Digital Democracy

The concept of “small-d democracy” is at the foundation of our work at Digital Democracy. Fast Company’s March 2012 issue features Dd in solidarity with other innovators who have helped elevate, amplify and fortify the Occupy Movement. This fall, Dd challenged the claim that “the Occupy Movement doesn’t know what it wants” by building a polling [...]

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 [...]

Its an honor to be invited to speak at the White House . Its especially exciting to see an administration that understands the power of youth and works to pull in our voices. The White House was pulling together 20 “awesome” youth leaders to discuss the future of international foreign aid. The conversation was between [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

Ever since Digital Democracy began working with Burmese populations we have believed that it is essential to have a completely comprehensive understanding of the country and the challenges it faces. This means going beyond the well-understood populations living on the border with Thailand to understand conditions on the ground inside Burma and along all of [...]

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’re proudly publishing our report from the research they were conducting, looking at the economic livelihoods of  young [...]

In early January 2010 we partnered with Tufts University’s Center for Emerging Market Enterprises (CEME) to conduct research and a photography training with young adults in Haiti. Researchers Chrissy Martin and Joshua Haynes, using the Project Einstein curriculum, worked with young adults ages 18-24 to explore – through the use of digital photography – how [...]

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 [...]