Ceibal Jam! Developing Applications for the XO Laptop

David Sasaki
8:56 PM | bio | Comments: 0

An avalanche of analysis, impassioned commentary, and angry rants descended upon the tech mediapshere over the two past weeks ever since One Laptop Per Child Chairman Nicholas Negroponte urged developers for the XO laptop (formerly the '$100 laptop') to recreate the student computer's user interface for Windows XP rather than Linux. That decision led to the defection of Walter Bender who had been OLPC's president of software and content and a longtime colleague of Negroponte. It also led free software guru Richard Stallman, who ironically switched to a XO laptop himself just before the announcement, to ask out loud, "Can... continued...

Topics: Education, Philosophy, Technology
Tagged: OLPC, Open Source, Uruguay, Windows, XO

Rising Voices Seeks Micro-Grant Proposals

David Sasaki
12:27 PM | bio | Comments: 0

Rising Voices, the outreach arm of Global Voices, in collaboration with the Open Society Institute Public Health Program's Health Media Initiative, is now accepting project proposals for the third round of microgrant funding of up to $5,000 for new media outreach projects focused especially on public health issues involving marginalized populations. Rising Voices and OSI aim to bring new voices from new communities and speaking new languages to the conversational web, by providing resources and funding to local groups reaching out to underrepresented communities. Examples of potential projects include: Working with a tuberculosis or HIV clinic or local drop-in center... continued...

Topics: Participation
Tagged: africa, central asia, eastern europe, grants, health, rising voices

A Year of Rising Voices

David Sasaki
12:31 AM | bio | Comments: 2

With this week's introduction to Iran Inside Out, a video-blogging project led by Shaghayegh Azimi, all ten Rising Voices grantees have now been introduced. Some of the earliest projects, like Nari Jibon in Bangladesh, have been active for nearly a year now. Here is a comprehensive run-through of some of the successes and challenges they have met along the road. Nari Jibon Introduction Feature Posts Happy Pahela Baishakh! Last Monday marked the first day of year 1415 according to the Bangla calendar. Nari Jibon students and staff celebrated with songs, poetry, and a brief skit. They started the evening by... continued...

Topics: Participation
Tagged: Bangladesh, Bolivia, Colombia, India, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar, Outreach, Sierra Leone, Uruguay, Video-Blogging

Iran Inside Out

David Sasaki
12:02 AM | bio | Comments: 2

Shaghayegh Azimi is the epitome of what is often referred to on Global Voices as a "bridge-blogger"; that is, someone who uses his or her weblog to bridge two or more cultures. There is only one catch - Azimi isn't really a blogger. As a former film producer in Iran, video has always been her preferred medium of expression. And she's not alone. In an interview over Skype, Azimi says that thousands of Iranian youth yearn to become filmmakers, but that limited access to equipment, along with Iran's few channels of distribution, mean that only the very best, luckiest,... continued...

Topics: Audio/Visual, Participation
Tagged: bridge-blogging, iran, iran inside out, video, vlogging

Fire Eagle and the Future of Citizen Media

David Sasaki
9:26 PM | bio | Comments: 0

Buenos Aires Leads the Way Two months ago I was back in my old stomping grounds, Encinitas, California. It had been several years since I last coasted along Highway 101 as it sucks in its asphalt belly between San Elijo Lagoon and the near-perfect surf break, Cardiff Reef. I pulled off the side of the highway, rolled down my window, and inhaled the salty air tinged with the sweetness of coastal sage scrub. More than anywhere else, this was home. I still knew the names of the best surfers bobbing up and down in the Pacific as they waited for... continued...

Topics: Mobile, Participation
Tagged: argentina, buenos aires, everyblock, geodata, iphone, mobile, ushahidi

The Read and Write Library

David Sasaki
6:22 PM | bio | Comments: 3

From cataloguing books to training users how to blog At least six times a week, Gabriel Venegas, a dedicated and underpaid librarian in Medellin, Colombia, rises from bed while the world outside is still dark royal blue and heavy with the silence of early morning to in order to make the 45-minute bus ride that begins in the valley center and eventually climbs up the city's northern slope to the isolated community of San Javier La Loma. Five years ago it was Vanegas' responsibility to make sure that the library's book collection was catalogued and well-organized. Occasionally he would help... continued...

