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My Bubble, My Space, My Voice workshop - Perspective and future
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/my-bubble-my-space-my-voice-workshop-perspective-and-future
<b>The second workshop for the “Digital Natives with a Cause?” research project named “My Bubble, My Space, My Voice” took place at the Link Center of Wits University, in Johannesburg, South Africa from 6 November 2010 to 9 November 2010. Samuel Tettner, Digital Natives Co-cordinator shares his perspective on the workshop.</b>
<p></p>
The workshop was organized by the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/" class="external-link">Center for Internet
and Society, Bangalore</a> in partnership with <a class="external-link" href="http://www.hivos.nl/english">Hivos</a>, Netherlands and put together with indispensable help from <a class="external-link" href="http://www.africancommons.org">The African Commons Project</a>
<p>. The
workshop saw the coming together of 21 people, in the age bracket of 20 to 35, from eight African
countries, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Morocco, Egypt and Kenya.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They came in answer to a call; they came because they all felt they
were represented in some way or manner by one term whose simple nature hides a
myriad of socio-cultural nuances: <strong>Digital Native</strong>. They came thinking these
nuances were going to be explained to them, and they were wrong. The spirit of
the workshop can be summarized in one moment, where one Kenyan participant <a class="external-link" href="http://digitalnatives.in/users/mtotowajirani">Simeon
Oriko</a> commented after a bar camp session: “I have more questions than I came in
with!” Some of these questions were: "Who is a Digital Native?" "What is a cause" " What is the difference between information and knowledge" "How can a globalized world account for questions of indigenous cultural productions" " What are the necessary skills to use the internet" " How can the effects of an online campaign be assessed" and "is the information age a revolution"? </p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/jozi2.JPG/image_preview" alt="Joburg2" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Joburg2" /></p>
<p>They,
who at first so adamantly claimed to be digital natives, found themselves
question their assumptions and the labels assigned to them externally. Through
a series of informal and unconference style engagements, participants were able
to reflect on their ideology and practice. These engagements were facilitated
by a team of more experienced practitioners, Marlon Parker, Shafika Isaacs and
Adam Haupt, who offered their insight and perspective to elicit relevant ideas
and conversations.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/jozi3.JPG/image_preview" alt="joburg3" class="image-inline image-inline" title="joburg3" /></p>
<p>The
conversations centered around inquires on three focus areas: practice, politics and
ideology. Through the practice of Marlon at <a class="external-link" href="http://www.rlabs.org/about/">Rlabs</a> we learned about the key role
of “champions”, or people who have a vested interest in the organization and
are instrumental in crafting progress. Marlon also facilitated a group activity
in which participants broke into small sub-groups and had discussions around five
process-related keywords: Mobilization, Representation, Awareness, Campaign, and
Network Building.</p>
<p>We discussed politics with <a class="external-link" href="http://www.cfms.uct.ac.za/faculty/staff-directory/Adam">Adam Haupt</a> who made us aware
that the use of technology for social change is not a practice which originates
in the information age, as exemplified by South African hip-hop artists who
utilized mix tapes to spread socially conscious messages. Adam's presentations inspired participants to think of words that described their perspective and then break into groups, in an activity called "birds of a feather". In these groups, participants were able to discuss back and for about common ideas and identify differences in practice.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Lastly, we discussed
ideology and the power of having strongly strucutred convictions, dreams and ideals with Shafika Isaacs who invited us to frame our journey with technology in our respective projects through a 2-2 Matrix: Dream, Design, Discover and Destiny. James Mlambo, one of the participants from
Zimbabwe, has written an inclusive account of the day to day events <a class="external-link" href="http://digitalnatives.in/mlambo/blogs/digital-natives-workshop-sa-was-eyeopener">here</a>.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/jozi5.JPG/image_preview" alt="joburg5" class="image-inline image-inline" title="joburg5" /></p>
<p>Post the workshop,
participants have started pouring their perspectives, stories
and anecdotes on the <a class="external-link" href="http://digitalnatives.in/">website</a>. At the time of this writing, they have already started pouring all this new knowledge onto the website: congealing new perspectives derived
not only from their own practice but also form shared lessons, within this workshop and
as connected with the Asian workshop which took place in Taiwan. Some of these new
perspectives will help us to better understand many questions about digital
natives, many others will provide insight into the knowledge gaps
identified by Sunil Abraham and Nishant Shah.</p>
<p>If I have learned something from
my experience with the Digital Natives project so far is that the idea that
young people who utilize technology are doing so for self-gratifying reasons, are
selfish and immature, and are disengaged from the political context is not
simplistic but plain wrong. At least some considerable portion is motivated and engaged with their respective social and
political context. Through their practice they are challenging previously
established conceptions and are creating their own definitions of engagement. I
now see it as crucial to the future of our information society to listen to
these people and provide them with the necessary platforms and support so that
they can have the positive impact they so want to achieve and strive for.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/jozi6.JPG/image_preview" alt="joburg6" class="image-inline image-inline" title="joburg6" /></p>
<p>Proceedings from the workshop are available <a class="external-link" href="http://digitalnatives.in/africa">online</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/my-bubble-my-space-my-voice-workshop-perspective-and-future'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/my-bubble-my-space-my-voice-workshop-perspective-and-future</a>
</p>
No publishertettnerFeaturedDigital Natives2012-01-03T10:32:41ZBlog EntryWhat it means to be a child today
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/a-child-today
<b>They move seamlessly between reality and virtual reality. The digital landscape they inhabit comprises generations — not of family — but of technology such as Web 2.0, 3G, PS4 and iPhone5. Their world has moved beyond their neighbourhood, school and childhood friends to encompass a 500-channel television universe, the global gaming village, the endless internet. These are the children born in the last decade and half — possibly the first generation that has never known a world without hi-tech.</b>
<p>These tweens and teens were born with dial-up internet, learnt to crawl alongside the PC and practiced writing the alphabet on the desktop. To them, a world without keypads, joysticks, digicams, headphones and LCD is unimaginable. For them, the Dark Ages are the time when television was black and white.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nishant Shah, director of research at the Centre for Internet and Society in <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Bangalore">Bangalore</a>, says, "We are living with digital natives — populations that do not know the ins and outs of analogue technologies but they do often instinctively take to the world of digital and internet technologies. They view the world differently, connect with each other in unprecedented fashions and often question the authority structures developed by analogue technologies."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But no one is born into or with technology, Shah points out, and it's still the older generation that is shaping the new technologies.</p>
<p>Even so Indian childhood in 2010 is markedly different from ever before, he says, in that "the younger generations growing up with digital and internet technologies are using them for things that were not integral to the technologies. For example, Facebook was only meant to be a social networking site. Twitter was merely a microblogging platform. And yet, we now see the young users using these spaces for political participation, social transformation and mobilization of resources."</p>
<p>A survey of 14,000 children aged between 12 and 18 in 12 Indian cities by <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Tata-Consultancy-Services">Tata Consultancy Services</a> last year found that 63% of urban students spend an hour online daily; more than 80% have access to mobile phones and one in four have laptops. They do their homework and assignments online, access report cards, chat, blog, game, download, SMS and send photos via Bluetooth. The internet is becoming friend, philosopher and guide for the 'screenagers', supplying them with endless friendship requests, enlisting them for social causes and sometimes offering emotional solace.</p>
<p>Delhi student Manil Chhabra, 13, who swears by his mobile, desktop and PS2, supports many causes on Facebook, including the welfare of street dogs and gay rights. He also bonds with friends online. "My mother gets angry that I 'waste' too much time on the cell phone and online but I do try to make family time. It is not like I don't want to go out with my parents anymore. But I have a busy schedule and have free time only on Sundays. I would rather spend it with friends than my parents who I meet every day."</p>
<p>That said, this doesn't always translate into 'real' friendship of the physical sort. Mumbai businessman Anoop Sharma says of his 14-year-old daughter Aruhi, "My daughter has friends she chats with on Facebook but does not even say 'hi' to when she meets them!"</p>
<p>Admittedly, many young Indians today limit their friendships to the slightly antiseptic interaction possible on the Net. In Mumbai, Amara Mustan, 10, is constantly busy with his iPhone, an iPod with a "state-of-the-art" docking station and a Macbook. She says, "I don't think I have the time to be in touch with any of my friends except on Facebook."</p>
