Global Voices » Ivan Sigal

Global Voices Seeks Contributing Editor for RuNet Echo Project

Ivan Sigal — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:06:43 +0000

Global Voices is seeking a part-time Contributing Editor to support our coverage of Russian citizen media, as part of our RuNet Echo project.

The project provides comprehensive and deep reporting on and analyses of the Russian-language online community. The purpose of the initiative is to deepen our coverage and analysis of Russian-language blogospheres, online speech and social networks.

Produce original analysis, research, and reporting based on our coverage of the Russian-language Internet.
Selectively follow up stories with in-depth research into compelling topics.
Monitor target civil society initiatives, websites, and movements.

The primary focus of our coverage and analysis is Russian-language online writing from and about the Russian Federation. Secondary content may also include Russian-language content from the former Soviet Union, as it relates to the Russian Federation.

The Contributing Editor will assist in producing and editing content for the project, including regular output of stories, translation, and networking. The editor will produce and/or edit several in-depth stories per week, as well as shorter posts linking and pointing to important topics, events, and writing as it occurs. The work will involve extensive translation, analysis, and further original research and reporting when appropriate, in order to elucidate and identify trends, ideas, and social and political currents within RuNet. Analysis will also examine how content in the Russian language space relates to other online communities, languages, and cultures, and offline Russian conversation, journalism, and social and political movements.

The Project Editor will also:

Help manage an ongoing Special Coverage section to consolidate and organize content from the RuNet project.
Work closely with Global Voices' existing Russian-focused editorial editors and authors.
Cultivate relationships with Russian bloggers and writers, toward the same end.
Present at conferences and events pertaining to the Russian online world, as needed

Successful applicants will have the following qualifications:

Fluency in English and Russian. Articles will be published in English, with minimal editing. Writing samples will be required as part of the application.
Familiarity with the Russian blogosphere, Russian social networks, and Russian political, social, economic, and cultural trends.
Ability to report on, analyze, and explain the Russian online world, in English and Russian.
Have the ability to work independently, in an unstructured work environment, and to work with a virtual community.
Be computer literate, comfortable working with programmers and technical language. Programming/HTML knowledge not required but strong familiarity with the use of online social media tools (blogging platforms, aggregators, use of RSS feeds, and tagging) is important.

Interested candidates please send CV and Letter of Interest explaining why you'd be a good candidate for the job to: adminjob AT globalvoicesonline DOT org

Interpreting RuNet is funded by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.

Global Voices seeks Chinese-language Editor

Ivan Sigal — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:55:42 +0000

Global Voices (GV) is seeking a part-time Editor to oversee our ongoing coverage of Chinese-language citizen media.

The Editor will direct the Chinese-language coverage and recruit and coordinate volunteer contributions. The Editor will produce and/or edit several in-depth stories per week, as well as shorter posts linking and pointing to important topics, events, and writing as it occurs. The work will involve translation, analysis, and editing, to elucidate and identify trends, ideas, and social and political currents within East Asian citizen media.

The Editor will be chiefly responsible for providing as broad and complete coverage as possible of citizen media of Chinese-language media, as follows:

Recruiting: recruiting authors to cover the countries in their region; for managing authors’ output and editing and publishing posts; and maintaining a regional Google Group.

Posting to the Global Voices web site:

4-6 posts per week. These can either be written by volunteer authors or the Editor, in recognition of the fact that some posts (especially those which need to be translated) require substantial editing.
5-10 “updates” per week. These posts can also either be written by volunteer authors or the Editor. They are short and typically include only one link.

Special coverage: In times of emergency, posting as much as possible, as soon as possible, as needed.

Interested candidates please send CV and Letter of Interest explaining why you'd be a good candidate for the job to: adminjob AT globalvoicesonline DOT org

We will be accepting applications through May 5, 2012.

See our vacancies page for other current opportunities with Global Voices.

Global Voices seeks Central Asia Editor

Ivan Sigal — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:11:05 +0000

Global Voices (GV) is seeking a part-time Editor to oversee our ongoing coverage of Central Asia.

The Editor will direct the Central Asian coverage and recruit and coordinate volunteer contributions. The Editor will produce and/or edit several in-depth stories per week, as well as shorter posts linking and pointing to important topics, events, and writing as it occurs. The work will involve translation, analysis, and editing, to elucidate and identify trends, ideas, and social and political currents within Central Asian citizen media.

The Editor will be chiefly responsible for providing as broad and complete coverage as possible of citizen media of the countries in the Central Asian region, as follows:

Recruiting: making good faith efforts to recruit authors to cover the countries in their region; for managing authors’ output and editing and publishing posts; and maintaining a regional Google Group.

Posting to the Global Voices web site:

3-4 posts per week. These can either be written by volunteer authors or the Editor, in recognition of the fact that some posts (especially those which need to be translated) require substantial editing.
3-6 “updates” per week. These posts can also either be written by volunteer authors or the Editor. They are short and typically include only one link.

Special coverage: In times of emergency, posting as much as possible, as soon as possible, as needed.

Interested candidates please send CV and Letter of Interest explaining why you'd be a good candidate for the job to: adminjob AT globalvoicesonline DOT org

We will be accepting applications through March 21, 2012.

