some coding cheat sheets to better acquaint them with HTLM &amp; PHP and introduced <a href="http://W3schools.com/" target="_blank">http://W3schools.com/</a> for easy web tutorials that the group can use to test themselves.</p>
<p>Overall it was a fantastic start and I&#8217;m excited to see what these initial seeds will sprout into. With elections coming in October and the US military (eventually) pulling out, I&#8217;m hoping that tech can be one of the factors that leads to increased stability, sustainability and peace for the people of Iraq.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 510px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevieflamingo/4830190440/in/set-72157624583217186/"><img title="Powerlines in Kurdistan" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4095/4830190440_ac6c975008.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Powerlines in Kurdistan by Steve Flamingo</p></div>
<p>********</p>
<p>Special Bonus:</p>
<p>I came to learn about Small World News through their amazing <a href="http://aliveinbaghdad.org/" target="_blank">Alive in Baghdad</a> project which employed Iraqi journalists to produce video packages each week about a variety of topics on daily life in Iraq during the war. If you haven&#8217;t seen it, the short episodes will surely make an impression on you. Some of my personal favorites are:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2009/03/30/liquor-shops-open-for-business/" target="_blank">Liquor Shops Open for Business</a></li>
<li><a href="http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2009/01/27/fake-pharmacies-plague-iraq/" target="_blank">Fake Pharmacies Plague Iraq</a></li>
<li><a href="http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2008/12/29/after-saddam-building-amarah/" target="_blank">After Saddam, Building Amarah</a></li>
</ul>
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		<title>Testifying to NYC Council Tech Committee on Open Data</title>
		<link>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/06/21/testifying-to-nyc-council-tech-committee-on-open-data/</link>
		<comments>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/06/21/testifying-to-nyc-council-tech-committee-on-open-data/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:49:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Belinsky</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digidem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[edutech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gov20]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[int029]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mbelinsky]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[new york]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nyc]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nycopengov]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[opendata]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[opengov]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Project Einstein]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[red_banana]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Roebling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ushahidi]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digital-democracy.org/?p=1900</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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’ [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Liz Hodes represented Digital  Democracy today while testifying to the New York City Council Technology Committee on Open Data.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 250px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaldemocracy/4722608461/"><img title="Liz Hodes testifies at NYC Council Tech Committee on Open Data" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1005/4722608461_ebf14ef37e_m.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="180" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Liz Hodes testifies at NYC Council Tech Committee  on Open Data</p></div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Beyond the ‘good government’  benefits of this legislation, the bill will also unlock City data to  enable web developers and entrepreneurs to interact with City government  in new and unforeseen ways.  Data published under this legislation will  be readable by any computer device, including laptops and phones, for  innovative developments.  This Gov 2.0 inspired transparency legislation  targets application developers, startups, small businesses, and  academics with the ultimate goal of strengthening the connection between  government and the public, while re-energizing the small business-tech  sectors  and highlighting New York’s digital future.</p>
<p>You can read her entire testimony below. Please let us know your thoughts and ideas as we continue to push for open data as a crucial part of digital literacy in our schools and of democracy in the 21st century. For more information, please visit the <a title=" New York Council Committee on Technology Blog" href="http://nycctechcomm.wordpress.com/opengov/" target="_blank">New York Council Committee on Technology Blog</a> or <a href="http://www.livestream.com/nycctechcomm/video?clipId=pla_44b6c49c-518a-4b7e-a24c-2985049e3a07" target="_blank">watch the video </a>(Liz&#8217;s presentation begins at the 1:06:40 minute mark).</p>
<p><a style="margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;" title="View Digital Democracy's NYC City Council Testimony - Council Tech Committee - Open Data / Int. 029-2010 on Scribd" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/33356234/Digital-Democracy-s-NYC-City-Council-Testimony-Council-Tech-Committee-Open-Data-Int-029-2010">Digital Democracy&#8217;s NYC City Council Testimony &#8211; Council Tech Committee &#8211; Open Data / Int. 029-2010</a> <object id="doc_825847757193137" style="outline: none;" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="100%" height="500" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="name" value="doc_825847757193137" /><param name="data" value="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf" /><param name="wmode" value="opaque" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="FlashVars" value="document_id=33356234&amp;access_key=key-13wfa4czrer0s4mgd8xx&amp;page=1&amp;viewMode=list" /><param name="src" value="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="flashvars" value="document_id=33356234&amp;access_key=key-13wfa4czrer0s4mgd8xx&amp;page=1&amp;viewMode=list" /><embed id="doc_825847757193137" style="outline: none;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" height="500" src="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf" flashvars="document_id=33356234&amp;access_key=key-13wfa4czrer0s4mgd8xx&amp;page=1&amp;viewMode=list" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" bgcolor="#ffffff" wmode="opaque" data="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf" name="doc_825847757193137"></embed></object></p>