<p>Does this change social interaction? Clinical psychologist and student counsellor Dr Etishree Bhati agrees that the way children now use technology redefines the way they judge themselves and interact with everyone else. "Earlier, children turned to parents and siblings for emotional support. Today, they are checking up personality, IQ and other tests online themselves. Coming to me is the last option. Sometimes, they even crosscheck whether what I tell them tallies with these test results," says Bhati.</p>
<p>So yes, children in 2010 are more knowledgeable and aware. The downside is the "superiority complex and stress" says Bhati wryly.</p>
<p>For urban children then, if both parents are at work, the school day ends with returning to an empty home and the 'human' contact of the internet. Manil's mother, Simar Chhabra, says she is sad to note that today's children "do not understand and realize the joy of solitude. My son has absolutely no time for himself. Even when he is in bed, he is messaging till the time he falls asleep. They are disconnected from themselves and with their families."</p>
<p>Bhati says the impact of increasing exposure to technology is yet to be understood. "Cognitive learning can get affected. Some schools have barred students from joining Facebook. But what do you do when teachers are themselves interacting with the whole class on Facebook?"</p>
<p>As children routinely Google for answers to class quizzes, skipping books and encyclopaedias altogether, scientists worry that they are in danger of developing 'magpie minds' — flitting between web pages and losing the ability to analyze.</p>
<p>Is technology at fault? No, says Nishant Shah. "Technology in itself cannot be good or bad. It is we, the users, who make the decisions on our usage of it and what we can do with it. Children as young as two are also getting introduced to books. Is exposure to books at much younger ages necessarily bad?"</p>
<p>Shah believes that young users of technology are exactly like the generations that went before — only different. "Each generation has used the technologies that they are most familiar with, in order to bring about change."</p>
<p>He believes that the era of individualism seems to be ending and the future lies in networks and how we work, live and play within networked societies.</p>
<p>Is the 'twitch speed' or the rate at which networked children adapt to newer technologies the number every parent and school teacher needs to know? Keeping pace may be the only way to stay connected with the networked generation.</p>
<p>Read the news in the <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-toi/special-report/What-it-means-to-be-a-child-today/articleshow/6922578.cms">Times of India</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/a-child-today'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/a-child-today</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaDigital Natives2011-04-02T07:42:34ZNews ItemTaking It to the Streets
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/taking-it-to-the-streets
<b>The previous posts in the Beyond the Digital series have discussed the distinct ways in which young people today are thinking about their activism. The fourth post elaborates further on how this is translated into practice by sharing the experience of a Blank Noise street intervention: Y ARE U LOOKING AT ME? </b>
<p></p>
<p>In a previous
<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first/" class="external-link">post</a>, I
have shared how Blank Noise is unique in articulating its issue: it does not
offer a strict definition of eve teasing nor does it propose a specific
solution. In <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back" class="external-link">another</a><strong></strong>, I shared that Blank Noise’s main goal may seem to be to raise
public’s awareness on eve teasing, but it is actually secondary to its less
obvious objective to provide a space where people can become empowered through
its personal experiences in the collective. The main strategy employed to
achieve these goals is to create a public dialogue through artistic and playful
means, both at the physical and virtual spheres. The interventions attracted
media attention and volunteers, but the main impacts are internal: people are
able to personalize the meaning of their involvement in Blank Noise and undergo
individual transformations.</p>
<p> This post will flesh out how these
elements are actually translated in Blank Noise’s interventions. It is
difficult to pick one example Blank Noise a wide variety of interventions as it
evolves through the seven years of its existence. It started in 2003 as Jasmeen
Patheja’s final project when she was a student in the Sristhi School of Art and
Design in Bangalore. At this first phase, Blank Noise consisted of nine people
and dealt with victimhood through a series of workshops that became the basis
for small art interventions. As s many other activist groups before them, Blank
Noise took the initiatives to the physical public sphere: the streets, bus
stands, public transportations, parks – anywhere outside the home. Blank Noise
decided to move forward and try to engage the wider public in 2005 and engage
more volunteers than the initial group of nine. Despite being more well-known
lately for its virtual presence, the collective only started its first online
intervention in 2006 and street events remainan integral part of its being. Given
this history, and also because this is the one most often brought up in my
conversations with the Blank Noise people, I choose to share the ‘Y ARE U
LOOKING AT ME’ street intervention experience.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The experience starts with a post in the
Blank Noise <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.blanknoise.org">main blog</a> and e-group, announcing a date and time for the next
street intervention. The announcement is accompanied by an invitation for anyone
who reads it to participate and come to a designated place (such as the popular
café Coffee Day or the famous Cubbon Park in Bangalore) for a preparation
meeting and also the actual intervention (sometimes immediately afterwards). When
the time comes to for the meeting, the faces that appeared are varied. Some are
regular faces in Blank Noise meetings and interventions: perhaps Jasmeen,
others who have been coordinating interventions, or regular volunteers. Some
faces are new: people who read the announcements online, heard it through word
of mouth, or those who were around and curious about the gathering. The number
could range from three to more than 100. Most who came were women although
there were also men.</p>
<p>After
a brief introduction of everyone present, the meeting proceeded with a brief
discussion on eve teasing and the intervention that will take place. ‘Y ARE U
LOOKING AT ME’ is an intervention where a group of women wears a giant letter
made of red reflective tape on their shirts. They then stand idly on the
streets or zebra cross, staring at the vehicles and passers-by without a word.
Together, the letters on their shirts form the sentence ‘Y ARE U LOOKING AT
ME’, demanding attention by asking a silent question. When the traffic light
flashed to green, these women will disappear to the sidewalks. A group of male
volunteers are already there, distributing pamphlets and engaging passers-by
about in a conversation about what they just saw and relate it to eve teasing. The
idea behind this intervention is an act a female gaze to reverse the male gaze
that often times could be considered as a form of eve teasing. Because it is so
unusual, onlookers often look away or feel embarrassed after an encounter with
the female gaze. Despite being done without a word, the twist of gender
dynamics in this intervention provoked the interest of people in the sidewalk
and opened up the space for public dialogue – the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back" class="external-link">aim</a> Blank Noise strives to
achieve.</p>
<p>Jasmeen
told me that after this point some people started asking “But how will the
public get what we’re talking about?” The idea of addressing an issue with such
an ambiguous approach was indeed difficult to digest for some people –
including me. The intervention did not explicitly mention eve teasing nor did
it convey any clear message; there was no such thing as a placard that says
“Stop Eve Teasing” or something similar. There was no specific proposal. The
playful performance definitely is provocative enough to generate public
dialogue, but what change will it create?</p>
<p>Blank
Noise coordinators then encouraged people to experience the intervention first
before making conclusions. The various roles are introduced and the volunteers
were free to choose what they want to do. There are people who opted for the
backstage work of preparing the red tapes and printing the pamphlets, some
wanted to perform, while others are more contented to talk with the public
afterwards. After the intervention took place, Jasmeen found that the feedback
from the volunteers showed that the initial doubts disappeared.</p>
<p>Although
there were people who did not want to talk to the volunteers, in general they
were surprised by how open the public was to the conversations. “Maybe people
are tired of the old ways of just meeting on the streets and trying to convince
others through protests or petitions,” said Aarthi Ajit, a 25 year old research
assistant who helped organize a Blank
Noise Bangalore street intervention in
2008. “Maybe we need to look for different ways to get people’s attention and
the creative, playful, and non-confrontative approach will work better than
aggravation in making people think of the issue and become part of the movement.” She further explained
that widening definitions of street
sexual harassment and proposing tangible
solutions are helpful to create
the open attitude, while some people, especially men, could feel alienated by a poster that depicts men being
violent to women as all men were
labeled as perpetrators. This may be able to explain the public interaction as
well as the numerous media coverage Blank Noise received for these street
interventions. In this sense, people who doubted that the public would respond
no longer questioned whether Blank Noise’s message would get through.</p>
<p>However,
the question of whether the intervention made any change is still valid,
considering that there is no means for Blank Noise to follow-up with the many
people on the streets about whether they change their perception or behavior on
street sexual harassment. Instead, the change could be detected within the
volunteers.</p>
<p>Hemangini
Gupta, one of Blank Noise coordinators, recalled her first experience of performing
the intervention. “It felt strange, but fun and empowering in a way. I never
realized how disconnected I was from the streets before the intervention - I
would never look at people before. It felt very safe knowing that I could just
stand and look at people without any repercussions.”</p>
<p>Annie
Zaidi, another Blank Noise coordinator, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.anniezaidi.com/2006/10/empower-unpower-empower">blogged</a> about how her experience with Blank Noise interventions changed the way she
