At Global Voices Online, we have been following blogs and other social platforms for some time now. Increasingly, we are encountering netizens rallying together and successfully hightlighting issues, political crisis or a natural disaster around them to a wider audience.
In this last session of the summit, we invite you to help us understand just what motivates online activists to rally together and push their stories to interst people beyond their geographic reach. Our panelists will be sharing experiences from their projects and regions. We will try to find out what obstacles (techonological and non-tecnological) that the activists faced in publisising their agendas. Are there ideas or techniques that other groups can use? What makes the world listen?
Speakers
Lova Rakotomalala is a Global Voices author for Madagascar. Lova is also the Malagasy language editor for Global Voices. Lova coordinates the Foko-Madagascar Rising Voices Project. Lova's presentation will focus on how citizen journalists in Madagascar helped in disaster relief during the cyclone season and how they contrbuted with their timely updates. Lova will also draw parallels with similar online mobilizations after recent natural disasters in Myanamar and Sichuan, China.
Juliana Rotich [2]
Juliana Rotich is the Environmental Editor for Global Voices. Juliana is also involved in the Ushahidi, a mashup project created to document post-election violence in Kenya. Juliana will be talking about her observations and the ideas that came out of the mashup project.
Neha Viswanathan [3]
Neha Viswanathan is the South Asia Regional Editor for Global Voices. Neha will be presenting on online community initiatives that focus on prevalent issues that are usually ignored by the government and mainstream media. There are various instances in South Asia where bloggers and members of social networking groups have highlighted issues such as cyber censorship, street sexual harassment, using technology to foster peace and creating resources for disaster management.
How can you participate?
We also want you to share ideas and strategies from your projects (or projects in your region) where online citizens have been able to go beyond their geographic boundaries to spread awareness about their agendas. If you can't make it the summit, Leave a comment here or Email me (at preetamrai@gmail.com) and tell me about your project. We will be happy to share with the attendees.