See our vacancies page for other opportunities with Global Voices.

U.S. Bills Could Threaten the Global Internet

Ivan Sigal — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 21:26:40 +0000

At Global Voices, we understand that we, collectively, are the Internet. Our individual participation is what makes the Internet a global conversation of startling depth and variety, but this is possible only because of its open technical and legal structure. Unfortunately, there are powerful corporate and government forces who would prefer to see the openness and accessibility of the web restricted. They seek to deploy censorship and surveillance in the name of enforcing copyright, employing the very tools used to censor the Internet in authoritarian countries, such as China, Iran, and Syria.

Ignoring the warnings of citizens and technologists, United States lawmakers are considering two bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA), that are a real and dangerous threat to the openness of the web everywhere in the world. In response, the Global Voices community has decided to join websites such as Wikipedia, Reddit and BoingBoing in “going dark” and will black out the Global Voices Advocacy site for 12 hours on January 18, and display a banner on other Global Voices sites that provides more information about the proposed bills.

We are an international volunteer community dedicated to amplifying citizen media from around the world. In the last six years, we’ve produced more than 75,000 posts that link to blogs and other citizen content for readers in over 20 languages. Our content is free to use, and free to share. We rely on the open Internet to carry out our mission, and on social media and citizen media websites that allow for simple publication and sharing of content. Platforms like WordPress, Wikipedia, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Reddit, Tumblr, and many other online media production communities host content on which we base much of our work.

The passage of SOPA and PIPA by the United States Congress and Senate would force social media platforms and other web sites that host user-generated content to pro-actively monitor and censor users to prevent them from posting words or images that may violate copyrights. It would raise the cost of participation on these sites for all users worldwide, and could force many social media projects to shut down, especially smaller websites and businesses.

We are concerned this law would will inflict broad damage on the work of digital activists living under repressive regimes, as well as restrict basic speech freedoms around the world. Current copyright laws are occasionally misused in the U.S, and can result in de facto speech restrictions. In countries with less independent judicial systems, abuse of copyright law to repress activism is both simple and frequent.

Global Voices contributors in many countries face increasingly aggressive surveillance and censorship. Several are in prison or exile because of their online activities. Passage of these bills will send a clear message that the US government believes it is acceptable to monitor and censor citizens to identify “infringing activity” which too often is equated with political and religious dissent. Passage of SOPA and PIPA would also give the United States government a disproportionate amount of power to determine the course of the Internet. The result will be a more dangerous world for bloggers and activists, and less free speech for all.

Even though the current version of SOPA was put indefinitely on hold this week, PIPA, the Senate version of the bill, is still alive. And the issues and forces that are driving the passage of a law remain. For this reason, Global Voices is joining the Internet blackout on January 18, 2012.

Recent Global Voices Advocacy posts on SOPA/PIPA:

Trevor Tim, ”How PIPA and SOPA Violate White House Principles Supporting Free Speech and Innovation”
Katitza Rodriguez, “SOPA undermines the U.S. in its negotiations for a free, open Internet”
Weiping Li, “For Chinese Netizens, SOPA is Another Great Firewall”
Yoo Eun Lee, “Stop Online Piracy Act: The Fight Continues”

Other resources for understanding the effects of SOPA/PIPA:

Joi Ito and Ethan Zuckerman, “Why we need to stop SOPA and PIPA”
“Internet Blacklist Legislation“, Electronic Frontier Foundation, EFF's email campaign against the legislation and EFF guide to meeting with your representatives. EFF also explains how SOPA/PIPA will hurt open source software creation.
Dan Rowinsky, “What You Need to Know about SOPA in 2012“, ReadWriteWeb
Wikipedia, “Stop Online Piracy Act”
Rebecca MacKinnon and Ivan Sigal, “Online piracy laws must preserve Web freedom, CNN.”

What you can do:

If you are an American citizen, Americancensorship.org can help you to quickly communicate with your elected representatives, or help you to join the strike. Learn more about the strike at www.sopastrike.com.

Global Voices Seeks Administration and Finance Manager

Ivan Sigal — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:50:44 +0000

Global Voices seeks a Finance and Administration Manager to support our operations on a daily basis. The selected candidate will join a small, energetic team of project directors, editors, and technical staff who run Global Voices projects. Global Voices has experienced rapid growth in the past year, and requires an efficient manager who can help us to improve and maintain our administrative and financial processes, work with us on developing and maintaining operational budgets, and help build efficient and cost-effective operations solutions as we expand.

The manager will be responsible for the following:

Manage Global Voices finances on a daily basis, including maintaining and updating the operational budget, tracking and categorizing incoming revenue, processing invoices, coding and preparing expenses, reconciling the budget on a monthly basis, managing bank relationships, and working closely with our accounting firm on all aspects of financial management.
Maintain and update records of all grants, contracts, and other revenue sources, including a monthly expenditures against grants, and a calendar of financial and administrative reporting obligations.
Maintain and update legal and regulatory files, tax filings, personnel files, and staff benefits, and other administrative matters as needed.
Design and update document and budget templates and forms.
Work with other core staff members to draft proposal budgets.
Work with department heads to set up and maintain department budgets.