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		<title>Election Monitoring System In Ethiopia</title>
		<link>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/06/13/ethiopia-vote-monitoring-system/</link>
		<comments>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/06/13/ethiopia-vote-monitoring-system/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Jun 2010 05:08:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Belinsky</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[election monitoring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digidem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ethiopia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gov20]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ICT4D]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ushahidi]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digital-democracy.org/?p=1879</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Violence is closely correlated to elections in the minds of many voters in young democracies. With elections and democracy correlated as well, there&#8217;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 [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Violence is closely correlated to elections in the minds of many voters in young democracies. With elections and democracy correlated as well, there&#8217;s a dangerous chance that people will draw causation between violence and democracy.</p>
<p>We launched <a href="http://handheldhumanrights.org/ethiopia/">Ethiopia Vote Report</a> with a local partner in Ethiopia knowing that the turnout would be low. The project was entirely a volunteer effort and without the resources to secure the system and train people in how to use it in a dangerous and complicated place like Ethiopia would have been foolish. Nevertheless, we were able to have an application translated in Amharic and a number of first hand reports that otherwise might not have made it to the English language.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 410px"><a href="http://handheldhumanrights.org/ethiopia/"><img class=" " title="Ethiopia Vote Monitor" src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1285/4698968696_d2a269ecd4.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="242" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Ethiopia Vote Monitor</p></div>
<p>Our goal is to redefine what democracy can mean to people by facilitating an understanding of civic engagement. In the lead up to election day, this means a campaign to teach people what their relationship is to government and how they themselves can start to make it better. Educating citizens in the use of free tools is key to supporting individual freedoms. Tools such as mapping, blogging, media production, and search creates a powerful infrastructure that supports transparency and accountability, and prevents violence.</p>
<p>While this system only received 15 reports, on election day itself, it was visited 62 times. I&#8217;m confident that number is part of an exponential rise in the number of people who actually heard the message contained within those reports.</p>
<p>Without any large-scale deployments of citizen monitoring of elections, it&#8217;s impossible to know the true benefit or impact. But I&#8217;m confident that as people around the world begin to see these kinds of projects deployed in their own countries and in their own languages, it will begin to redefine the very concept of democracy and help to inspire new forms of citizen engagement.</p>
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		<title>Future Now: NYC’s Digital Storybook</title>
		<link>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/06/07/future-now-nyc%e2%80%99s-digital-storybook/</link>
		<comments>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/06/07/future-now-nyc%e2%80%99s-digital-storybook/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:46:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Belinsky</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Project Einstein]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[department of education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digidem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[doe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education20]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[friendswelove]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[futurenow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[new york]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nyc]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nycschools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rooftopfilms]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[toshibatv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[worldup]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digital-democracy.org/?p=1848</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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&#8217;s &#8220;Future Now&#8221; program. Having gone through the system myself, I jumped at the chance to help them innovate. While technology access is [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>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 <a href="http://www.futurenownyc.org/" target="_blank">Department of Education&#8217;s &#8220;Future Now&#8221; program</a>. Having gone through the system myself, I jumped at the chance to help them innovate. While technology access is growing, so is censorship, and I worry about the education we&#8217;re giving kids when the banned website list resembles <a href="http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2010/04/28/tunisia-flickr-video-sharing-websites-blogs-aggregators-and-critial-blogs-are-not-welcome/" target="_blank">the one in Tunisia</a>. Access to engaging curriculum is also key. One of the girls I taught was named &#8220;Tunisia&#8221; and when I made a crack about her being named after a country, she didn&#8217;t know what I was talking about.</p>