deals with street sexual harassment. “Something has changed. This time, my
reaction is different from what it would have been two years ago… I was
surprised, felt contempt and anger – but I did not feel fear. This, I realize
now, is because of Blank Noise, partly. .. It is as much about dealing with
women’s fear of public spaces and strangers as it is about dealing with
sexually abusive / intimidating strangers.”</p>
<p>Hemangini
and Annie’s stories were echoed by many other volunteers. Jasmeen said that it
was when Blank Noise started articulating that the change occurs internally
first and blurring the line between the audience and the “Action Heroes”. The
volunteers are as affected by the process as the viewers; they are mutually
dependent on each other for the intervention experience to be meaningful. That
is why Blank Noise does not think of “an audience”, everyone is a participant
and co-creator in the experience.</p>
<p>Instead
of shouting “Stop street sexual harassment!” or performing a street theatre
with spoken words, Blank Noise chose to quietly ask “Why are you looking at
me?” on the streets. They welcome many people, but the strength of its
interventions does not lie in numbers. Blank Noise thinks about their issues
differently and consequently, they also do things differently. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p><em>This is the fourth post in the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-director" class="external-link"><strong>Beyond the Digital </strong>series</a>, a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital
Natives Knowledge Programme. </em><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>*Photo courtesy of Jasmeen Patheja</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/taking-it-to-the-streets'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/taking-it-to-the-streets</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyYouthDigital ActivismDigital NativesStreet sexual harassmentBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the Digital2011-08-04T10:33:19ZBlog EntryTalking Back without "Talking Back"
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back
<b>The activism of digital natives is often considered different from previous generations because of the methods and tools they use. However, reflecting on my conversations with The Blank Noise Project and my experience in the ‘Digital Natives Talking Back’ workshop in Taipei, the difference goes beyond the method and can be spotted at the analytical level – how young people today are thinking about their activism. </b>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="description">Last August, I had the opportunity to participate in the three-day grueling yet highly rewarding ‘<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back" class="external-link">Digital Natives Talking Back</a>’ workshop<b> </b>in Taipei. On the very first day, Seema Nair, one of the facilitators and a good friend, asked us to reflect about what ‘talking back’ means in the context of activism. At first glance, activism is almost always interpreted as a confrontational resistance towards an identifiable opponent over a certain issue - a group of activists protesting against a discriminatory legislation passed by a government, for example. Although this is definitely the most popular form, is this the only way activism could be done? </span></p>
<p><span class="description">While reflecting on Seema’s question, I thought of my conversations with people in the Blank Noise Project and how they seem to defy this popular imagination through their efforts to address street sexual harassment. From the way it articulates its issue (I have shared it before in <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first" class="external-link">here</a>), Blank Noise challenges the idea of an opponent in activism by refusing to identify an entity as the “enemy” or the one responsible for the issue, given the grey areas of street sexual harassment. The opponent is intangible instead: the mindset shared by all members of society that enables the violation to continue. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Consequently, Blank Noise ‘talks back’ differently. While it is common for many movements to set an intangible vision as its goal (for instance: a society where women is treated as equals with men), they also have a tangible intermediary targets to move towards the broader vision (e.g. a new legislation or service provision for women affected by domestic violence). Blank Noise sticks with the intangible. The goal is to form a collective where eve teasing is everybody’s shared concern, spreading awareness that street sexual harassment is happening every day and it is unacceptable because it is a form of violence against women. Pooja Gupta, a 19 year old art student who is one of the initiators of the ‘I Never Ask for It’ Facebook campaign, underlined this intangible goal by saying that “The goal really is to spread awareness. It is not about pushing any specific agenda or telling people what to do.”</span></p>
<p><span class="description">Because of this goal, I initially thought that there is a clear demarcation between people within the Blank Noise and the ‘public’ whose awareness they would like to raise – that there is a clear “us” (the Blank Noise activists) and “them” (the target group). However, I was corrected by Jasmeen Patheja, the founder of Blank Noise, when we chatted one day. “I haven’t ever put it that way. Since the beginning, the collective is meant to be inclusive and there is no specific target group. The public is invited to participate and there is no audience, everyone is a participant and co-creator.” </span></p>
<p><span class="description">The strategy for this is to open up a public dialogue. When Blank Noise first started in 2003, it started with the street as the public space and uses art as its method of intervention. It takes many forms: performative art, clothes exhibition, street polls, and many others. Although today Blank Noise is much more known for its engagement with the virtual public through its prolific Internet presence (4 blogs, a Twitter account, 2 Facebook groups, many Facebook events, and a YouTube channel), the street interventions remain a significant part of its activities. Regardless of the methods, which I will elaborate more in future blog posts, the principles of creativity, play, and non-confrontation are always maintained. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">At this point, some critical questions could be raised. What is Blank Noise actually trying to achieve through the dialogue? Can public dialogue really address the issue? How does Blank Noise know if it is interventions have an impact?</span></p>
<p><span class="description">When I asked the last question, many people in the Blank Noise admitted that impact measurement is something that they are still grappling with. Some said that the public recognition of Blank Noise by bloggers and mainstream media is an indicator; others said that the growth of volunteers is also an impact. However, I found that this is not an issue many people were concerned with and was a bit puzzled. After all, if one were to dedicate their time and energy to a cause, wouldn’t s/he want to know what kind of difference made?</span></p>
<p><span class="description">The light bulb for this puzzle switched on when Apurva Mathad, one of Blank Noise male volunteers, said, “Eve teasing is an issue that nobody talks about. It seems like a monumental thing to try and change it, so the very act of doing something to address it and reaching as many people as possible right now seems to be enough.” </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Apurva basically told me that it is the action of doing something about the issue is what counts – and that it is the personal level change among people who are active within the Blank Noise is the real impact. I recalled that everyone else I talked with mentioned individual transformation after being a part of Blank Noise intervention – something I would elaborate upon in future posts. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">This observation was confirmed in a later conversation with Jasmeen, where I discovered that Blank Noise also has another goal that was not as easy to identify as the first: to allow people involved with the collective to undergo a personal transformation into “Action Heroes” - people who actively takes action to challenge the silence and disregard towards street sexual harassment. In this sense, Blank Noise is similar to many women collectives that became organized to empower themselves and hence could be said to also adopt a feminist ideology. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">The difference with most women collectives, however, lies on Blank Noise’s aim to allow a personalization of people’s experience with the collective. “The nature of this project is that people are in it for a reason close to them and they give meaning to their involvement as they see fit,” Jasmeen said. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Blank Noise does face challenges in doing this. Some people found it difficult to understand that an issue could be addressed without shouting slogans or advocating for a specific solution and others joined with anger due to their personal experiences. Hence, the non-confrontational dialogue approach becomes even more important. The discussion and debates it raises help the Blank Noise volunteers to also learn more about the issue, reflect on their experiences and opinions, as well as to give meaning to their involvement. This is when I finally understood the point of “no target group”: the Blank Noise people also learn and become affected by the interventions they performed. Influencing ‘others’ is not the main goal although it is a desired effect, the main one is to allow personal empowerment. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Going back to the ‘talking back’ discussion in Taipei, Seema then shared her experiences working with women groups in India and showed how ‘talking back’ could also be ‘talking with’, engaging people in a dialogue. It need not always address the state; it could also be aiming to make a change at the personal level in everyday life. It could also be ‘talking within’, keeping the discussion and debates alive within a movement to avoid a homogenized, simplification of the activism and provide a reflective element to the action. ‘Talking back’ could also take form other than “talking”, which usually is done through slogans and placards in a street protest, petition, or statements. It could be done through art, theatre performance, and many, many other possibilities. </span></p>
<p><span class="description">Blank Noise is definitely an example of these different forms and its experience shows that the difference is not arbitrary. It is based on a well-thought analysis of the issue that extends to how it formulates its objectives which is then translated into its strategies. Blank Noise is not only an example of how activism is done differently, but also on how the thought behind it is different.</span></p>