We are seeking a candidate with the following skills:

Previous experience in nonprofit finance and administration, including experience managing grants, revenue, and bookkeeping.
Strong Microsoft Excel and Quickbooks skills.
Previous experience with grant and contracts administration, management of revenue flows.
Highly organized and efficient, with the ability to multi-task.
Ability to work independently in a wholly virtual environment - Global Voices has no office or physical headquarters.

To work effectively with our community, we would prefer that candidates:

Have experience living and working internationally, or have traveled extensively in the developing world
Have experience working in diverse, multicultural environments.

Candidates located in Trinidad and Tobago or Washington D.C. may receive some preference, as several of our key managers are based in those cities.

The ideal candidate should have a commitment to the values and goals of Global Voices, they will be joining a relatively new and growing management team who are dedicated to amplifying the voices of world. There is no geographic requirement associated with this position, but travel is expected. Candidates must have access to broadband internet connectivity and comfortable using VOIP services such as Skype, and be comfortable working in a wholly virtual environment. We welcome candidates from outside North America and Europe, and encourage people currently working on the Global Voices project to apply.

The position is full-time, but employment status will be independent contractor.

To express your interest, please send a cover letter and CV to “adminjob AT globalvoicesonline DOT org” by no later than October 17, 2011.

Bahrain: News on Pearl Roundabout Crackdown Flows

Ivan Sigal — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 02:32:46 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage of Bahrain Protests 2011.

Eyewitness and amplified reports on Twitter are coming in fast about the pre-dawn raid on protesters at Bahrain's Pearl Roundabout.

Twitter user @Hisham_g reports on attacks on international media:

RT @khabarNYC: @chanadbh CNN crew were ripped off their equipment at the airport by security…media blackout#Bahrain

[Audio] ABC's Miguel Marquez Beaten in#Bahrain - ABC News -http://goo.gl/gA3Ts #Feb14

Regime in #Bahrain is counting on media fatigue.. waited for western hemisphere to go 2 sleep to crackdown on 1000s of peaceful protesters

[Video] - قمع السميره السلميه في دوار اللؤلوه -http://goo.gl/9YcSJ #Bahrain

Global Voices Author Amira al Hussaini has reported slow and intermittent Internet, but has been managing to update on the protests via her Twitter feed @justamira:

Thank u 4 ur support: I ask you to direct them to the people on the ground: I watched from the sidelines: A witness to this massacre #Feb14

Followed #SidiBouzid and cried; followed #Jan25 and cried; and now#Feb14 is in my backyard: I feel numb and betrayed. #Bahrain

This post is part of our special coverage of Bahrain Protests 2011.

Egypt: Information getting out despite information blackout

Ivan Sigal — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:24:48 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage of Egypt Protests 2011.

Egyptian authorities yesterday shut down the Internet and ordered closures of cell phone networks, in anticipation of today's protests. The shutdown has significantly curtailed the information flow through those channels. The four main internet providers are not working at present. Only the stock market continues to have internet. Blackberry services are working sporadically, and most cell phones are down.

Internet activists are also reminding Egyptians that both internet and cell phone services can be used to track users, and that security precautions are vital. EFF activist Eva Galperin, in a Global Voices Advocacy guest post, says:

it is absolutely critical that Egyptian protesters take precautions when communicating online. To reiterate, social networking tools have given activists a powerful voice, which can be heard well beyond Egypt, but activists should also remember that the Egyptian government could use these same tools to identify and retaliate against them.

Despite that, some writers and observers continue to use digital media to get their message out. Activists have found ways around the shutdown.

People around the world are focusing on radio, TV and print media. They have also been using landlines to call colleagues, friends, an relatives outside of Egypt, who are then sending messages in their name, or using landlines to connect to outside internet services.

Nora Shalaby, for example says:

I'm tweeting on behalf of my sister from the states! 2 people seen pouring gasoline on cars in downtown cairo today w/police nearby..#jan25

Jan25 Voices, @Jan25voices has set up a new feed specifically to breech the internet block. They began sending messages January 28, and quickly garnered more than 700 followers. Their feed says:

We are using phones and other means to speak with Egyptians behind the blocked internet, tweeting their words in real time. contact: jan25voices(at)gmail.com

They are attempting to name the source in each twitter. A typical post:

Live Phonecall: Unconfirmed story from someone in Suez that a buldozer was used on a police station. #jan25 #jan28 #Egypt

Many others are feeding off of the images from Al Jazeera English, which is streaming live, although the images have been scrambled in Egypt, and are not available. CNN has been streaming Egyptian state TV. A screenshot from Al Jazeera:

Protesters take a prayer break. Al Jazeera English screenshot, January 28, 2010

Al Jazeera reports on the air that there is an attempted media blackout, and that their reporters, as well as other international and local journalists have received warnings, and may be shut down.

International broadcasters and journalists with other access points also continue to get online, and are using their outside bureaux.

In some ways, the Egyptian use of internet and cell phones as a tool for reporting is exactly opposite to the Iranian protests in June 2009. In this case, mass media have continued to function, at least for audiences outside of Egypt, but networked media have been severely curtailed. Finally, despite the shutdown, the networked nature of Egypt's society has connected people to the point that a shutdown is primarily reactive. Street protests will now have their own momentum.