Topics: Education, Participation
Tagged: Chile, Colombia, Library

Can the Knight Legacy Lead to Sustainability?

David Sasaki
4:06 PM | bio | Comments: 5

This is a story about who foots my paycheck. It is a story about who funds this very blog, along with all of the projects that we write about here. It is the story of the transformation of media and the efforts to make that transformation sustainable. From the Akron Beacon Journal to National Media Conglomerate It is a story that begins in 1896, when Charles Landon Knight, a recent graduate from Columbia University Law School, took a job at the Philadelphia Times. Four years later he moved to Akron, Ohio where he worked his way up from advertising manager... continued...

Topics: Financial
Tagged: grants, knight foundation, knight ridder, news challenge, philanthropy

BarCamps Without Borders: The Unconference Spreads Globally

David Sasaki
2:38 PM | bio | Comments: 2

OK, So you've got your own blog. You've started taking pictures and posting them online. But what's more, you've also trained some of your friends, family, and neighbors how to publish online. And, via the blogosphere, you've been able to get to know others in your city who you otherwise never would have met. Great! It gets even better. Through this new online community and conversation you have discovered that many of your daily concerns are also the concerns of your neighbors and friends. You want better public transportation. So do they. You think it would be cool to organize... continued...

Topics: Participation
Tagged: Bangkok, BarCamp, Buenos Aires, Conferences, India, Latvia, Ukraine

XO Laptop Turns Kids into Media Creators in Uruguay

David Sasaki
5:44 PM | bio | Comments: 1

"On YouTube, there is an 11-minute video of the veterinarian-assisted birth of a calf on a farm in Villa Cardal, Uruguay, a small town in a dairy-rich region four hours north of the capital, Montevideo. It's an amazing thing to watch--at least, to a city slicker like me who doesn't get to witness the miracle of birth every day. But what makes this particular video remarkable is that it was shot by a fourth-year student at Villa Cardal's Public School 24, using the built-in camera and recording software on the student's XO Laptop, within weeks of the machine's arrival at... continued...

Topics: Audio/Visual, Education, Participation
Tagged: blogging, OLPC, Uruguay

Michael Wesch: Toward an Ethnography of YouTube

David Sasaki
8:06 PM | bio | Comments: 0

I'm currently at DIY Video Summit, a well-organized gathering of academics, video-bloggers, and other web enthusiasts and critics. The first panel provided an overview of the state of academic research regarding online do-it-yourself video. A lot of the conversation centered around theoretical definitions of what constitutes an "amateur." All of the panelists and many from the audience observed the blending of the professional and the amateur. Now commercial endeavours use 'amateur' as a hot marketing buzzword (think porn, American Idol, Laguna Beach) while amateurs try to represent themselves as professionals. I thought the most interesting speaker was Michael Wesch. Wesch... continued...

Topics: Audio/Visual
Tagged: Anthropology, Video, video247, YouTube

Explore New Videos at Rising Voices

David Sasaki
12:25 AM | bio | Comments: 1

The first round of Rising Voices outreach projects have already been training participants in underrepresented communities how to use the tools of citizen media for just over seven months now. Of course in the beginning they started slow. First each of the project participants created their blogs and learned how how to link to other information on the internet. Slowly, the projects then explored digital photography and photo-sharing websites like Flickr. Now many of the projects are taking their media production skills to the next level by using Windows Movie Maker to produce short video documentaries that reveal the realities... continued...

Topics: Audio/Visual, Participation
Tagged: Bangladesh, Citizen Journalism, Colombia, Outreach, Video

Kenyan Bloggers Innovate to Heal Country

David Sasaki
1:26 AM | bio | Comments: 2

The post-election crisis in Kenya has received a good deal of blogger coverage, both at Global Voices as well as the wider blogosphere. Some say the ensuing violence boils down to ethnic animosity. Others insist that such a viewpoint is overly simplistic. Kenya's post-election crisis has taught us that cell phone airtime can become currency in times of need and that bloggers on opposite ends of the earth can collaborate on a moment's notice to push the limits of online innovation and usefulness. There has even been a meta-conversation in the U.S. tech blogosphere about whether or not tech bloggers... continued...