<p>But here in NYC, my task was to engage the kids in a conversation about what they&#8217;d like to see in the year 2020. Future Now is creating NYC’s Digital Storybook – a citywide youth   project about school, community, and  dreams. What better way to explore these themes than a mapping exercise  to literally add and remove items in their communities and on their streets.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 240px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaldemocracy/4678708755/"><img class=" " title="Future Now Sponsors" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4034/4678708755_aa77aab5e6_b.jpg" alt="" width="230" height="307" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Future Now Sponsors</p></div>
<p>Every 25 minutes, a different set of students filters through, listens to a short presentation and gets their hands on 3 computers, kindly supplied by us and <a href="http://www.tekserve.com/" target="_blank">Tekserve</a>. Using a modified <a href="http://ushahidi.com/" target="_blank">Ushahidi</a> mapping tool with data overlayed from the <a href="http://nyc.gov/html/datamine/html/home/home.shtml" target="_blank">NYC Data Mine</a>, to give a real-life example of how opening government data can impact the lives of everyday New Yorkers and lead to a smarter city. In this case, I overlayed &#8220;Bike Racks&#8221; and &#8220;Low-Bridges&#8221;, as some of the only sets available in the Geo Data Catalog, but it proved effective. My example was built from bike racks, stating that in my vision of  the year 2020, gasoline would be expensive, the environment polluted, cars more scarce, and so encouraging the city to place a bike rack in front of my office would enable people to bike to work, making the city more peaceful, healthier and cleaner. Plus, if the government thought a bike rack existed where one didn&#8217;t, I could let them know about their error.</p>
<p>To make it personal, I then asked them what they would do if they knew how much money their school was getting compared to the neighboring school. Not only did that set off a flurry of ideas from the students, but the teachers got pretty excited as well. You can <a href="http://handheldhumanrights.org/nyc" target="_blank">visit the website</a> or see it embedded below to see their ideas. Of course their private information remains private.</p>
<p>Digital democracy has engaged with participatory collaborative learning around the world, and each context reveals new insights for culturally-specific programming. Our scavenger hunt model allows for a natural progression to the conversation and working in groups helps to ensnare the attention of more distractable youth.</p>
<p>&#8220;OMG kids are on Facebook!&#8221; is one of my favorite challenges. Two skateboarders had finished mapping the perfect place for a skatepark in their community ahead of the other students and got distracted, finding themselves wandering the internet. Instead of telling them to go back to our site, I told them that no other students had added a photo to their posting so could they find the best photo to go along with their post, to make it easier for a politician to see exactly what they had in mind. The hunt was on, and they indeed found a great photo, without another distraction. I keep reiterating that this is a key aspect to the model of 21st century education &#8211; information management. Can students find information that is going to add value to their post. Do they know whether it&#8217;s creative commons and how publicly it can be used. There are still many steps before getting to that point, but this is a start.</p>
<p>A few real problems did pop up. School in a park, <a href="http://playgrounddesign.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Open Road Park</a> to be exact, is beautiful, but makes it hard to work with too much tech. The one good projector was taken by the Google Team, which meant improvising on the fly. The bigger problem though, was spell-check. When students were entering in their main body of information, a line would show up automatically under misspelled words. Every time students would backtrack and try to figure out the right spelling. This happened so often that I estimate it took about twice the time to create each entry as it otherwise would have. In the places where there was no spell-check, like in the titles, the entries are littered with bad spelling.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 298px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaldemocracy/4678708873/"><img class="  " title="Solar Flashlight &amp; Kazoo" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4039/4678708873_26c4679047_b.jpg" alt="" width="288" height="384" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Solar Flashlight &amp; Kazoo</p></div>
<p>Our work confronts language problems head on, mainly working with visual media such as maps, photos, videos, etc that can allow people to connect beyond these barriers. It&#8217;s important to consider language barriers even with native English speakers as well. And in NYC, it&#8217;s even more complicated, with our students on Saturday being from places as varied as Tibet, Thailand, Congo, Madagascar and Brooklyn.</p>
<p>At the end of all the trainings with us <a href="http://www.worldup.org/" target="_blank">World Up</a>, <a href="http://www.google.com/edu" target="_blank">Google</a>, <a href="http://www.ideo.com/" target="_blank">IDEO</a>, <a href="http://friendswelove.com/" target="_blank">friends we love</a>, <a href="http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/publicsector/home.jsp" target="_blank">Toshiba</a>, each student group was part of a performance. step, musical theatre, mapping, graffiti, gardening, accapella, and cheerleading. My favorite (I know I&#8217;m not supposed to say that), was the group showing off their solar panel creations. Their English wasn&#8217;t very good, as half were newly from Japan, but their tech was amazing. They hack solar panels into all sorts of things, whether a portable charger for the 3rd world, a flashlight, or a musical instrument that sounds like an electronic kazoo. &#8220;It&#8217;s very efficiency!&#8221; exclaimed one of the leaders of the project.</p>
