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. [...]

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 [...]

Video is changing as more and more people have the ability to be creators. This provides unlimited potential for new ideas and methods in video, a prospect that is exciting to me as someone who works daily in the fields of old and new media. Last weekend the Open Video Conference hosted by FIT brought [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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’ benefits of this [...]