Malaysiakini.com, one of the biggest alternative news blogs in the country. According to USINFO, a publication of the Department of State, alternative media played a key role in the March 8 parliamentary elections in Malaysia. The ruling Barisan National (BN) party received a surprising blow when it lost 58 seats in the 222-seat Dewan Rakyat. Although the BN still holds 63% of seats, it lost its commanding two-thirds majority. The BN has ruled Malaysia for 50 years. At a forum
(Leer más)
Today I joined Twitter,a service that lets you follow the public SMS dispatches of people you find interesting. I am equally willing to believe that it will be a fabulously useful new social networking medium or a sparkly excuse to distract myself with increasingly hummingbird-like multitasking. Guess I'll see. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/Mary_Joyce
I'm really pleased that my friend Ken Banks' text-messaging hub for grassroots NGOs, FrontlineSMS, has been selected as a finalist for the Stockholm Challenge, a prestigious competition that rewards the best in ICT for development. Read more on the Stockholm Challenge site.
According to a recent article in The Economist, "technology is spreading to emerging markets faster than it has ever done anywhere." The World Bank studied how long it took after the initial invention of a new technology for 80% of surveyed countries to report use. The result are that adoption rates have decreased dramatically in the past 200 years (see graph). Whereas it took 120 for trains to be adopted in "developing" countries in the 19th century and 60 years
(Leer más)
Ushahidi is a visual map of human rights abuses reported by SMS (text message). The site was created by the bloggers behind KenyanPundit.com, WhiteAfrican.com, MentalAcrobatics.com, AfroMusing.com, and Skunkworks and was built by Kobia Interactive. "Ushahidi" means "witnessing" is Kiswahili and the site allows people to send an SMS to the site which describes an atrocity. The atrocity is then displayed on a map of Kenya using a colored pin and displayed on the home page. In this way, people can
(Leer más)
A little reminder from my friend Ken Banks that the nGOmobile Competition closes December 14 (next Friday). Consider applying!
For those who are interested in using cell phones for political organizing, try the FrontlineSMS Facebook Group and say Mary sent you.
Twitter is a multi-platform service that allows users to send "updates" (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) via SMS (text message), instant messaging, and email. In its most common application, people send Twitter messages via SMS telling what they are doing at that very moment ("eating breakfast," "lots of traffic this morning," "lunch break"). Then people who have subscribed to that feed can then read these messages as they are sent out, allowing them to know what their friend
(Leer más)
I've sung the praises of Ken Banks before. He's Mr. Cell Phone, dedicated to helping activists use mobile phones to organize for social change, mostly in the developing world. His newest project is nGOmobile, a project dedicated specifically to helping NGOs use mobile phones in their work. nGOmobile is launching with a contest. From the web site: NGOs from developing countries are invited to submit a short proposal outlining how text messaging could make their job easier. The ideas don’t
(Leer más)
A few months ago I did an e-mail interview with a Belgian graphic journalists named Ben Heine. As compensation for doing the interview (which was for a project related to his journalism degree) Ben offered to create a portrait of me. Seemed like a fair deal. This is the result and I am honored. I really like to fact that he drew me in the mannerist style of Pontormo, which my art history professor Mom is sure to appreciate. By
(Leer más)