<p><span class="description">As I looked around the workshop room I was reminded that Blank Noise was not the only one. A few seats away from me sat two people who combined technology and poetry to create everyday resistance towards consumerism in <a class="external-link" href="http://www.slideshare.net/zonatsou/huang-po-chih-tsou-yiping-presentation-20100816-reupload">Taiwan</a></span><span class="description"><b> </b></span><span class="description"> and a young woman who held urban camps in India to mobilize young people to <a class="external-link" href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/MIE-My-India-Empowered/125105444189224">volunteer</a> Regardless of the issue and the technology used, many digital natives with a cause across the world remind us that ‘talking back’ could be done in many other ways than “talking back”. </span></p>
<p><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p><i>This is the third post in the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link"><b>Beyond the Digital </b>series</a>, a research project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism conducted by Maesy Angelina with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. </i><span class="description"> <br /></span></p>
<p><br /><span class="description"> </span></p>
<p><span class="description">*The photo is from one of Blank Noise's interventions in Cubbon Park, Bangalore. You can learn more about this intervention <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2009/06/learning-to-belong-here.html">here</a>.<br /></span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyCyberspaceDigital ActivismEve teasingDigital NativesYouthResearchBlank Noise Projectart and interventionBeyond the DigitalCommunitiescyberspacesStreet sexual harassment2011-09-22T11:37:54ZBlog EntryThe 'Beyond the Digital' Directory
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory
<b>For the past few months, Maesy Angelina has been sharing the insights gained from her research with Blank Noise on the activism of digital natives. The ‘Beyond the Digital’ directory offers a list of the posts on the research based on the order of its publication.</b>
<p></p>
<p>Have you ever
wondered what is really “new” about the activism of digital natives? In May
2010, the Hivos-CIS ‘Digital Natives with a Cause?’ Knowledge Programme started
a collaboration The Blank Noise Project in India and Maesy Angelina, a
student-researcher from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam – International
Institute of Social Studies in The Hague who is taking up the research agenda
for her final project to qualify for her Masters degree in International
Development with a specialization in Children and Youth Studies.</p>
<p>Maesy
has been blogging about the insights she gained from her field work in
Bangalore in the CIS website under the ‘Beyond the Digital’ series, which
consists of the following posts:</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst"><strong>1. <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/beyond-the-digital-understanding-digital-natives-with-a-cause/weblogentry_view" class="external-link">Beyond the Digital: Understanding
Digital Natives with a Cause</a></strong></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Digital
natives with a cause: the future of activism or slacktivism? Maesy Angelina
argues that the debate is premature given the obscured understanding on youth
digital activism and contends that an effort to understand this from the
contextualized perspectives of the digital natives themselves is a crucial
first step to make. This is the first out of a series of posts on her journey
to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism through a research
with Blank Noise under the Hivos-CIS Digital Natives Knowledge
Programme.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><strong>2. <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first/weblogentry_view" class="external-link">First Thing First</a></strong></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Studies
often focus on how digital natives do their activism in identifying the
characteristics of youth digital activism and dedicate little attention to what
the activism is about. The second blog post in the Beyond the Digital series
reverses this trend and explores how Blank Noise articulates the
issue it addresses: street sexual harassment.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/talking-back-without-talking-back" class="external-link"><strong>3. Talking Back without “Talking Back”</strong></a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span class="description">The activism of digital natives is often
considered different from previous generations because of the methods and tools
they use. However, reflecting on my conversations with Blank Noise
and my experience in the ‘Digital Natives Talking Back’ workshop in Taipei, the
difference goes beyond the method and can be spotted at the analytical level –
how young people today are <em>thinking</em>
about their activism. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/taking-it-to-the-streets/" class="external-link">4. Taking It to the Streets</a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">The previous posts in the Beyond the Digital series have discussed the distinct ways in which young people today are thinking about their activism. The fourth post elaborates further on how this is translated into practice by sharing the experience of a Blank Noise street intervention: Y ARE U LOOKING AT ME?</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p>
<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-digital-tipping-point" class="external-link">5. The Digital Tipping Point</a>
<p> </p>
<span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">Is
Web 2.0 really the only reason why youth digital activism is so
successful in mobilizing public engagement? A look into the
transformation of Blank Noise’s blog from a one-way communication medium
into a site of public dialogue and collaboration reveals the crucial
factors behind the success.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/diving-into-the-digita" class="external-link">6. Diving Into the Digital</a><br /></span>
<p> </p>
<p>Previous posts in the ‘Beyond the Digital’ series have discussed the non-virtual aspects and presence of Blank Noise. However, to understand the activism of digital natives also require a look into their online presence and activities. This post explores how Blank Noise’s engagement with the public in their digital realm.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-class-question" class="external-link">7. The Class Question</a></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">Blank
Noise aims to be as inclusive as possible and therefore does not
identify any specific target groups. Yet, the spaces and the methods
they occupy do attract certain kinds of volunteers and public. This
raises the class question: what are the dilemmas around class on digital
interventions? Are they any different from the dilemmas on street
interventions? <br /></span></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"><br /></span></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-many-faces-within" class="external-link">8. The Many Faces Within</a></span></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">Blank
Noise, as many other digital native collectives, may seem to be
complete horizontal at first glance. But, a closer look reveals the many
different possibilities for involvement and a unique way the collective
organize itself. <br /></span></p>
<p><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/activism-unraveling-the-term" class="external-link">9. Activism: Unraveling the Term</a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">After
discussing Blank Noise’s politics and ways of organizing, the current
post explores whether activism is still a relevant concept to capture
the involvement of people within the collective. I explore the questions
from the vantage point of the youth actors, through conversations about
how they relate with the very term of activism. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/reflecting-from-the-beyond" class="external-link">10. Reflecting from the Beyond</a></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable">After
going ‘beyond the digital’ with Blank Noise through the last nine
posts, the final post in the series reflects on the understanding gained
so far about youth digital activism and questions one needs to carry in
moving forward on researching, working with, and understanding digital
natives. <br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><br /><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span id="parent-fieldname-description" class="kssattr-atfieldname-description kssattr-templateId-widgets/textarea kssattr-macro-textarea-field-view inlineEditable"></span>While the posts present bits and pieces of field research notes and reflections from data analysis, the full research products are:</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">- Angelina, M. (2010) '<a class="external-link" href="http://thesis.eur.nl/theses/law_culture_society/iss/cys/index/863849405/">Beyond the Digital: Understanding Contemporary Forms of Youth Activism - The Case of Blank Noise in Urban India</a>'. Unpublished thesis, graded with Distinction. The Hague: International Institute of Social Studies - Erasmus University of Rotterdam.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">- Angelina, M. (2010) '<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/position-paper/view?searchterm=position%20paper%20digital%20natives" class="external-link">Towards a New Relationship of Exchange</a>'. Position paper for the Digital Natives with a Cause Thinkathon. </p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyYouthDigital ActivismDigital NativesWeb PoliticsStreet sexual harassmentBlank Noise ProjectBeyond the DigitalCommunitiesart and interventionResearchers at Work2015-05-15T11:33:39ZBlog EntryFirst Thing First
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first
<b>Studies often focus on how digital natives do their activism in identifying the characteristics of youth digital activism and dedicate little attention to what the activism is about. The second blog post in the Beyond the Digital series reverses this trend and explores how the Blank Noise Project articulates the issue it addresses: street sexual harassment. </b>
<p></p>
<p>To
try to understand youth digital activism is to first understand what the issue
it deals with is all about. This point is made clear by the 13 people involved
in Blank Noise, who all started our conversation with a discussion on eve
teasing, the issue that Blank Noise deals with and the reason for its existence.
