Digital Democracy

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]