Egypt: Twittering from the Rooftops

Ivan Sigal — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:26:23 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage of Egypt Protests 2011.

The Egyptian Twittersphere on #jan25 is thick with stories of the ongoing unrest. For observers, the rooftops have become a favored vantage. In Suez, Ian Lee @ianinegypt captures the feeling:

I'm shooting video from rooftops, too dangerous for foreigners on street. Numbers in thousands. #jan25 #suez

A lot of Twitter coverage on #jan25 is in English, suggesting that it is being used for amplification and international news purposes, rather than for organizational purposes on the ground. Metaphorically as well, social media present a rooftop vantage.

Jailan El-Rafie's tweet captures this mood. She translates, and then tweets about her English version of a descriptive essay by a filmmaker, Amr Salama.

http://on.fb.me/g7OWvM This is @AmrMSalama 's article, in English. Please RT so we can get more people to read it. #Egypt #Jan25

Salama's story is itself a media event; both a graphic account the beating he took by police, and a self-observed and reported view of himself as demonstrator. He begins his story by identifying himself as playing a role:

The street was totally vacant of people, and in the horizon I could see a mass of people. At first I thought they were protesters but then I noticed that they all were dressed in black, coming in our direction and holding black sticks. I remembered the scenes from old war movies, like Braveheart and Gladiator, and I had the exact feeling of old battle grounds, and I found myself one of the first people to run towards the approaching lines of police.

Salama's story quickly turns grim. He changes roles, from action hero to war reporter to victim:

I had my dear iPhone in hand, and I was trying to take photos or record videos, until I got surrounded by a large enough amount of soldiers who started beating me ferociously with their sticks, delivering painful blows on my head, face, stomach and legs.

As the beating continues, Salama is dragged off the street and beaten multiple times:

Then we entered a building, the nice soldiers escorting, he locked the entrance, tripped my legs and got me on the ground, then started the painful episode of vicious beating.

He reports that he begins to imagine himself as a social media martyr:

Visions about my family, how this was going to affect them, about the movie that I hadn’t finished directing yet, about the page that would be created about me on Facebook, and I wondered if it would have the title “We all are Amr Salama”. I also thought about the statement the Ministry of Interior would issue, saying that I must have died after accidently swallowing my iPhone.

Saved by some of the soldiers, he is able to escape. He then pinpoints his motives:

I discovered that the most important thing is that I realized these things, that I know why I was beaten, why I protested, and that I know that without signs and complex political demands I understood why I endured all this. I endured all this because I want a better Egypt, a better Egypt without absolute ongoing power to anyone of its governors, and a better Egypt without a large gap in social structure.

Nora Shalaby contributes a Flickr set that shows a different face of protest. Kinetic night images of crowds and celebrations.

Al Jazeera has pulled together a compilation of intense “Amateur video from the streets.” Included is a dramatic video by malakndawood that shows protesters tumbling from a water truck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoKQLr439Ww&feature=player_embedded

MFMAegy's video, shot from the rooftoops, may be the greatest echo of famous protest imagery. This video from January 25 shows Egypt's Tiananmen moment, with a similar camera angle:

Screenshot of MFMAegy's YouTube video. A protester confronts a water cannon.

Screenshot of Wikipedia article showing Tiananmen Square "tank man."

This post is part of our special coverage of Egypt Protests 2011.

Russia: “Help Map” Wins Runet Award

Ivan Sigal — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 20:06:27 +0000

I’d like to congratulate Grisha Asmolov and Alexey Sidorenko from Global Voice's RuNet Echo project for receiving a RuNet Award [ru] for their project “Help Map” (Russian-fires.ru). It's wonderful to report that members of the GV community have received the most prestigious award in the Russian Internet. Even more exciting, Grisha and Alexey won it in the “State and Society” category, beating out a wide range of other important laureates [ru].

Russian Fires team accepts the 2010 Runet Award. Photo by Gregory Asmolov, Creative Commons noncommercial license, some rights reserved.

“Help Map” is a project to crowdsource and map unprecedented wildfires outside of Moscow in summer 2010. The project quickly became an important base for volunteers to provide resources and lend a hand during weeks of crisis. Global Voices articles covering the “Help Map” can be found in Global Voices' Russian Wildfires 2010 special coverage, from August-September 2010.

Screenshot of russianfires.ru

“Help Map” was the first deployment of the Ushahidi platform in Russia and one of the more successful in Ushahidi's history. Together with other centers of aid coordination, “Help Map” was an inspiring example of online activism providing an offline change. It also demonstrated that Russian citizens will engage in civic participation when given a real opportunity to make a difference - an idea that's counter to common perceptions of Russian civic engagement as cynical and passive. As Gregory Asmolov says:

The activity of the Russian online community wasn't limited to helping wildfire victims. Bloggers created units of volunteer firefighters, went into the field and eventually provided immediate response. Along with the comprehensive instructions on how to become a firefighter, how to fight various types of wildfires, and what equipment volunteers should have, the Internet provided a platform for 24-hour coordination and exchange of information about the rapidly changing situation.