Taking the hint from them, I start sharing my research journey by sharing how
Blank Noise thinks of the issue it takes. As I recall our conversations, I am
still amazed by how everyone, regardless of whether they have been involved as
an initiator of a 15-day Facebook campaign or as a coordinator for five years,
share the following articulation </p>
<p>‘Eve
teasing’ is a euphemism in English that refers to the various forms of sexual
harassment experienced by women in public places, be it parks, streets, or
buses. It takes different forms, ranging from staring, verbal lampooning,
accidental jostling, or outright groping. While public sexual harassments also
occur in almost every place in the globe, the term ‘eve teasing’ itself is
particular to South Asia, especially India. The term plays on the biblical Eve
that is considered as a temptress, playing on the dichotomy of ‘good and bad’
women and placing the blame on women for enticing men to tease them. The word
‘tease’ itself downplays the severity of the action and making it a trivial,
funny, non-issue - so much that it is regarded as a rite of passage into
womanhood and ignored by the authorities unless it leads to violent deaths. This
term is what Blank Noise seeks to address; it aims to denounce the word ‘eve
teasing’ and call it by its appropriate name: street sexual harassment.</p>
<p>While
in the popular perception street sexual harassment happen only to young women
who dress in Western fashion, actually all women irrespective of age, class, or
dress have experienced it. In a much lesser degree, men also experienced street
sexual harassment. However, the norms of masculinity deny their victimhood and
a typical reaction would be ‘yes, I got felt up but I pity the bugger because
he’s gay’ (Blank Noise, 2005).</p>
<p>The
root of the problem is how eve teasing is internalized by all members of the
society, including women. Laura Neuhaus, a 27 year old American woman who
became active in Blank Noise when she worked in Bangalore for a few years, was
shocked to find that the senior women in her department, who had PhD degrees
and were at the top of their career, turned a blind eye to the harassment they
experience and advised her to do the same. Tanvee Nabar, a 19 year old student
who was one of the initiators of Blank Noise’s ‘I Never Ask for It’ Facebook
campaign, stated that victims may also perpetuate the problem by thinking that
accusing themselves of being responsible for the harassment because of the way
they dress or behave. She said, “Even by thinking that way I am validating eve
teasing, so this needs to stop.”<em> </em></p>
<p>The
problem thrives on the silence of victims, who are further deterred from
speaking up by negative reactions ranging from agreeing that it’s a problem but
it should be ignored because nothing can be done about it, increased
restrictions from protective parents, or even offers to beat up the perpetrator
to get even by men relatives or spouses.</p>
<p>However,
Blank Noise recognizes that the issue is not as straightforward as it may seem.
While some actions like groping are clearly a form of harassment, other forms
such as looking or verbal taunting are not as obvious. Therefore, rather than
offering a rigid guideline to what is or is not street sexual harassment, Blank
Noise attempts to build a definition of ‘eve teasing’ through public polls,
both online on its blog and on the streets.</p>
<p>Blank
Noise does not advocate for any specific, tangible solution either. It is not proposing for a new legislation or service
provision. Many youth experts would say that it is a sign of youth’s decreasing
trust to the state, but actually this is an extension of Blank Noise’s
acknowledgement of the ambiguity of street sexual harassment. Hemangini Gupta, a
29 years old Blank Noise coordinator, asked, “Should we be allowing the state to legislate an issue like street
sexual harassment where there is so much grey even with how it is understood
and defined - from ‘looking’ to physical violence?” Instead, Blank Noise aims
at creating public dialogue to break the ignorance on street sexual harassment and change the
mindset of both men and women, young and old. Blank Noise does not promote a specific course of action for women
affected by the harassment either; it promotes the confidence to choose how to
react to harassment.</p>
<p>What
is unique about Blank Noise from this articulation? Some would argue that Blank
Noise is unique for being the first collective that addresses eve teasing, but
a closer inquiry into the history of the Indian women movements show that it is
widely acknowledged as a form of violence against women. However, perhaps due
to the limited resources of the movement, efforts to address eve teasing have
been taken up very systematically (Gandhi and Shah, 2002). In this sense, when
it was born in 2003, Blank Noise was unique for being the only group whose
existence is solely dedicated to address this issue.</p>
<p>Blank
Noise is not unique in problematizing the issue of violence against women. The
women’s movements in India and elsewhere have been refusing to prescribe any
solutions to the victims and identifying patriarchal mindset of both men and
women as the root cause either. Yet, it is exceptional in not identifying an
opponent or an entity where concrete demands are proposed to push for a
tangible progress towards a change of mindset.</p>
<p>Intangible
changes are as good as tangible ones. This might be a new characteristic of how
digital natives think about their causes, but it could also be more related to
their reading of the specific issue they are dealing with. Perhaps, if the
issue at hand is climate change, the same people will advocate for specific
solutions to the state or promote concrete behavior change. Either way, the
message is clear: we need to always take into account <em>what </em>a digital natives activism is about and not just <em>how </em>they do it!</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>This is the second post in the <strong><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/the-beyond-the-digital-directory" class="external-link">Beyond the Digital</a> </strong>series, a research
project that aims to explore new insights to understand youth digital activism
conducted by Maesy Angelina with The Blank Noise Project under the Hivos-CIS
Digital Natives Knowledge Programme. <br /></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><em><u>Reference:</u></em><u></u></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blank Noise
(2005) ‘Frequently Asked Questions’. Accessed 21 September 2010. <a href="http://blog.blanknoise.org/2005/03/frequently-asked-questions.html">http://blog.blanknoise.org/2005/03/frequently-asked-questions.html</a></p>
<p><u><br /></u></p>
<p>Gandhi, N. and
Shah, N. (1992) <em>The Issues at Stake:
Theory and Practice in the Contemporary Women’s Movement in India. </em>New
Delhi: Kali for Women</p>
<p>Source for the picture: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=2703755288">http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=2703755288</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/first-thing-first</a>
</p>
No publishermaesyCyberspaceDigital ActivismEve teasingDigital NativesStreet sexual harassmentYouthBeyond the Digitalmovements2011-08-04T10:31:48ZBlog EntryChange has come to all of us
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/change-has-come
<b>The general focus on a digital generational divide makes us believe that generations are separated by the digital axis, and that the gap is widening. There is a growing anxiety voiced by an older generation that the digital natives they encounter — in their homes, schools and universities and at workplaces — are a new breed with an entirely different set of vocabularies and lifestyles which are unintelligible and inaccessible. It is time we started pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a digital native. </b>
<p><strong>In this connected world, the geek is everyone — from a grandma on Skype to a teen on Second Life.</strong></p>
<p>Two self-proclaimed digital natives,
on a cold autumn morning in Amsterdam, decided to leave the comforts of
their familiar virtual worlds and venture into the brave new territories
of real-life shopping. Though slightly confused by the lack of
click-and-try options and perplexed by the limitations of the physical
spaces of shopping, we plodded along, shop after shop, thinking how much
easier it is to chat on IM while flying through Second Life as opposed
to face-to-face interactions while walking on crowded streets. After we
had run out of shops (and patience), we decided that it was time to rely
on better resources than our own wits. The Dutch girl fished out her
Android smartphone and with the single press of a button, opened up
channels of information. She called her mother. She asked for the
location of the store that was eluding us. And then she looked at me in
silence before bursting into laughter. Her 64-year-old mother, in
response to our question, had said, “Why don’t you just Google it?” <br /></p>
<p>We spent five minutes in stunned
laughter when we realised that we should have instinctively done that
and that we were being asked by somebody from Generation U to “get with
it”. Funny (and slightly embarrassing) as it is, it brings into focus,
the question, “Who is a digital native?” For those of you who have been
reading this column, it has been defined in terms of age and usage. A
digital native is generally somebody young, somebody who is tech-savvy,
somebody who can perform complicated calisthenics with digital
technologies — throwing virtual sheep, having instant relationships,
writing complex stories and pirating their favourite movies — in one
nonchalant click of the mouse. However, these kinds of digital natives
are only stereotypes.