Topics: Government & Politics, Philosophy, Technology
Tagged: Conflict, Crisis, Kenya, Maps

An Introductory Guide to Global Citizen Media

David Sasaki
1:33 PM | bio | Comments: 3

Rising Voices proudly announces the first in a series of outreach guides meant to explain the fundamentals of citizen media to a non-technical readership. The first guide, An Introduction to Citizen Media, offers context and case studies which show how everyday citizens across the world are increasingly using blogs, podcasts, online video, and digital photography to engage in an unmediated conversation which transcends borders, cultures, and differing languages. From the introduction: A change is taking place in how we communicate. Just ten years ago we all learned about the world around us from newspapers, the television, and radio. Professional journalists... continued...

Topics: Participation
Tagged: Bengali, Citizen Media, Documentation, Guide, Outreach, Spanish

Will Online Video Make the World a Better Place?

David Sasaki
4:19 PM | bio | Comments: 3

The impact of the digital divide (or at least the bandwidth imbalance) is most pronounced when it comes to online video. In regions where lightening-fast internet connections are taken for granted, such as North America, Western Europe, and East Asia, it has become a common occurrence to observe teenagers watching YouTube videos on their iPhones or Korean businesswomen watching the nightly newscast on their mobile phones. Even those who have yet to transform their mobile phones into television sets, still regularly catch up on the latest and most popular YouTube videos. In fact, much of the world has already moved... continued...

Topics: Audio/Visual, Participation, Technology
Tagged: global oneness project, human rights, Iran, Pangea Day, training, video

Congratulations to the New Rising Voices

David Sasaki
12:53 PM | bio | Comments: 2

The inaugural group of Rising Voices citizen media outreach projects have given us new and powerful voices from communities that previously were rarely seen participating online. Last month we put out a call for new citizen media outreach proposals, of which five would be selected to join our current projects based in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Colombia, India, and Sierra Leone. In total we received 63 project proposals from over 35 different countries. Although the quantity of applications was less than the 142 we received in July, the quality and innovation that stood out throughout all of this round's proposals made the... continued...

Topics: Diversity, Participation
Tagged: global voices, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar, OLPC, rising voices, Uruguay

Rising Women's Voices

David Sasaki
12:42 PM | bio | Comments: 0

A few weeks ago I interviewed Cristina Quisbert of the Voces Bolivianas project in El Alto, Bolivia. She made the point that in Bolivia - and across much of the world - women often have less access to new technologies than their male counterparts. Furthermore, once women are empowered to use new communications technologies such as blogs and online video, they are often subject to harassment in the form of comments and unsolicited, lewd emails. At Rising Voices we don't only want to help teach under-represented communities how to make themselves heard; we also want them to feel safe and... continued...

Topics: Diversity, Participation
Tagged: conferences, new media, open source, women

Training a New Generation of Citizen Journalists Around the World

David Sasaki
11:22 AM | bio | Comments: 2

Just three years ago, 'citizen journalism' and 'citizen media' were unknown phrases for more than 99% of the world's population. Slowly, but surely, a considerable movement is starting to help change that. Many of the Knight News Challenge winners are at the forefront of this movement. The Media Mobilizing Project of Philadelphia just recently finished their first round of video production training for a group of 20 Spanish-speaking immigrants poised to take advantage of the city's free wi-fi cloud. Similarly, Chi-Town Daily News will recruit and train a network of 75 citizen journalists - one in each Chicago neighborhood -... continued...

Topics: Education, Participation
Tagged: citizen journalism, disabled, international, training, workshops

Introduction to Rising Voices Outreach Initiative

David Sasaki
2:51 PM | bio | Comments: 0

Rising Voices is a new citizen media outreach project of Global Voices, which aims to spread the benefits of citizen media to regions, languages, and communities that are currently underrepresented on the conversational web. It serves as the third arm of Global Voices' triad of amplifying independent voices worldwide, advocating for their right to free speech, and providing universal access to citizen media tools as is described in our founding manifesto. For nearly three years now Global Voices has served as the web's leading network of bridge-bloggers from around the world who serve as cultural ambassadors of their countries' blogging... continued...

Topics: Education, Participation
Tagged: bangladesh, bolivia, colombia, global voices, india, outreach, rising voices, sierra leone