Patrick Meier on the Ushahidi blog also comments on Russian citizen engagement:

The “Help Map” demonstrated that Russian network society is not a passive audience, but it has an active core with high degree of social accountability…the “Help Map” participation and achievement is a symbolic precedent. It is the first time that the most prestigious Russian Internet state sponsored award recognizes that network society can be as important as traditional hierarchical organizations.

The “Runet Award” is sponsored by Russian Federal Agency of Mass Communications. It is the national award granted for significant contribution to the Russian Internet's development and is known as the Russia “Internet Oscar.” The Runet Award ceremony is broadcast on Russian state TV, and can be found online on the Russian news channel Vesti. Congratulations Grisha and Alex!

Hiring: Global Voices Seeks Director for Rising Voices

Ivan Sigal — Fri, 21 May 2010 15:29:57 +0000

Global Voices seeks a Program Director for its Rising Voices citizen media training and outreach initiative. Rising Voices was launched in May 2007 with the support of a Knight News Challenge Award. Rising Voices seeks to empower under-represented communities to make their voices heard online by 1) providing financial support to outreach projects, 2) developing a series of participatory media tutorials, and 3) cultivating a network of passionate citizen media activists to help encourage and support the replication of outreach trainings. Over the past three years Rising Voices has funded 22 grantee projects, published a series of multilingual guides, and grown its mailing list related to citizen media development to around 1,000 subscribers. Rising Voices, working together with other Global Voices projects, creates a path for local stories and voices to reach a global audience through translation, contextualization, and advocacy.

Global Voices is a global, virtual organization, supported by the paid and volunteer efforts of over 400 people on every continent. The director of Rising Voices must possess a wide range of professional and personal skills to help the project reach its potential as the leading international network for the development of successful and impactful citizen media projects.

The Rising Voices director will be responsible for the following:

- Management oversight of Rising Voices staff and current grantee projects, including direct communication with project leaders, grant disbursement, financial oversight, and technical support
- Design and coordinate future microgrant competitions to support the development of new citizen media projects in communities that are currently under-represented in both traditional and new media
- Facilitate the translation, contextualization, and editorial amplification of content from each project so that it is repurposed in a variety of media
- Build and maintain relationships with partners, other networks, and donors interested in supporting specific issue initiatives related to citizen media development
- Draft and manage operating budgets for the program - in collaboration with Global Voices' Managing Director and Executive Director
- Update, aggregate, develop, and distribute a collection of guides, tutorials, and resources related to citizen media production with a focus on community development
- Foster networks of participatory media initiatives in underserved communities around the world, and increase access to knowledge resources, best practices, and training materials for those networks
- Work with media and technology conference organizers to ensure active participation of citizen media projects from under-represented communities
- Promote and facilitate the localization of free and open source software into languages that are currently not supported
- Extensive travel in the course of supporting the work of grantee projects and representing Rising Voices

Specifically, we are seeking a candidate with

- Strong leadership skills
- Experience managing a multilingual, multicultural team
- Strong technical skills and experience with citizen media, including blogging, podcasting, and digital video
- Familiarity with the open source software and open content communities
- Strategic planning experience, preferably in a nonprofit or media context
- The ability to work independently and be able to produce results

To work effectively with our community, we would prefer that candidates:

- Have experience living and working internationally, or have traveled extensively in the developing world
- Are active bloggers or creators of online media
- Are multilingual, with fluency in English and at least one other language
- Have experience working in diverse, multicultural environments.

The ideal candidate must have a passionate commitment to the values and goals of Global Voices, they will be joining a well established team of editors and authors who are dedicated to amplifying the voices of world. There is no geographic requirement associated with this position - Global Voices has no office, headquarters, etc. - but substantial travel is expected. Candidates must have access to broadband internet connectivity and be comfortable working in a wholly virtual environment. We strongly welcome candidates from outside North America and Europe, and encourage people currently working on the Global Voices project to apply.

The position is full-time, but should be treated as a freelance contract.

To express your interest, please send a cover letter and CV to “rvjob AT globalvoicesonline DOT org” by no later than June 10.

Announcing the Winners of the Breaking Borders Award

Ivan Sigal — Fri, 07 May 2010 18:55:25 +0000

Honoring those who are working to advance free expression on the Internet, Google and Global Voices today have announced the first winners of the Breaking Borders Award.

The awards, supported by Thomson Reuters, recognize outstanding web projects initiated by individuals or groups that demonstrate courage, energy and resourcefulness in using the Internet to promote freedom of expression.

The prizes, each of which comes with a USD $10,000 grant, honors work in three categories: advocacy, technology, and policy.

Malou Mangahas of the Philippines, Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Uganda and Brenda Burrell of Zimbabwe accepted the Breaking Borders award on behalf of their organisations

From Google and Global Voices, and from Thomson Reuters and our award jury, we'd like to congratulate our winners for their initiative, creativity and achievements, for citizen benefit.

The winners are:

In the Technology category:

Bosco - Uganda
In April 2007, BOSCO was launched as a solar powered, long-range wireless computer network covering locations in former Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps across Gulu and Amuru districts in northern Uganda. Low power PCs and VoIP phones were installed in schools, health centers and parish offices, bringing Internet, phone and Intranet connectivity to remote areas. BOSCO's long-term vision is to provide innovative information and communication technology (ICT) solutions to foster social and economic development and peace building in rural communities of northern Uganda using a collaborative, web-based approach. Currently, BOSCO focuses on developing and facilitating Web 2.0 training, online digital ethnography and collaborative online communication mediums between Internet sites. BOSCO currently works in partnership with Inveneo, Horizont3000, War Child Holland, the Gulu Archdiocese and UNICEF.

