Global Voices Online

Please join us for the Global Voices 2006 Summit, December 16th in New Delhi, India!

WHAT: Global Voices Online is an award-winning online portal and guide to international blogs beyond North America and Western Europe. It has also become the hub of a growing community of international bloggers who want to build a better global conversation.

The Global Voices Summit, on December 16th, will be our annual opportunity to take stock, come together and explore our central question: How can we use the Internet to build a more democratic, participatory global discourse? How can we create a more inclusive conversation about what is happening on our planet, and how human beings in different parts of the world are impacting each other in countless ways we don't realize every day?

This year we also hope to address two further questions:

• How do we bring more unheard, ignored, or disadvantaged voices into the global online conversation?
• How do we help people speak and be heard - even when powerful people try to stop them from doing so?

(More below about schedule…)

WHO: Global Voices editors, contributors, community members, interested bloggers and journalists. Basically, anybody who is interested in what it means for media, geopolitics, and global society when the whole world starts talking online. Click here to see who is already committed to attend.

WHEN: 9am-5:30pm IST, Saturday December 16th, 2006
(A smaller private planning meeting will be held for GV editors and authors only on Sunday the 17th.)

HOW: If you'd like to join us, please add your name to the sign-up wiki here. UPDATE: Sign-up is now full, but you can add your name to our waiting list or participate remotely.

WHERE: At the Indian Habitat Centre

ONLINE: If you can't make it in person, please join us online via webcast and live chat. We will be posting more information on this page about how to do so as the time approaches

SATURDAY SCHEDULE:

9-10am: Overview: what Global Voices has accomplished to date

10:00-10:10 - QUICK COFFEE!!

10:10-12:00 - Outreach, starting with the case of India: how do we expand blogging and online/mobile citizens' media from being an activity of the elites to include the voices of the less privileged and rural communities?

12:00-1:30 - LUNCH on site with “breakout groups” (details TBA)

1:30-3:00 - Language and translation: This flows nicely from outreach: what are the best way to translate back and forth so that people writing/speaking in one language can be read and heard by speakers of other languages? This session would provide specific examples about what has worked so far, what hasn't, and some ideas for what might be done in the future to promote more communication across language groups.

3:00-4:30 - Technology tactics: What technologies and tools are most suited for bringing a more diverse range of people - ethnically, linguistically, economically, geographically - into the citizens' media community? Also, what tools are needed for people who want to speak but whose governments try to prevent them from doing so?

4:30-5:30 - wrap-up

FOR MORE INFO ABOUT PAST GLOBAL VOICES SUMMITS:

Global Voices 2005 London Summit:
Here is our summary of last year's meeting in London. Read articles about it in the Guardian and openDemocracy, an academic paper about us by the Center for Social Media, and a video titled “Many to Many” which includes footage from our London Summit.

Global Voices 2004 Harvard Meeting: where Global Voices was born!
Click here for an MP3 audio report about the 2004 meeting.
Or read this report at Personal Democracy Forum: International Bloggers Start Connecting the Dots

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