</p>
<p>If we move away from
these descriptions of novelty, of excitement and of youth, a different
kind of digital native emerges for us. A digital native is somebody
whose way of thinking (about himself and the world around) is
significantly informed because of the presence of and familiarity with
the internet and digital technologies. In other words, a digital native
is a person who has experienced (and is often led to) change because of
their interactions with new technologies.
</p>
<p>It can be a
middle-aged man whose business changed when he started tracking his
supplies using complex and sophisticated databases. It can be a mother
of two, finding support and help raising her children on online
communities like Bing. It can be a senior teacher re-discovering
pedagogy through distributed knowledge systems on Wikipedia. It can be
grandparents who interact with their grandchildren over Skype and text
messaging, across international borders and lifestyles. It can be a
mother telling her digital native daughter to “just Google it!” over the
cellphone.
</p>
<p>And as things might
be, Shamini, my 15-year-old bonafide digital native correspondent from
Ahmedabad, recently wrote that she got off Facebook and deleted her
account. “It felt like I had retired from a job,” she said. But she was
away from Facebook only for four months, dissociated from all the “time,
energy and drama that it caused” and was quite enjoying it. After four
months of self-imposed exile, she, however, resurfaced on Facebook. And
it was to stay in touch with her aunt and uncle, who live in faraway
lands, and cannot keep in touch with her unless she is on Facebook.
Shamini was surprised at this. After spending much time convincing them
about trying to use email and phones to keep connected, she finally gave
in and started a new account that nobody knows of. And she asked me the
important question: Who is the digital native now?
</p>
<p>The general focus on
a digital generational divide makes us believe that generations are
separated by the digital axis, and that the gap is widening. There is a
growing anxiety voiced by an older generation that the digital natives
they encounter — in their homes, schools and universities and at
workplaces — are a new breed with an entirely different set of
vocabularies and lifestyles which are unintelligible and inaccessible.
It is time we started pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a
digital native.
</p>
<p>My grandmother used
to tell us, “Nobody is born knowing a language.” I think it is time to
start applying the same logic here. Nobody is born with technologies.
But there are people — perhaps not yet a generation, but still a
population — who are changing their lives and significantly transforming
the world by turning Google and Facebook and Twitter into verbs and a
way of doing things. So the next time, somebody asks you if you know a
digital native, don’t look for somebody out there — it might just be
you! <br /></p>
<p>The original column can be read in <a class="external-link" href="http://http://www.indianexpress.com/news/change-has-come-to-all-of-us/701505/0">The Indian Express</a><br /></p>
<p> </p>
<strong></strong>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/change-has-come'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/change-has-come</a>
</p>
No publishernishantGoogleDigital NativesCyberculturesFacebookDigital subjectivities2012-03-13T10:43:38ZBlog EntryOctober 2010 Bulletin
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! </b>
<h3><b>News Updates</b></h3>
<ul>
<li>Internet, szabadon<br />A polgárjogi aktivisták konfrontálódtak és panaszkodtak, a Google és a Facebook hárított és panaszkodott az Internet at Liberty konferencián, amelyet kedden és szerdán rendezett a Google és a CEU Budapesten.<a href="http://bit.ly/dwNhRw"><br />http://bit.ly/dwNhRw</a></li>
<li>Hogyan szűrik a kormányok az internetes tartalmakat?<br />Az internet szabadságáról tartanak háromnapos konferenciát Budapesten a Google és a Közép-Európai Egyetem (CEU) szervezésében. Kedden az internetes tartalmak szűrése volt a legfontosabb téma a rendezvényen.<a href="http://bit.ly/aFApER"><br />http://bit.ly/aFApER</a></li>
<li>Konferencia az internetes szólásszabadságról Budapesten<br />Az internet és szólásszabadság viszonyát vitatják meg Budapesten, a Közép-Európai Egyetem és a Google szervezte, háromnapos konferencián<a href="http://bit.ly/9evwE4"><br />http://bit.ly/9evwE4</a></li>
<li>How the UID project can be a cause for concern<br />The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), headed by Nandan Nilekani, is the UPA government's most ambitious project, where one billion Indians are branded with a unique identity number.<a href="http://bit.ly/bl7INY"><br />http://bit.ly/bl7INY</a></li>
<li>In new Facebook features, a comeback for community<br />Nearly 750 tweets bombard the web every second. Internet traffic is growing by 40 per cent a year. People post 2.5 billion photos on Facebook every month. Every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded on YouTube. But who owns all that data? Until now, big business was in complete control and used the data to monetise operations. But all that is set to change. With Facebook launching two new features, ‘Groups' and a ‘Download your information,' the community is making a comeback.<a href="http://bit.ly/arEi4V"><br />http://bit.ly/arEi4V</a></li>
<li>Stiff Resistance Dogs India's ID Plan <br />An article about the UID project by Indrajit Basu in Asia Times Online.<a href="http://bit.ly/bMcOSs"><br />http://bit.ly/bMcOSs</a></li>
<li>Data Activism and Grassroots Empowerment in India<br />Glover Wright of the Center for Internet and Society talks about Data Activism and Grassroots Empowerment in India at the Innovate/Activate Unconference in New York Law School on 24 September 2010.<a href="http://bit.ly/alnjsn"><br />http://bit.ly/alnjsn</a></li>
</ul>
<h3><b>Upcoming Events</b></h3>
<ul>
<li>Enabling Access to Education through ICT<br />ICT workshop in Delhi....Registrations open! <a href="http://bit.ly/9flyEK"><br />http://bit.ly/9flyEK</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Network Culture: Archaeological and Artistic Interventions Public Seminar – Talk by Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfing<br />Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfling will give a talk on Network Culture on 8 November 2010 in the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.<a href="http://bit.ly/cEmOZw"><br />http://bit.ly/cEmOZw</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Research</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">City in the Internet 1: Geography Imagined (Part 1) <br />“The estuaries that flirt with the land mass before they finally perish in the vast deep blue ocean beyond were perfect in their shape and grace. And you know what; from top it appears like a surreal landscape that is so restive and peaceful, almost heaven. The countryside is actually very beautiful”, says Pratyush Shankar in his latest blog post. A random conversation between two persons discovering the joys of seeing our existence through Google Earth!<a href="http://bit.ly/9klUn1"><br />http://bit.ly/9klUn1</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>A Digital Native coordinating Digital Natives<br />Samuel Tettner, joined CIS as a Research Coordinator for the Digital Natives project. He has written a blog entry about his experiences in the project.<a href="http://bit.ly/cpJMQq"><br />http://bit.ly/cpJMQq</a></li>