In the Policy category:

The Philippines Center for Investigative Journalism
An independent, not-for-profit media agency, the PCIJ was founded by nine Filipino journalists in 1989 — with borrowed office space, an old-DOS-based computer, a second-hand electric typewriter, and office furniture bought from a thrift shop — to promote the values of investigative reporting in fostering good governance, freedom of expression, and the people's right to know. In 20 years, the PCIJ has produced 500 investigative reports, two dozen books on journalism and governance, five-full-length films and dozens of video documentaries. It has conducted a hundred training seminars for journalists in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, and won over 120 national and international awards. The PCIJ maintains a multimedia website, www.pcij.org; an institutional blog, www.pcij.org/blog; a database site on politics and governance, i-site.ph; and institutional accounts on Twitter and YouTube.

In the Advocacy Category:

Kubatana.net
An online community for Zimbabwean activists, Kubatana uses the Internet, email, SMS, blogs and print materials to disseminate information to the general public. An online library of over 16 000 human rights and civic reports together with a directory listing over 240 NGOs makes Kubatana a valuable resource for information on Zimbabwe. And that's not all! Kubatana has developed Freedom Fone, innovative telephony software, which takes the mobile phone and marries it with audio voice menus and SMS, for citizen benefit.

Google and Global Voices announced the winners at an awards ceremony held during the Global Voices Summit in Santiago, Chile May 6-7.

Information about the Summit can be found at: http://summit2010.globalvoicesonline.org/. More information about the Breaking Borders award can be found at http://breakingborders.net/.

The ceremony, and the Summit, will be available on Livestream or Ustream at http://summit2010.globalvoicesonline.org/program/video/.

We will liveblog the event at http://summit2010.globalvoicesonline.org/program/liveblog/.

You can also follow the Summit Twitter feed, @gvsummit2010, with hashtag #GV2010.

Pakistan: Internet and the challenge of language

Ivan Sigal — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:28:22 +0000

This post is part of our special coverage Languages and the Internet.

Pakistan today would seem primed for rapid growth in internet use. The country has had explosive growth of FM radio, satellite and cable TV set in motion by regulatory changes that allow non-state ownership of mass media. Cell phone use has also skyrocketed, with over 90 million subscribers. With a growing middle class that numbers some 30-40 million in a country of some 180 million people, Internet use should also see similar growth.

However, there are several constraints that mitigate that expansion, both structural, as in chronic electricity shortages, and social, particularly focused on language. Literacy hovers at around 50% in Pakistan, but while most people understand Urdu, Pakistan’s national language, less that 10% of the population speaks and writes it as a native. Provincial languages such as Sindhi, Punjabi, Pashto, and Balochi, as well regional languages such as Seraiki and Kashmiri are native languages for the majority of the population, and English is the official language of governance.

This language fragmentation has consequences for internet use. No one Pakistani language effectively serves both the reading and content creation needs of Pakistan’s netizens. As a consequence, English remains the popular choice online. In an interview, Adnan Rehmat of Intermedia Pakistan says that English is an “aspirational” language, a marker for education and access to resources, and because English provides access to a global linguistic community. Additionally, several regional Pakistani languages such as Punjabi are primarily oral languages, without strong literary cultures.

Fouad Bajwa, writing on Internet’s Governance, describes the problem further:

A key pressing issue with relevance to both the local Internet and Mobile Technology scenario in Pakistan has been availability of local content and making the local content widely accessible to the community at large across Pakistan and the entire world using a variety of currently available technology platforms.

There have been few concerted efforts to create Unicode fonts for Pakistani language scripts. Nastaliq, the popular font for Urdu, is not yet widely adapted in Unicode. Online writing in the main either uses an Arabic font, as with the relatively popular BBC and Google fonts, or it uses image files pasted into text.

There is not yet a broadly accepted font in use for either mass media of citizen media production. Many mainstream media still use image files, which requires that the text be composed on another platform, and discourages hyperlinking, as with a recent issue of the Daily Jang online.

Screenshot of Daily Jang ePaper, May 2010

The Pakistani government has provided little policy guidance for language use. In an interview Ahmad Shahzad of Bytes for All notes that the National Language Authority of Pakistan lacks resources, knowledge of digital issues, and a sense of urgency or policy priorities for Pakistani language expansion online.

There are a number of projects that have been working to fix this problem over the past decade. Perhaps the most comprehensive comes out of the Centre for Research in Urdu Language Processing, at Lahore’s National University of Computer & Emerging Sciences (CRULP). The Centre’s director, Professor Sarmad Hussain, has been working to support Nastaliq in Unicode since 2002. They describe their objective to ”conduct research for the evolution of computational models of Urdu and Pakistan’s other regional languages.” Their projects develop standard character sets, localize popular software and online applications, such as Microsoft Word, Firefox, and Open Office, and script processing for fonts that can support all Pakistani languages.