<p>The diversity of skills, backgrounds and ideas reminds me how much I love this city. I just hope that we stop censoring it and start supporting more of these kinds of initiatives for a better future.</p>
<p>Thanks to the Department of Education and everyone who came together to make this possible, to <a href="http://humanityinaction.org/" target="_blank">Humanity in Action</a>, <a href="http://pioneersny400nl.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Pioneers</a> and <a href="http://www.rasiej.com/" target="_blank">Andrew Rasiej</a> for the development of similar project connecting schools in Amsterdam and NYC called <a href="http://4hours.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/open-my-city-project-retrospective/" target="_blank">Open My City</a>, to <a href="http://djmoni.com/" target="_blank">DJ Moni</a> for letting us know about Future Now and to <a href="http://jerrichou.com/" target="_blank">Jerri Chou</a> for dropping the LES by to check us out.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe class="" src="http://handheldhumanrights.org/nyc/external" style="width: 600px; height: 475px; " frameborder="0" scrolling="" onload="scro11me(this)"></iframe><script type="text/javascript">function scro11me(f){f.contentWindow.scrollTo(0,0); }</script>
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		<title>&#8220;Big Brother&#8221; vs. Little Brother Book Covers</title>
		<link>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/05/24/big-brother-vs-little-brother-book-covers/</link>
		<comments>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/05/24/big-brother-vs-little-brother-book-covers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 May 2010 21:41:09 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Belinsky</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Little Brother]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[book]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Burma]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[burmese]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[creative commons]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digidem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Doctorow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kachin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[karen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[literature]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[myanmar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[newmedialiteracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[open source]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digital-democracy.org/?p=1768</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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. [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>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. This was the inspiration for our<a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1033999452/little-brother-vs-big-brother" target="_blank"> &#8220;Big Brother&#8221; vs. Little Brother Kickstarter campaign.</a></p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 369px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaldemocracy/4636460125/"><img title="Little Brother - Burmese Cover" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4012/4636460125_d92da6e51e.jpg" alt="" width="359" height="500" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Little Brother - Burmese Cover</p></div>
<p>When brave people risk their lives for the greater good. When they&#8217;re accidentally giving an aggressive military a full roadmap to their extended contacts and friends, it&#8217;s unfortunate. Given Facebook&#8217;s recent breach of trust, allowing for more private data to leak out than people are comfortable with, there has been a growth in people knowing about their digital rights. This 21st century literacy is crucial.</p>
<p>But in places where data leakage is most risky, I&#8217;ve found that it&#8217;s also least understood. <a href="http://craphound.com/littlebrother/" target="_blank">Cory   Doctorow&#8217;s &#8220;Little Brother&#8221;</a> is a compelling book about a teen and his friends who use technology to challenge an authoritarian regime. Using real-life technologies, the book is more than a thrilling story, but it can also become a viral training manual for activists who need to use technology to do their work and can start to do so more securely and effectively.</p>
<p>If you haven&#8217;t read the book yourself, I recommend <a href="http://craphound.com/littlebrother/buy/" target="_blank">buying a copy</a> or <a href="http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/" target="_blank">downloading one for free</a> to see what all the fuss is about. Why free? He talks about the benefits of publishing for free online <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/may/23/cory-doctorow-my-bright-idea" target="_blank">over at the Guardian</a>.</p>
<p>Thanks to all those that supported our Kickstarter campaign, I&#8217;m happy to bring to you the first in what will be our serialized release of &#8220;Little Brother&#8221; in Kachin, Karen and Burmese languages. To our partners at <a href="http://www.abitsu.org/" target="_blank">ABITSU</a> for the translation. And thanks to <a href="http://jonathanpberger.com/" target="_blank">Jonathan P. Berger</a> for his cover design and overall inspiration.</p>
<p>Comments and questions from you are always appreciated. Our question is, when &#8220;Big Brother&#8221; is watching, who is watching back? This is another step towards answering it.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 183px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaldemocracy/4636460563/"><img title="Little Brother - Kachin Cover" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4636460563_84414df911_m.jpg" alt="" width="173" height="240" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Little Brother - Kachin Cover</p></div>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 183px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaldemocracy/4637069610/"><img title="Little Brother - Karen Cover" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4021/4637069610_2bd19b90f4_m.jpg" alt="" width="173" height="240" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Little Brother - Karen Cover</p></div>
