Digital Democracy

Thai journalist and anti-censorship activist is detained & released on bail 12 hours later (updated at 5:30pm EDT following Jiew’s release from Thai authorities) September 24, 2010: New York, NY —Chiranuch Premchaiporn, known as Jiew — an advocate, founder and manager of a leading independent news website in Thailand — was detained today in the [...]

From late April through the end of July, I was working and living in Western Thailand. This work enabled me to visit Mae La refugee camp quite often, during which I was able to take advantage of the time to pay several visits to the Leadership and Management Training Center (LMTC), a school inside Mae [...]

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 [...]

Digital Democracy is delighted to announce that we have been awarded a grant from the Clowes Fund of Indianapolis, Indiana. The grant will support the launch of Project Einstein Indianapolis, a digital penpal program that teaches 21st century skills while facilitating cross-cultural dialogue. Project Einstein will connect young Burmese refugees and their classmates in Indianapolis [...]

While in Northern Thailand, Mark and Emily meet with Digital Democracy’s partner The All Burma IT Students’ Union (ABITSU) to set up equipment and train ABITSU’s core staff, as well as members of other human rights groups working along the border, in the uses and features of Handheld Human Rights (HHR) for its initial launch. [...]

The number of political prisoners has increased exponentially since Burma’s Saffron Revolution in 2007. This number, as told by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners‘ Aung Myo Thein, is a clear indicator of the political situation in Burma. In this episode of DdTv, Mark and Emily travel to northern Thailand to launch Handheld Human Rights. [...]

While continuing to explore the technology community in Bangkok, Mark and Emily meet some of the courageous people working in online Journalism today. Among them is Jiew, the Executive Director of Prachatai, an online alternative news source for Thailand. Prachatai hosts an online forum, allowing readers to respond to news and issues that are posted. [...]

Bangkok is one of the centers of tech innovation in Asia, but it hasn’t always been that way. Tune in as our newly inoculated team moves from Bangkok Hospital to speak with John Berns, one of the co-founders of Barcamp Bangkok, about the rise of the local tech community. After a bike tour of the [...]

Inoculation against certain tropical diseases is a routine precaution for traveling in Southeast Asia but even getting a handful of shots in the U.S. can quickly become very expensive. As the debate over healthcare reform rages in the United States, Mark and Emily discuss what’s available, including, the single-payer option being explored by groups such [...]

Over the next few days Mark and Emily will be in Western Thailand working in a refugee camp to launch our program Project Einstein with a partner school. They’ll be teaching digital photography skills to a group of 17 students so that the students can participate in Project Einstein, our digital pen pal program connecting [...]