On Social Media, the African Diaspora Redirects the Conversation on International Aid
BY Julia Wetherell | Friday, February 8 2013
When the much-hyped Kony 2012 campaign crashed and burned last year, it became a symbol of the misguided approach taken by many glamour causes in international development. The story quickly became a laughingstock in the international media. Yet even before one of the campaign’s directors was found running naked on the streets of San Diego, Ugandans and other Africans living in diaspora were engaged in a social media takedown of Kony 2012.
Read MoreColombian App Uses Crowdsourcing to Crack Down on Child Labor
BY Julia Wetherell | Thursday, January 31 2013
In spite of widespread regulations condemning the practice, child labor remains a grim reality for millions of children throughout the world. In Latin America, UNICEF estimates that one out of ten children between the ages of 5 and 17 are engaged in some kind of unregulated labor. Colombia in particular has seen rising rates of child labor over the economic crises over the past several years. Read More
Canadian Site Maps Climate Change...With Skating Rinks
BY Julia Wetherell | Wednesday, January 30 2013
Climate change has been measured in rivers and oceans, mapping the rise of the world’s temperature and the impact it holds for wildlife. Now a Canadian website is tracking global warming in the human ecosystem, with an unusual approach: recording the rates at which backyard skating rinks are freezing — or failing to freeze — this winter. Read More
Volunteers Crowd Source a Map to Improve Urban Life in Nigeria's Capital City
BY Julia Wetherell | Tuesday, January 29 2013
A weeklong mapping initiative that kicked off last Saturday in the Nigerian capital of Abuja aims to crowdsource accurate, up-to-date information about the city’s amenities and public facilities. Read More
Hack Day Brings Tech Solutions to Refugees Seeking Family Members
BY Julia Wetherell | Friday, January 25 2013
The world population of refugees displaced both within their home country’s borders and to harboring nations numbers in the tens of millions. Four fifths of that population is accounted for in the developing world, where humanitarian crisis cuts across communities, often separating families. On January 19, London-based developers worked to create new solutions for reconnecting these families, at the second Refugees United Hack Day. Read More
For 2013 Elections, Kenyans Have Multiple Online Platforms
BY Julia Wetherell | Thursday, January 17 2013
With fraud and disorganization plaguing the lead-up to the Kenyan elections on March 4, new web portals have launched to give voters a platform for election information, as well as for reporting and tracking corruption, as Aljazeera reported yesterday. Read More
Citizen Journalists Tweet Mexico's Drug War, Replacing Traditional Media
BY Julia Wetherell | Thursday, January 10 2013
Over the past several years, a growing number of Twitter users in cities throughout Mexico have taken to their feeds with real-time coverage of violent crime. Part public service, part journalism, sometimes completely anonymous, these feeds have become, in many cases, an alternative to traditional news media when it comes to coverage of the country’s escalating drug war. Read More
Dhaka is Getting a Crowdsourced Bus Map
BY Julia Wetherell | Friday, January 4 2013
The capital of Bangladesh is among the most densely populated areas in the world. Like many cities in Southeast Asia, it is serviced by a labyrinthine bus system used by millions of commuters every day. The problem is, dozens of different companies provide bus services, and there’s no map, making travel around the city far from intuitive. Read More
Israeli Transparency NGO Shows Voters How to Cast Informed Ballots
BY Lisa Goldman | Thursday, January 3 2013
As Israelis prepare to cast their ballots in national elections on January 22, the country's only transparency NGO has launched a campaign to encourage voters to educate themselves by consulting their Open Knesset website, where they can find previously unavailable information about how their legislators are doing their jobs and whether they are representing their constituents as they would wish to be represented. Read More
Twitter Could Stop the Next Great Fire of London
BY Julia Wetherell | Friday, December 21 2012
London emergency responders are piloting the world’s first Twitter-based fire reporting program, the city’s Fire Brigade announced earlier this week. While officials cautioned this is not a replacement for dialing 999 – that’s British English for 911 – Rita Dexter, the Deputy Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade, explained that implementing social media-based emergency calls is simply looking forward. Read More