<li>You Are Here<br />Geo-tagging applications are creating new and impromptu communities of true, says Nishant Shah in his column on Digital Natives in the Indian Express.<a href="http://bit.ly/a64kj7"><br />http://bit.ly/a64kj7</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">નિશાંત શાહ: ડિજિટલ પેઢીનો ઉદય<br />‘ડિજિટલ નાગરિક’ તેમને કહેવામાં આવે છે જેણે સામાન્ય જનજીવનમાં ડિજિટલ ટેક્નોલોજીના પ્રવેશ થઈ ગયા બાદ જન્મ લીધો છે. ડિજિટલ નાગરિકો દરેક જગ્યાએ છે. હવે સમય આવી ગયો છે કે આપણે એ જાણવાનો પ્રયાસ કરીએ કે આ લોકો કોણ છે, તેઓ શું કરી રહ્યા છે, તેઓ પોતાના અંગે શું વિચારે છે અને કેવી રીતે તેઓ કશું પણ જાણ્યા વગર આપણા ભવિષ્યને નવો આકાર આપવાનું કામ કરી રહ્યા છે. (A column by Nishant Shah in the Gujarati newspaper Divya Bhaskar)<a href="http://bit.ly/9HnyBa"><br />http://bit.ly/9HnyBa</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause?— Workshop in South Africa—FAQs<br />The second international Digital Natives Workshop "My Bubble, My Space, My Voice" will be held in Johannesburg from 7 to 9 November 2010. Some frequently asked questions regarding the upcoming workshop are answered in this blog entry.<a href="http://bit.ly/c1XJHO"><br />http://bit.ly/c1XJHO</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The silent rise of the Digital Native<br />In late August, this year, the world shook for many when they went online (on their computers, PDAs, iPads, laptops) and realised that the comfortable zone of talking, chatting, sharing and doing just about everything else, had suddenly, without a warning, changed overnight (or afternoon, or morning, depending upon the time-zone they lived in). With a single change in its privacy and location settings, Facebook, home to billions of internet hours consisting of relationships, friendships, professional networks, social gaming, entertainment trivia, memories and exchanges, allowed its users to geo-tag themselves when on-the-move.<a href="http://bit.ly/bHY72Y"><br />http://bit.ly/bHY72Y</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The geek shall inherit the earth<br />Demystifying the mysterious -agents changing the world around you...A column on Digital Natives by Nishant Shah in the Indian Express.<a href="http://bit.ly/aq2BqY"><br />http://bit.ly/aq2BqY</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives Workshop in South Africa - Call for Participation<br />The African Commons Project, Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society have joined hands for organising the second international workshop "My Bubble, My Space, My Voice" in Johannesburg from 07 to 09 November 2010. Send in your applications now!<a href="http://bit.ly/d0rl7E"><br />http://bit.ly/d0rl7E</a></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Broad-basing Broadband<br />Education and training through the Internet need Commonwealth Games-like crisis management, says Shyam Ponappa in an article on broadband for education and training published in the Business Standard on 7 October 2010.<a href="http://bit.ly/dnMtpU"><br />http://bit.ly/dnMtpU</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2010-bulletin'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-07T12:02:11ZBlog EntryA digital native coordinating digital natives
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/a-digital-native-coordinating-digital-natives
<b>It’s been about a month since I got to Bangalore, “The Garden City”, and I joined the Center for Internet and Society, with whom I had been talking since late April. At CIS, I’ve been coordinating a project called “Digital Natives with a Cause?” </b>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s been about a month since I got to Bangalore, “The Garden City”, and I joined the Center for Internet and Society, with whom I had been talking since late April. At CIS, I’ve been coordinating a project called “Digital Natives with a Cause?” DN is an international (which means I get to travel), collaborative (which means I get to talk to a lot of people) research (which means I get to use my brain) project. So far, being involved with DN has proven to be a very interesting affair, because the exercise has revealed aspects which I had not originally thought to be a part of this experience. I am 23 years old, grew up in Venezuela, studied in the US and now work in India. My understanding of reality is deeply informed by the approach I take to and my engagement with the internet. Being connected to the cloud has become a central part of my persona, a defining aspect of my personality and a central component of my goals in life. I am what my bosses would call a Digital Native, and my job is part of a greater global effort to document how people like myself engage with political and social questions in emerging information societies. My job is to basically study myself. Ok, maybe that is a bit too simplistic, but it is not entirely false. As a digital natives coordinating a social project which aims to document how digital natives engage with social projects I feel like I am part of a M.C Escher painting. I think Douglas Hofstadter will appear to me in a dream one of these days and explain to me how I am just part of infinite loops of DN projects aiming to document DN projects aiming to document DN projects and so on. Maybe it is DN projects all the way down and not turtles. Maybe my project is a meta-project, similar to how Google is not a website but a meta-website (in the sense that it is not a website in itself, but a tool through which one interacts with other websites). These are the kind of thoughts that occur to a digital native tasked with reflecting about himself from 9 to 5.</p>
<p>Whatever the philosophical framework you choose to apply to my situation, there are some cools aspects worth discussing. First, I do get to use myself as a case study. Whenever I have to think how the people with whom I am working with think, all I have to do is think like I would. Secondly, I am privileged enough to learn about myself. I like to use development approaches to describing social transformations, so I like concepts like access to resources, livelihoods, empowerment, decision-making abilities etc. From this stand, digital natives are revolutionizing pre-information age paradigms and shattering off-line civic and political expectations. I find it impossible not to draw parallels between my own life and these greater societal shifts that have been occurring in the last 20 years. Getting to see myself and my identity from a greater, more complex and perhaps more intellectually refined point of view, in which my composition is not a random occurrence but the precise result of multiple developmental processes occurring in the societies where I grew up is, a fantastically eye-opening exercise. This does have its downsides, for sometimes I reach the disappointing conclusion that some of my thoughts are not original: my ideas are not a product of my hard work and creativity; they’re the deterministic result of societal forces greater than me.</p>
<p>Either way, I see the validation of the importance of my project in my own life. If a 23 year old man whose mother language is not English can become a research coordinator in India, anything is possible in this day and age. We are planning an international workshop in South Africa, where digital natives from all over Africa will get a chance to meet, interact, and learn about their social projects. I sorted through over 400 applications, and the end result was a sense of awe and hope, for the amount of young people utilizing the internet and mobile technologies for social and political causes was staggering. If my job is to work with these incredibly talented and driven young men and woman, in a collaborative effort to better understand how they (of should I say we?) are creating new landscapes of action to bring forth development in the world, then I am in a good place.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/a-digital-native-coordinating-digital-natives'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/a-digital-native-coordinating-digital-natives</a>
</p>
No publishertettnerDigital Natives2011-09-22T11:31:15ZBlog EntryYou Are Here
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/you-are-here
<b>Geo-tagging applications are creating new and impromptu communities of true.</b>