They are also working on optical character recognition and speech processing tools such as screen readers for the illiterate and blind users, and language processing tools such as spell checkers and machine translation. CMS platforms in Nastaliq, as well as mobile scripts.

Additionally, CRULP’s PAN Localization project is working to develop local language computing capacity in a dozen Asian languages, including Urdu, Pastho, and Bangla. The project seeks to develop tools to facilitate the use localization of advanced applications.

These scripts and their wider promotion, as well as the availability of content management systems in Urdu and language processing tools, has gone some way to making Urdu a functional language of content creation.

Other tools now available facilitate the shift from English to Urdu, including Google’s Urdu transliteration tool and the Dynamic Language Tools Bookmarklet, which supports transliteration of Urdu to both English and Hindi. Syed Ghulam Akbar, the bookmarklet’s creator, describes his motivation in a post on the Pakistani science blog STEP:

The main inspiration behind this tool development was not actually Urdu writing. In fact, there are many existing tools and applications which let users type Urdu either using a special keyboard layout or by using roman script transliteration. What actually inspired me to develop this tool was to provide a way to easily convert the roman content on all the existing web-pages to Urdu script so that it is more readable.

Together, the advancement of scripts, applications, and platforms in Urdu will go some way to advancing a culture of online production in Urdu. The relative lag in their availability does, however, highlight the general sense that English will continue to be the language of choice for many in Pakistan’s online world.

This lag can be addressed in several ways, including wide promotion of available tools and their application, support for both mass media and citizen media communities to discover, learn about, and implement creative use of these tools, and support to build bridges and networks among communities. For this reason, Fouad Bajwa is seeking to build an Online Urdu Encyclopedia:

It will create a converged environment overtime for presenting updated knowledge that is usable through reading, listening and visuals for both social and economic awareness, education, knowledge application in various fields, higher education, competitive exams, expert resources and endless Urdu language options.

At present there is no Urdu Wikipedia community, and few Urdu-language blog aggregators, such as http://urdublogs.co.cc/, capacity among mainstream media to produce searchable-text, Unicode-based online media, and a lack of mobile telephony platforms and applications for Urdu.

This post is part of our special coverage Languages and the Internet.

SuperPower: BBC and Global Voices

Ivan Sigal — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:44:08 +0000

It's a great pleasure for me to announce a joint project between Global Voices and BBC News as part of the BBC's SuperPower season, which launches today.

This past year has been particularly eye-opening in terms of the increasing interplay between mainstream media and citizen journalism. Events in Mumbai, Moldova, Iran, Haiti, and now Chile are but a few examples in which the world has been eager to make immediate and direct contact with citizens in crisis in local contexts. These citizens may have had blogs, Twitter accounts, and cell phones for years, but only in the last year has the mainstream media adopted the narrative of citizen media as an integrated element in their news reporting.

When Global Voices was created at Havard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society five years ago, the initiative focused on citizens in developing countries and non-English speaking societies who were beginning to use blogs to build bridges to people from different cultures and countries. What could be learned from reading and translating the words of online dissidents in China? What could be gained by reading the blogs of Arab women? And how could Global Voices encourage mainstream media to recognize the value and benefits of sourcing intelligent and locally admired bloggers in their own reporting?

Over the years, we at Global Voices have become close partners and friends of organisations such as Reuters, the BBC, CNN, La Stampa in Italy, and many others. At the same time, internet access has increased such that it has reached a threshold of awareness and participation in most countries around the world. In countries where just a few years ago the number of blogs could be counted on one hand, there are now thousands of citizens typing away, telling their own stories and documenting the world around them. Lives and communities have changed as a result. In aggregate, the internet has collapsed many of the working principles of mass media social and political communications, creating multiple, overlapping platforms for people to speak, participate, and organize.

At Global Voices, we've continually sought new ways to complement the news cycle and develop new platforms to highlight how global citizens are communicating in their own words. We have a virtual, grassroots newsroom made up of more than 200 talented and innovative individuals from countries you rarely get to hear about in the news.

When I last met with the editor of the BBC News website, Steve Herman, in June 2009, we discussed how we might collaborate on investigating the role and effects of citizen media throughout the world, with a focus on how local perspectives can affect global news.

Since then, we've seen mainstream media cover major conflicts such as Iran substantially through the eyes of citizen content. The idea that citizen journalism is somehow opposed to or in conflict with traditional journalism is now clearly past; it's evident that both exist in symbiotic relationship to one another, with many opportunities to collaborate on the creation of news, storytelling, and distribution of content.

For two weeks, we will be exploring opportunities to put those collaborations into practice. Global Voices managing editor Solana Larsen will be visiting the BBC newsroom in London. We'll be adding citizen media links within BBC news stories, while sharing off-the-radar stories from our own newsroom with BBC editors and reporters. From the frontlines of online battles of freedom of expression to everyday stories about language, culture, and daily life in foreign blogs, we look forward to sharing our best with a broader audience.

Ivan Sigal is executive director of Global Voices Online.

