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 [...]

On this episode of DdTv Emily Jacobi and Abby Goldberg travel to Port-Au-Prince, where they are invited to meet with organizations working on creating a mechanism to streamline methods of protection, documentation and service provisions for women around gender-based violence. While there, Emily and Abby meet with local women leaders and conduct a photography training [...]

This past Wednesday, Digital Democracy attempted an experiment in direct diplomacy.  We brought together 75 people at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) for “In their own hands: Live video exchange with Haitian women 6 months after the earthquake.”  We were joined at ITP via skype by my project partner, DigiDem Co-Director, Emily Jacobi, our translator [...]

If you filmed all around the world on the same day, what would it look like?
This past Saturday we were honored to be a part of “Life in a Day“, a project to create the first user-generated documentary. Presented by Google, Producer Ridley Scott, and Director Kevin McDonald, this project asked people around the world [...]

“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 [...]

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 [...]

It’s been a thrilling two weeks for our Peace Mapping Kenya team. On Sunday, the three team members arrived in Nairobi to launch the program, called Sisi ni Amani which means “We are Peace” in Kiswahili. Prior to their departure, Project Director Rachel Brown and Project Manager Cody Valdes spent several days with us in [...]

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 [...]