Digital Democracy

If you were to Google “Internet”, “freedom”, “security”, “privacy”,”blog” and pull together the people and organizations that make up the top hits of the search, you would have the Internet at Liberty Conference, hosted by Google on September 20-22 in Budapest. A venerable who’s who of people involved in the worldwide discussion surrounding Internet freedom, [...]

In 2003, I went to Armenia and started working with youth on “blogging” before the term blogging was actually in the lexicon. Back then, access to computers was hard to come by and the internet was crawling along. I was working with a documentary film company, Bars Media, and found that young people were not [...]

After a whirlwind six days in Port au Prince, Emily and I have much to share. Our trip actually came two weeks ahead of schedule. We received a request from the Protection Officer for Sexual Exploitation and Abuse working on behalf of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, who relayed the enormous [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

This morning on New York’s WNYC Radio program “The Takeaway” Mark discussed technology in the developing world, emergency response, and specifically the Ushahidi install in Haiti in response to Tuesday’s devastating earthquake. Ushahidi is currently mapping crisis information from the ground including continuing threats to the area, locations of relief services, and information about survivors. [...]

Mark recently represented Digital Democracy at the Global Kids’ Virtual World Capacity Building Program, a four-week intensive exposure to virtual worlds for public good institutions. At the end of the program, each of the participants gave presentations at the Global Kids-hosted Fall 09 Roundtable on Virtual Worlds and Nonprofits on MacArthur Island in Second Life [...]

Emily and I had the pleasure of guest lecturing at Nathan Freitas’ Social Activism using Mobile Technology class at NYU’s ITP program. It was a wonderful opportunity that you can read more about below: The topic of our class was “Grassroots Development – Techniques & Strategies,” discussing Digital Democracy‘s experiences doing fieldwork.  Before introducing the [...]