GV Summit- Day Two Completed!

While Day One of the Global Voices Summit focused on Advocacy, today focused more upon Global Voices proper, with information presented on the other GV projects of Rising Voices and Lingua.

The day began with an introduction by Georgia Poppelwell (GV Managing Director) and Solana Larsen (GV Managing Editor), in which our wonderful wonderful sponsors were thanked. David Sasaki (Rising Voices Outreach) spoke briefly about the latest ongoings of the Rising Voices project, and showed a short film that featured the current independent projects being funded by Outreach.

Session 1: Web 2.0 Goes Worldwide was moderated by Lova Rakotomalala, with Catalina Restrepo (HiperBarrio, Colombia), Collins Dennis Oduor (REPACTED, Kenya), Cristina Quisbert (Voces Bolivianas, Bolivia), Mialy Andriamananjara (FOKO, Madagascar) speaking. It was live blogged by Rebecca Wanjiku. This panel gathered leaders of cutting-edge Web 2.0 initiatives from Colombia, Kenya, Bolivia, and Madagascar who seek to make the global conversation more representative of the global population. Issues pertaining to their specific projects and the challenges that they have overcome.

Session 2: The Wired Electorate in Emerging Democracies focused on how the rise of blogging, social networking and micro-blogging services like Facebook and Twitter, video- and photo-sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr, and the spread of mobile technology have given ordinary citizens the means to participate more fully in the democratic process. Looking at the impact these tools have had on recent elections were Daudi Were (Kenya), Onnik Krikorian (Armenia), Hamid Tehrani (Iran), Luis Carlos Díaz (Venezuela). Solana Larsen moderated the session, while Jillian York livedblogged the proceedings. >>>

>>> read the rest here, at GVO

"GV Summit: Day One a Success!"

"The first day of the Global Voices 2008 Summit in Budapest, Hungary was a wild success, as far as we can see (obviously we can't know all of the implications this early in the game). The morning started with an introduction from Ethan Zuckerman and Rebecca MacKinnon, founders of Global Voices, during which they acknowledged the many sponsors and friends of the Global Voices Summit. Of particular note, they thanked Georgia Popplewell, Managing Director of GV and major guiding force of the Summit. Rebecca explained the impetus behind GV:

I came from journalism, Ethan from non-profits; we both shared concern about the media and global attention flows. I saw the international English-language media focusing a lot of attention on certain people and places, and less attention on other voices and places. Ethan was doing a lot of research on media attention patterns. We were studying the blogosphere and wanted to talk about all the people around the world who were starting to blog.

Following the introductions, Session 1: “Toward a Global Anti-censorship Network,” started up, with Helmi Noman moderating. Jillian York and Renata Avila liveblogged the session using CoveritLive. Internet filtering, self-censorship, and related issues in Egypt, Morocco, Belarus, Japan, and Pakistan were discussed during this session, which featured Sami Ben Gharbia, Chris Salzberg, Andrei Abozau, Ethan Zuckerman, Awab Alvi, and Alaa Abdel Fatah.

Session 2 was liveblogged by Juliana Rotich. Mary Joyce moderated; Ory Okolloh of Kenya, Wael Abbas of Egypt, Amine of Morocco, Oiwan Lam of hong Kong, Au Wai “Alex” Pang of Singapore, and Hamid Tehrani of Iran spoke on the subject “Citizen Media and Online Free Speech.” Issues broached during the discussion were the use of twitter, proxies and SMS to get around internet filtering and censorship. Each panelist shared stories of recent events from their countries.

Jillian York liveblogged Session 3, entitled “Living with Censorship.” Awab Alvi of Don't Block the Blog moderated, whilst Helmi Noman, CJ Hinke, Andrew Heavens, Rezwan, Yazan Badran, and John Kennedy were panelists. Each panelist discussed what it's like to live with censorship, and each had a different perspective on the issue ..."

>>>Read the rest of this at Global Voices Online ...

"Shhh… The Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2008 Has Begun"

"If it's quiet on Global Voices the next couple of days, it's because we've transported around 80 of our editors, authors, and translators to Budapest, Hungary for a Summit about online freedom of expression, citizen media, and the role of Global Voices in the next year. You can follow all of us live throughout the day via webcast, liveblog, Twitter, and photos. See how, on our Summit website.

Many Global Voices bloggers who have worked together virtually for more than a year are meeting here face to face for the first time. It's a public meeting that has attracted around 200 participants from all continents, including over two dozen journalists from mainstream media. Thank you to everyone who is here in Budapest, or following from abroad."

A snap shot of the conference room towards the end of the first day. By Neha Viswanathan

(cross posted from Global Voices Online)

This is where I am now ...

... and this is what we are doing at the "Citizen Media Summit", please visit us, it will mean a lot:



... "Advocacy" also posts updates of what is going on at the summit, click and visit, you will find many topics of interest to you:



briefly:

The Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2008 will explore topics around the theme “Citizen Media and Citizenhood”, and address fundamental issues surrounding the actual and potential role of citizen media producers in the public life of the countries they live in. As the Internet and the increasing accessibility of citizen media tools offer growing numbers of people throughout the world the means to distribute information globally, how does this affect or change the ways in which people participate in public life? Can citizen media make people better citizens? How can citizen media help affect lasting social change?

Dear Mustapha

Ali is not a fictional character.
Ali is a Lebanese lawyer and political analyst and I have quoted him before.
Ali does not represent Shiism.
Actually, Ali is a secularist.
Ali was neither talking about Shia versus Sunni nor is he against Omar.
Ali was not talking about Hezbollah.

Ali was talking about resistance (mouqawama) to the injustices of occupation and expulsion.
Ali believes that resistance to Zionist atrocities, both of which began during the beginning of the 20th century, has evolved over the decades. Hezbollah is one manifestation of this evolution. And even if it vanishes, a new form of resistance will emerge. This has and will always go on.

It’s a shame how sectarian interpretation surfaces among Lebanese even if the topic is the color of a cockroach.
Ugly attitudes like this is driving young educated secularists either away from Lebanon or into the arms of sectarianism.

I say that the Middle East, and maybe the world, will not find real peace until the bleeding wound of UrShalim is healed.

resistance: here to stay

Quoting Ali:
"We consider the existence of the Palestinians in the refugee camps in Lebanon as a continuous Israeli infringement against Lebanese sovereignty and therefore we have the right to resist. So, until all the Palestinians in Lebanon return to their homeland, the Lebanese resistance (mouqawama) to Israeli encroachments will continue."

Once Upon a Time in Rafah

- Latuff