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		<title>Election Monitoring in the Philippines</title>
		<link>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/05/20/election-monitoring-in-the-philippines/</link>
		<comments>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/05/20/election-monitoring-in-the-philippines/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 20 May 2010 16:17:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Belinsky</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Philippines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[election monitoring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digidem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[elections]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vote]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[votereportph]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digital-democracy.org/?p=1761</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Elections are an important part of any democracy, but only when they&#8217;re properly executed. When an election happens, how can one be sure that they&#8217;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&#8217;s why it was so exciting for [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Elections are an important part of any democracy, but only when they&#8217;re properly executed. When an election happens, how can one be sure that they&#8217;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.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s why it was so exciting for us to be involved in another election monitoring project, this time with <a href="http://handheldhumanrights.org/philippines/" target="_blank">Philippines Clean Election 2010</a>. Presidential elections, legislative elections and local elections in the Philippines were held just last week. Working as an all-volunteer effort with grassroots organizations, we were able to plot over 100 reports and follow 4 times as many tweets. An all-volunteer effort, this project came together quickly and effectively. It also added to the monitoring of another group in the Philippines with <a href="http://votereportph.org/" target="_blank">Vote Report</a>.</p>
<p>As elections continue to occur around the world, it will be increasingly important to engage local populations in not only the process itself, but also in the oversight of it. The beauty is in taking a moment that captures the hearts and minds of participants and teaching the lesson that democracy is more than casting the ballot, but it&#8217;s the process of civic engagement and protecting those votes. Whether in the USA with <a href="http://twittervotereport.com/" target="_blank">Twitter Vote Report</a> or in the <a href="http://handheldhumanrights.org/philippines/" target="_blank">Philippines</a>, citizens are starting to engage more and we&#8217;ll continue to facilitate this in any way that we can.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 360px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonasdelosreyes/4595032492/"><img class=" " title="Vote Philippines" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/4595032492_b4313ab685.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="263" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">People lining up in a precint in Barangay Merville to vote in the first automated elections in the Philippines</p></div>
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		<title>Media &amp; Peacebuilding Live Webcast</title>
		<link>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/05/12/media-peacebuilding/</link>
		<comments>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/05/12/media-peacebuilding/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 12 May 2010 10:29:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Belinsky</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[DdTv]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Peace Mapping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digidem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[magd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[peace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[peacemapping]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digital-democracy.org/?p=1754</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What is the connection between media and peacebuilding? This is the question being tackled at the upcoming &#8220;Seizing the Moment&#8221; summit being put on by the United States Institute of Peace and the Independent Television Service,  in collaboration with Sesame Workshop. I&#8217;m proud to announce that Digital Democracy is an online partner for this [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="p1">What is the connection between media and peacebuilding? This is the question being tackled at the upcoming <a href="http://www.usip.org/events/seizing-the-moment-media-peacebuilding" target="_blank">&#8220;Seizing the Moment&#8221;</a> summit being put on by the <a href="http://usip.org" target="_blank">United States Institute of Peace</a> and the <a href="http://www.itvs.org/">Independent Television Service</a>,  in collaboration with <a href="http://www.sesameworkshop.org" target="_blank">Sesame Workshop.</a> I&#8217;m proud to announce that Digital Democracy is an online partner for this event.</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="p1"><em>Tune in live for the webcast on May  12, 2010 from 9:30am to 3:30pm  (Eastern) entitled &#8220;<a href="http://www.usip.org/events/seizing-the-moment-media-peacebuilding" target="_blank">Seizing the Moment:  Media &amp; Peacebuilding</a>.&#8221;  This summit will consider specific  recommendations on ways to harness  the power of media for conflict  prevention. It will bring together  senior media makers and policymakers  including Jared Cohen, Riz Khan,  and Rebecca MacKinnon. The online  audience will be able to engage  panelists through a live chat and  Twitter discussion (hashtag: #magd).  We encourage you to take part! </em></p>
