Two years ago, social media was the star of the Arab Spring. Today it is still important, but there is ample evidence to support the theory that it is also harmful. Read More

Reports have been coming in from the Google Map Maker initiative that was held in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja late last month, with Nigerians celebrating the project’s potential to improve commerce, navigability, and even public safety.  Read More

National Geographic’s online series Digital Diversity is back this week with a report from the Aquaya Institute, a nonprofit research and consulting group working on public health issues in the global water crisis.   The UN may have announced last spring that 89% of the global population now has access to improved water sources, yet for thousands these sources remain unreliable, and, in many cases, still unsanitary or unsafe.  While building the infrastructure to enhance the water supply can be a long process, spreading knowledge about whether a source is drinkable is one simple solution. 

Earlier this week The Guardian broke the news that US-based defense contractor and security firm Raytheon has developed software over the past two years that can comprehensively track activity across social media platforms.  Across the web, people have weighed in on how this “Google for spies” will affect the future of surveillance – and the US government’s infiltration of the lives of foreign citizens. 

Kenya’s first-ever presidential debate reached a worldwide audience on Monday night, nearly eclipsing the Pope’s resignation as top Twitter trend as eight candidates for the country’s highest office addressed key issues at stake in the March 4 election. Among the most active participants in the online discussion were members of the 3.5 million-strong Kenyan diaspora. For Kenyans living abroad, the success of the debate is a point of great pride.  Yet as election season progresses, many diasporans remain frustrated at not having a voice in the political process – even as their activism benefits Kenyans at home. 

Kenya held its first presidential debate in the country's history this Monday. Millions tuned in as candidates answered questions posed by moderators. In an interesting twist, the organizers selected both the moderators and the questions from suggestions submitted by ordinary citizens via social media platforms, SMS and email. Read More

Tiny, disputed Pacific archipelagos have been in the news recently, with Japan bolstering online security against Chinese hacks related to the Japanese claim on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.  Now another island chain is caught in a tug-of-war between several East Asian countries – and this time, the weapons of choice are mobile networks. 

Computer science graduate student Richardson Ciguené describes Haiti's first hackathon with a play on a local term: "konbit technologie." “A konbit,” Ciguené explains, “is something that, in the countryside, where people live more off of the earth, they’re farmers, so they make a group. One day they work the field of one person, the next day they work the field of another person. They do that until everyone’s field is worked.”

The hackathon had the same core concept. It brought technologists and civil society workers together to start working on some of the nation's toughest problems. Read More