Breaking Borders award at the GV Summit 2010

Ivan Sigal — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:58:17 +0000

The Breaking Borders Award is a new prize created by Google and Global Voices and supported by Thomson Reuters to honor outstanding web projects initiated by individuals or groups that demonstrate courage, energy and resourcefulness in using the Internet to promote freedom of expression. Closing date for applications is February 15. Get your nominations in soon!

We're excited to announce that the Breaking Borders winners will be announced at the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2010, in Santiago, Chile on May 6-7, 2010.

Visit the Summit web site for background information on the goals of the meeting, the program of events, and registration details.

Over the next days and weeks we'll be fleshing out the program, adding speaker bios, a list of attendees and more, and do keep checking in at the site for blog posts and commentary from Summit participants and others, as well as to join in the conversation.

You can also help spread the word about the Global Voices Summit and Breaking Borders by flying one of our Summit badges or banners on your blog or web site.

The Breaking Borders Award is open to people of all nationalities. Winners will be selected by a panel of experts in the field of freedom of expression. A cash prize of $10,000 will be awarded in each of three areas:

1. Advocacy, given to an activist or group that has used online tools to promote free expression or encourage political change
2. Technology, given to an individual or group that has created an important tool that enables free expression and expands access to information
3. Policy, given to a policy maker, government official or NGO leader who has made a notable contribution in the field

Nominations for and additional information about the Breaking Borders Award can be submitted at http://breakingborders.net and close on February 15, 2010.

Who writes about ICT4D online?

Ivan Sigal — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:34:57 +0000

Over the past months Global Voices has been engaged in researching and writing about ICT for development supported by Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The challenge was to find out what was being said about ICT4D in global blogs and citizen media. We wanted to see what was being said beyond the halls of science, by practitioners in their own words.

We've collected our findings on a Future of ICT for Development special coverage page.

So what's being said?

After several months of dedicated analysis and writing about how ICT for development is covered on the web, here are some thoughts about the online availability of information about ICT4D – from academic articles, to conversation, commentary, and citizen media reflections on what works, what’s difficult and what is worth sharing.

It has been six years since the IDRC and Harvard held their first groundbreaking forum on ICTs and poverty. Since then there have been a great many zeros and ones spilled about practice and scholarship of ICT4D online. Much of this takes the form of research papers, books, and presentations produced by scholars or practitioners affiliated with institutions and nonprofit organizations.

It is, however, relatively more difficult to find blogs and citizen media content from unaffiliated individuals, and from those who experience the benefits, and sometimes challenges of internet technologies in developing-world contexts. While there are scattered discussions and commentaries, sustained, community-driven dialogue is not easy to find. This is perhaps not surprising, given the often complex and technical nature of the field.

Phone charging station in Uganda, 2008, by Ken Banks - kiwanja.net

There has been tremendous improvements in internet access and explosive growth of cell phones in developing world, as Matthew Smith outlines in his essay for IDRC/Harvard’s latest conference, Communication and Human Development: The Freedom Connection? in September 2009.

However, GV’s research (led by Aparna Ray and John Liebhardt) has found ambiguous evidence of online discussion of these themes that advances beyond well-worn anecdotes of fishermen with mobile phones. Those discussions surely exist, if not online; a look at the Manthan Awards in South Asia, for example, gives us a window into communities of practitioners in this field, and the focus of their work.

In general, we observed that there are several categories of people writing online about ICT4D:

People who both understand grassroots development needs and are proficient in ICT. A very small percentage of online writers fall in this category. These people have the skills to develop tools/ techniques, speak the language of ICT4D, and are able to get exposure for their projects.
Academics who are interested in the field. They are able to develop concepts in ICT4D, and mostly run small research projects to prove/ disprove their hypotheses, build concepts, and make predictions. There is a lot of energy here - perhaps why we saw so many research papers in our web searches. These people explore and predict trends, but are not often in contact with grassroots folks, and rarely implement projects.
Everyone else either comes from the ICT community, and open to designing tools for development/ social projects, or people working in the development sector who need ICT solutions but have relatively low/ no knowledge of ICT. These two sets of people do not usually speak the same language.

Broadly speaking, many development experts seem hesitant to learn technical skills and languages. They may want a ICT solutions, but there are numerous obstacles to engagement, including expertise, time, resources, and organizational culture. Hence ICT experts sense that development practitioners are rarely clear about helpful solutions.

Likewise, ICT tool developers may not involve development communities in the need analysis/ development phase, producing many solutions that are top-down, and without user support.

Solutions and strategies:

ICT4D is a vibrant theme, but also quite complex, and with little awareness outside of specialist communities. Our first months of coverage have captured some of the best of existing citizen media writing. A next step would be to fill the gaps in coverage and language that we found. Some approaches:

Continued engagement: Much more can be written, with a focus on clarifying who the audiences are for content.

Popularizing complex ideas: much of the content of the GV posts is news for those who are not in the ICT space; for ICT experts, it has less to offer. How stories are reported is key. Strategies include:

Conducting interviews with experts and practitioners to simplify language and concepts for target audiences.
Finding a common language and platform for dialogue among people both in grassroots development and in ICT technology development.
Including writers from different perspectives and parts of the world.
Highlighting the work of interesting ICT projects.
Focusing on user experience and feedback.

John Liebhardt and Aparna Ray contributed to the observations and conclusions in this post.