</blockquote>
<p class="p1">For me, the power of media runs deep. Some years ago I ran a film festival in Tblisi, Georgia as a peacebuilding initiative for people from Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as those from separatist regions of Georgia. Filmmakers saw countries that they were otherwise barred from and began speaking with people from those countries for the first time. As time went on, friendships grew and negative stereotypes fade away.</p>
<p class="p1" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaldemocracy/4141398806"><img class="aligncenter" title="Project Einstein Thailand Picture Taking" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2768/4141398806_a1effd1a01.jpg" alt="" width="405" height="271" /></a></p>
<p class="p1">The work that we do with <a href="http://www.digital-democracy.org/ddtv/"><span class="s1">Digital Democracy TV</span></a> very much comes from the same ethic. We try to highlight the incredible stories told by the brave people we work with around the world, who are often challenging norms or otherwise defending the rights and integrity of human beings. Bridging these gaps, allowing people to relate to one another, allows for a new kind of diplomacy and helps to inform our own communities that much more</p>
<p class="p1">It&#8217;s crucial for youth to develop these skills. They&#8217;re becoming increasingly able to create media, but in order for it to be beneficial, they need to really understand it. We&#8217;ve been building a participatory learning curriculum for new media literacy. We just got some support to connect youth with resettled Karen refugees in Indiana using the <a href="http://www.digital-democracy.org/2009/12/10/introducing-project-roebling/"><span class="s1">Project Roebling</span></a> platform we&#8217;re building with MIT and Eyebeam in Drupal. There&#8217;s also work from an<span class="s2"> orphanage in <a href="http://www.whatkidscando.org/featurestories/2009/08_south_africa/index.html"><span class="s1">South Africa</span></a> and the first batch of youth in <a href="http://issuu.com/digitaldemocracy/docs/project_einstein_bangladesh_book"><span class="s1">Bangladesh</span></a>. </span>Project Einstein Thailand &#8211; a photo training with youth in the Mae La Refugee Camp. You can <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaldemocracy/sets/72157622892610180/"><span class="s1">view photos</span></a> and <a href="http://qik.com/video/2935247?page=6"><span class="s1">videos</span></a> we filmed and broadcast live on the web.</p>
<p class="p1">This kind of an education project can lay the foundations for future crisis response by having the maps and photographs created by youth as part of their education. We realized this, unfortunately, when we had a team on the ground in Haiti doing a media training with youth and the earthquake hit. Thankfully we were able to utilize <a href="http://haiti.ushahidi.com/"><span class="s1">http://haiti.ushahidi.com/</span></a> to respond in the immediate term. Now we&#8217;re looking to build on the system even further for violence prevention and peace. Two of my colleagues evolved this into a <a href="http://digital-democracy.org/2010/05/01/reflections-from-a-week-among-haitis-women/" target="_blank">media training in Haiti</a> as we develop a system for <a href="http://digital-democracy.org/2010/04/19/traveling-to-haiti-to-support-local-women/"><span class="s1">technology on prevention of women and gender-based violence</span></a>.</p>
<p class="p1">We&#8217;ll be exploring this in even more detail with <a href="http://digital-democracy.org/what-we-do/programs/#si" target="_blank">Sisi Ni Amani (We Are Peace)</a>, our peacemapping program in Kenya. Starting this summer, we&#8217;ll be raising awareness of peace efforts within Kenya by  mapping peace initiatives across all segments of Kenyan society. Sisi ni  Amani seeks to connect previously disconnected agents to empower this  arm of civil society before Kenya’s 2012 presidential election.</p>
<p class="p1">
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		<title>Advisor receives award from Bill Clinton</title>
		<link>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/04/19/advisor-receives-award-from-bill-clinton/</link>
		<comments>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/04/19/advisor-receives-award-from-bill-clinton/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:36:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Belinsky</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Haiti]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[award]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cgiu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cgiu10]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[clinton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digidem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digital democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[haititech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[handshake]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ICT4D]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[irevolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ushahidi]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digital-democracy.org/?p=1705</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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 [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>For the amazing work that has been done by the Ushahidi volunteers at SIPA, Tufts and elsewhere, <a href="http://digital-democracy.org/who-we-are/advisors/#patrick1" target="_blank">our advisory board member Patrick Meier</a> received an award this past weekend from Bill Clinton at the <a href="http://www.cgiu.org/" target="_blank">Clinton Global University Initiative</a>. Well done Patrick!</p>
