Digital Democracy

Indianapolis, IN: Wednesday, August 10th, the students of Project Einstein Indianapolis will have an audience of hundreds as visitors to the Indianapolis City Market’s weekly farmer’s market will be able to view the work of young photographers, who are primarily refugees from Burma/Myanmar. Tomorrow’s exhibit is the result of a year-long photo training with students [...]

You were born in KweKalu, a place near Mae Sot, Thailand. You live there one year when the Burmese government attacks the poor camp. Your fifty year old grandma carries you to escape, with bombs and fire all around. Thank God, your life is not taken away. When the attack is clear, many people in [...]

13 Kids + 4 Cameras = Project Einstein South Africa We’re proud to announce the launch of our brand new book created by the Project Einstein South Africa youth. It’s designed by Smitha Alampur who is currently in South Africa delivering the books to the children and with writing help from our intern Ellen Knuti. [...]

In early 2010, Cody Valdes and I approached Digital Democracy with a project proposal: to work with grassroots groups in Kenya to map peace projects happening all around the country. “Sisi ni Amani” means “We Are Peace” in Swahili. Our innovation was to use mapping to support existing peace leaders by connecting them, instead of [...]

Working on a photography project with kids in Bangladesh, as their work drew to a close, the Anyat Ullah chose a name for the project “Project Einstein.” All the kids quickly agreed, explaining: “Einstein was a refugee, but he could still do great things.” Since those humble beginnings, our digital literacy program has grown to [...]

26.3 miles. That’s the distance I’ve been driving every day this past week to work with two communities of refugee youth living on opposite sides of town in Indianapolis, Indiana. Many of their experiences – moving to a new country, resettling in the US, adapting to life at an Indianapolis high school – are quite [...]

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 [...]

In this episode of DdTv venture back with us to January 2008 to see the origins of Project Einstein. Mark and Emily spend several days working with youth in Kutupalong refugee camp in Southern Bangladesh, home to thousands of Rohingya refugees from Burma. Stateless, the Rohingya, a muslim ethnic group from Western Burma have fled [...]

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 [...]

Mark and Emily travel to Mae La refugee camp in Northern Thailand to launch our digital penpal program Project Einstein with Burmese youth. Students from the Leadership Management Training College, never having held a camera before, are taught the fundamentals of digital photography, including composition and editing, and choose themes from their lives to document [...]