<p>Humble as he is, he dedicated the Clinton prize to all Ushahidi volunteers. Congrats again teams! We&#8217;ve been <a href="http://digital-democracy.org/2010/04/14/the-power-of-volunteers-part-1-haiti/" target="_blank">writing a lot recently</a> about the successes that volunteers have had crisismapping in response to earthquakes and it&#8217;s exciting to hear Patrick to set a goal to <a href="http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/universities-crisis-mapping/" target="_blank">train &#8220;100 universities in the developing world&#8221; in crisismapping</a>. It&#8217;s a brilliant idea and a powerful way to have pre-crisis preparedness. Particularly when coupled with 21st century learning initiatives like Project Einstein, where young people on the ground can use photography and mapping to build out the critical infrastructure necessary for a crisismapping system like Ushahidi to be effective.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 390px"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaldemocracy/4535433950"><img class=" " title="Advisor Patrick receives award from Bill Clinton" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2768/4535433950_bf47073b3f_o.jpg" alt="" width="380" height="275" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Advisor Patrick receives award from Bill Clinton</p></div>
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		<title>Project Einstein Haiti Report &amp; The Earthquake</title>
		<link>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/03/01/project-einstein-haiti-report-the-earthquake/</link>
		<comments>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/03/01/project-einstein-haiti-report-the-earthquake/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:59:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Belinsky</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Haiti]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Project Einstein]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digidem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fletcher]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mastercard]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nokia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tufts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ushahidi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[youth]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digital-democracy.org/?p=1510</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[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&#8217;re proudly publishing our report from the research they were conducting, looking at the economic livelihoods of  young [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>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&#8217;re proudly publishing our report from the research they were conducting, looking at the economic livelihoods of  young people in the country.</p>
<p>This report details the findings of their research, gives an overview of the Project Einstein curriculum adapted for Haiti and provides recommendations for how training young people will be a critical aspect of reconstruction, providing 21st century skills and an infrastructure of empowerment by monitoring aid and corruption.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 442px"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4267795513_8ed96cd2fe_o.jpg"><img class="  " title="Project Einstein Haiti" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4044/4267795513_8ed96cd2fe_o.jpg" alt="" width="432" height="324" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Project Einstein Haiti</p></div>
<p>The project on the ground was led by two students at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, Joshua Haynes and Chrissy Martin. Chrissy had this to say about her experiences:</p>
<blockquote><p>Project Einstein Haiti developed out of a serendipitous meeting in New York with Mark.  I was leaving for Haiti in a few days to conduct research with youth on their attitudes towards finance.  Despite experience working on and researching financial inclusion and mobile technology, I didn’t know much working with youth.  As a result, I reached out to Digital Democracy, aware of their work with youth and digital photography.</p>
<p>I walked away from the meeting with a research methodology, four digital cameras, and the nicest phone I’ve ever used: a Nokia N97.  The Project Einstein methodology was an ideal way to accomplish my goal of understanding the youth attitude towards finance in an engaging and fun manner that would be rewarding for the participants as well as the researchers.</p>
<p>The two days that Josh and I spent with the twelve high school students in Gros Monde were extremely rewarding.  We spent time discussing the power of photography to tell stories, as well as time discussing how difficult it is to earn money in their community. I was extremely impressed by their enthusiasm and the ease at which they engaged with a technology that they had never used before.</p>
<p>I could not be more thankful that I had the opportunity to work closely with this group of Haitians before their country was destroyed just three days later.  A few pictures survived, although I regret that their photographs did not.  I can only hope that they will again have an opportunity to tell their story through digital tools that will allow the rest of the world to hear.</p>
<p>Because of tools such as photography, Twitter, Facebook, and SMS, Haitians have been able to contribute to the international coverage of their own crisis in a way that would not have been possible just a few years ago.  Mainstream media sources including CNN and CBS News have relied on these alternative sources for aspects of their coverage, giving voice to locals rather than relying solely on international journalists. In addition, new tools such as <a href="http://haiti.ushahidi.com" target="_blank">Ushahidi</a> allowed international organizations to plan their response based on near real-time mapping of reports from Haitians through a wide variety of media sources. Amidst the devastation, I find hope in the possibility of leveraging these technologies to give Haitians a voice in their own reconstruction as well.</p></blockquote>
<p>For more information about our work, please download the following report:</p>
<p><a style="margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;" title="View Digital Democracy Haiti Report 2010 on Scribd" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/27669359/Digital-Democracy-Haiti-Report-2010">Digital Democracy Haiti Report 2010</a> <object id="doc_462563704729553" style="outline: none;" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="100%" height="600" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="name" value="doc_462563704729553" /><param name="data" value="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf" /><param name="wmode" value="opaque" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="FlashVars" value="document_id=27669359&amp;access_key=key-2dhmh5ll91r59bspio2w&amp;page=1&amp;viewMode=list" /><param name="src" value="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="flashvars" value="document_id=27669359&amp;access_key=key-2dhmh5ll91r59bspio2w&amp;page=1&amp;viewMode=list" /><embed id="doc_462563704729553" style="outline: none;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" height="600" src="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf" flashvars="document_id=27669359&amp;access_key=key-2dhmh5ll91r59bspio2w&amp;page=1&amp;viewMode=list" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" bgcolor="#ffffff" wmode="opaque" data="http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf" name="doc_462563704729553"></embed></object></p>
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		<title>Indonesian Journalists Visit Our Office</title>
		<link>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/02/24/indonesian-journalists-visit-our-office/</link>
		<comments>http://digital-democracy.org/2010/02/24/indonesian-journalists-visit-our-office/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:41:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Mark Belinsky</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[digidem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[indonesia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[journalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nyc]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[office]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Project Einstein]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://digital-democracy.org/?p=1494</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Today we had the pleasure of hosting five journalists from Indonesia at the Digital Democracy office. Although none of us on staff speak Indonesian and none of their English was particularly strong, we managed to communicate through 2 translators who had a portable translator toolkit that connected the group via wired headsets. While it looked [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Today we had the pleasure of hosting five journalists from Indonesia at the Digital Democracy office. Although none of us on staff speak Indonesian and none of their English was particularly strong, we managed to communicate through 2 translators who had a portable translator toolkit that connected the group via wired headsets. While it looked a bit funny, it certainly was a huge help and allowed us to get into a fascinating conversation ranging from similarities between their country and Thailand, to the meaning of democracy.</p>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 255px"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4049/4384312076_5d72bc2351.jpg"><img title="Indonesian Journalists at Digital Democracy office" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4049/4384312076_5d72bc2351.jpg" alt="" width="245" height="184" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Indonesian  Journalists at Digital Democracy office</p></div>
<p>Not long into the conversation, Kristianto expressed that in Indonesia, citizen journalism is very lively but it&#8217;s the demonstrations that are a lot harder. A recent incident of accusations of malpractice against a hospital brought support from millions online but when it came to taking to the streets, only 8000 or so came out. We spoke a bit about all of our conceptions of activism, the role of information and the changing tides of &#8220;action&#8221; in a digital state.</p>
<p>Another concern was that in East Java, some Islamic organizations ban Facebook saying that it is against the religion and sometimes it goes so far as people being arrested for posting illegal material on the site, under libel laws. Part of a 21st century journalist&#8217;s toolbelt is not only knowing what sites exist that can help spread information, but also the consequences of harsher punishments. If information isn&#8217;t in a public forum, the conversations will often continue, but in a more dangerous space.</p>
<p>The conversation took a shift to the complications of working with different legal structures and the always important question of verification. Having just seen the <a href="http://digital-democracy.org/2009/11/09/ddtv-episode-7-prachatai/" target="_blank">Prachatai episode of DdTv</a>, Herry mentioned that it seemed to him our philosophy was similar to a quote from Prachatai Editor Jiew, that &#8220;democracy is not the answer. It&#8217;s the path to find something.&#8221; It was exciting to hear him say that and really opened up a lively discussion on the continuing problem that many in Indonesia view US culture as either &#8221; American Idol&#8221; or &#8220;Iraq War&#8221; and see much less of the innovation, creativity and community-led media that we were talking about.</p>
<p>Muhlis then chimed in that, &#8220;It seems ideology is no longer important. It&#8217;s about communicating and helping people and help themselves.&#8221; I couldn&#8217;t agree more.</p>
<p>Excitingly, it turns out that Kristianto is also the principal of a high school of 300 students in Lampung, who just received news yesterday that they will be getting an internet connection. He says that he wants the students to learn about the kind of democracy we&#8217;d been discussing. Hopefully we&#8217;ll be able to connect with him on that. I promised to bring bagels.</p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 360px"><a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2776/4383531789_f7431a2a67.jpg"><img title="Indonesian Journalists at Digital Democracy office" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2776/4383531789_f7431a2a67.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="234" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Indonesian Journalists at Digital Democracy office</p></div>
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