<p>As somebody who thinks he is quite “with it” when it comes to digital technologies, my universe was slightly shaken by a bunch of screen-agers. I asked them if they blogged. There were 10 seconds of awkward silence, in which they exchanged looks, cleared throats and fidgeted. I thought I had perhaps crossed a line and they might be uncomfortable sharing their personal blogs with me. The universe of blogs is often restricted to close friends. I was just about to reassure them that they did not have to share theirs, when a bold one looked me in the eye and said, “You still blog? You must be so old! Blogging is, like, so 20th century!” The school kids, their pockets bulging with iPods, PSPs, cellphones and Bluetooth devices all nodded in unison.</p>
<p>It was a startling realisation that about a decade ago, there were young people, largely in schools and universities, for whom blogging was the coolest thing. Sites like LiveJournal, Blogspot and Wordpress were the hottest addresses. People formed communities, interest groups, meet-up platforms, swap groups and cool-kids’ clubs while providing detailed insights into their personal life and incisive commentary on the world around them. Blogging has been accepted by all sectors of society; governments use them for the dissemination of policies and reports, marketing companies use them to share reviews and invite feedback, schools and universities use them as teaching tools.</p>
<p>However, after this unsettling adventure, I decided to figure out where the younger generation was spending its time. A little bit of prodding and the screen-agers guided me to interfaces that were more than just screens to access the internet. And so I was introduced to FourSquare, the geo-tagging application that rides on your cellphone and publishes information about your physical location. An app which has become a rage around the world. With the easy availability of smart phones and cheap GPRS access, it has become easy to triangulate one’s position using Global Positioning Systems (via satellite) or your Internet Service Providers. FourSquare, like many other applications, blurs the ever decreasing gap between virtual reality and real life, and now allows users to “check in” at locations that they pass through and publish information about their whereabouts, on sites like Facebook or especially dedicated sites.</p>
<p>For the digital native it has become a way of forming a support group and a peer network like never before. Of the six digital natives I spoke to, at least two keep track of their close friends through this app. All of them have participated in flash parties, one met his girlfriend because they happened to be in the same coffee shop and sent each other messages. Two confessed to “stalking” somebody in school using the app. And then one told me the story of how FourSquare helped her in a sticky situation. Let’s call her R.</p>
<p>One night, after a study session with her friends, R and her roommate started their 2 km walk home. On the way, they became aware of a group of boys following them. They were only half-way home and the streets were completely deserted, since it was past midnight. R posted about it on FourSquare, and marked the route she was taking home and sent it to all the people who had checked in at different places on that route. And to her relief and surprise, she immediately received messages on “how to be safe”. One enterprising user asked all the users still awake on the route that R and her friend were taking to come out and stand at their gates. In a matter of minutes, R was delighted to see the streets no longer deserted. On the short walk home, she encountered 17 people, mostly young, standing by and seeing them home to safety. R recalls the incident with pleasure.</p>
<p>When I asked her about the possibility of somebody else harassing them because they knew they were vulnerable, she looked a little perplexed and said, “but they were all my friends,” despite the fact that she did not know any of them and had never met them. They were together in a design of trust that the application provided and because of their digital commonalities, they had become friends and neighbours and communities of support for each other. “And now you are going to blog about it, aren’t you?” asked R, as all of them burst into giggles.</p>
<p>Read the original in<a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/you-are-here/694540/3"> Indian Express</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/you-are-here'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/you-are-here</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaDigital Natives2011-08-04T10:31:31ZBlog Entryનિશાંત શાહ: ડિજિટલ પેઢીનો ઉદય
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/digital-native-in-divya-bhaskar
<b>‘ડિજિટલ નાગરિક’ તેમને કહેવામાં આવે છે જેણે સામાન્ય જનજીવનમાં ડિજિટલ ટેક્નોલોજીના પ્રવેશ થઈ ગયા બાદ જન્મ લીધો છે. ડિજિટલ નાગરિકો દરેક જગ્યાએ છે. હવે સમય આવી ગયો છે કે આપણે એ જાણવાનો પ્રયાસ કરીએ કે આ લોકો કોણ છે, તેઓ શું કરી રહ્યા છે, તેઓ પોતાના અંગે શું વિચારે છે અને કેવી રીતે તેઓ કશું પણ જાણ્યા વગર આપણા ભવિષ્યને નવો આકાર આપવાનું કામ કરી રહ્યા છે.</b>
<p>એક નવા પ્રકારની ‘ડિજિટલ નાગરિકતા’નો ધીમે-ધીમે ઉદય થઈ રહ્યો છે. ડિજિટલ ટેકનિક આપણી નવી પેઢીના સામાજિક ડીએનએનો એક ભાગ બની ચૂકી છે. આ પેઢીએ ટેક્નોલોજીની દુનિયામાં જ જન્મ લીધો હોવાથી તેમનો તેની સાથેનો સંબંધ તેમની અગાઉની પેઢી જેવો નથી. દુનિયાના ઘણા બધા લોકોને અસર કરનારી ઓગસ્ટની એક ઘટના જાણવા જેવી છે. તેઓ જ્યારે પોતાનાં કમ્પ્યૂટરો,પીડીએ, આઈપેડ અને લેપટોપ પર ઓનલાઈન થયાં ત્યારે તેમને અહેસાસ થયો કે તેમની વાતચીત,ગપ્પાંબાજી, ચેટિંગ, શેરિંગ સહિતની અનેક બાબતોની તાસીર કોઈ પણ જાતની પૂર્વ સૂચના વગર રાતોરાત બદલાઈ ગઈ છે.</p>
<p>એક નાનકડા પરિવર્તને અનેક આયામો ખોલી નાખ્યાં છે. દુનિયાના કરોડો લોકો માટે દોસ્તી કરવાનો, સંબંધ બનાવવાનો, વ્યવસાયિક નેટવર્કની સ્થાપના કરવાનો, મનોરંજનનો, યાદોનો સંગ્રહ કરવાનો અને એક-બીજા સાથે આપ-લેનું માધ્યમ બનેલી વેબસાઈટ ફેસબુકે પોતાના પ્રાયવસી સેટિંગમાં એક નાનકડું પરિવર્તન કરીને અનેક લોકોને નવી સુવિધા પૂરી પાડી છે. જેના દ્વારા તેઓ જ્યાં ઇચ્છે ત્યાં ‘જિયો ટેગ’ (એક એવી પ્રણાલિ જેના દ્વારા ફોટા, વીડિયો, વેબસાઈટ જેવા વિવિધ મીડિયા કે આરએસએસ ફીડમાં ભૌગોલિક ઓળખના ડેટાને જોડી શકાય છે) નો ઉપયોગ કરી શકે છે.</p>
<p>બદલાઈ રહેલી દુનિયામાં આ પ્રકારની સુવિધાઓ મહત્વની બની રહી છે. ડિજિટલ નાગરિકો વચ્ચે આ બાબતો ચર્ચા અને કેટલીક વખત અફવાનો વિષય પણ બની જતી હોય છે, જેની પાછળ ચર્ચા કરવામાં યુવાનો પોતાની ઘણી ઊર્જા ખર્ચી નાખે છે. વેબદુનિયામાં તમને એવા અનેક લોકો મળી જશે જે ટિન ફોઈલની ટોપી પહેરીને ફરતા હોય છે અને નવા માધ્યમમાં જૂની માન્યતાઓ અંગે વાતો કરતા હોય છે. તેમને માટે આ નવી ટેકનિકલ સુવિધાઓનો અર્થ છે રોજિંદા જીવનના અનુભવો અને વિચારોને એક-બીજા સાથે વહેંચવાનો વધુ એક નવો વિચાર.</p>
<p>‘જિયો-ટેગિંગ’ જેવી સુવિધાઓનો ઉપયોગ કરતા લોક વાસ્તવિક જીવન અને કલ્પનાઓની સરહદોને એક-બીજા સાથે મિલાવી દેવાનું પસંદ કરે છે. આપણામાંથી ઘણા લોકો એવા હશે જેમને આ બધી બાબતો વિચિત્ર લાગે એમ છે. તેઓ વિચારશે કે આ પ્રકારની પ્રતિક્રિયાઓનું શું કારણ છે? છેવટે લોકો આટલી સામાન્ય બાબતોમાં કેમ રસ દાખવે છે? આ પ્રકારની ફાલતું બાબતો માટે લોકોને સમય ક્યાંથી મળે છે? જે લોકો ડિજિટલ દુનિયાથી અપરિચિત છે કે જેમને તેની સાથે કોઈ સંબંધ જ નથી, તેમની સામે હું માથું નમાવ્યા સિવાય કશું કરી શકું તેમ નથી.</p>
<p>પરંતુ પોતાનો ઘણો બધો સમય ફેસબુક, માયસ્પેસ અને ટ્વિટર જેવી સોશિયલ નેટવર્કિંગ સાઈટ પર વિતાવનારા, ગેમ્સ રમતા, બ્લોગ લખતા કે બીજાના બ્લોગ પર પોતાનો અભિપ્રાય વ્યક્ત કરતા, પોતાના ફોટો એકાઉન્ટને અપડેટ કરતા રહેતા અને પોતાની ડિજિટલ ઓળખને વધુ વિસ્તારતા રહેતા ‘ડિજિટલ નાગરિકો’ માટે આ તમામ બાબતો અત્યંત મહત્વની છે.</p>
<p>કદાચ તમારામાંથી ઘણા લોકોએ આ અગાઉ ‘ડિજિટલ નાગરિકતા’ અંગે સાંભળ્યું નહીં હોય, પરંતુ આ કોઈ કપોળ કલ્પિત વાત નથી. ‘ડિજિટલ નાગરિક’ તેમને કહેવામાં આવે છે જેણે સામાન્ય જનજીવનમાં ડિજિટલ ટેક્નોલોજીના પ્રવેશ બાદ જન્મ લીધો છે. આ કારણે તે કમ્પ્યૂટર, ઇન્ટરનેટ, મોબાઈલ ફોન, એમપીથ્રી જેવી ટેક્નિકલ સુવિધાઓથી સંપૂર્ણપણે વાકેફ છે. સામાન્ય રીતે ૧૯૭૦ બાદ જન્મેલાને ડિજિટલ પેઢી કહેવામાં આવે છે, પરંતુ ૨૧મી સદીની માહિતી ક્રાંતિમાં ઊછરેલી પેઢી માટે આ વ્યાખ્યા ફિટ બેસે છે.</p>
<p>‘ડિજિટલ નાગરિકતા’ શબ્દનો સૌ પ્રથમ ઉપયોગ માર્ક પ્રેન્સ્કીએ વર્ષ ૨૦૦૧માં પોતાના પુસ્તક ‘ડિજિટલ નોટિંગ્સ, ડિજિટલ ઇમિગ્રન્ટ્સ’માં કર્યો હતો. ડિજિટલ નાગરિકોનાં સામાજિક ગુણસૂત્રોમાં જ આ ટેક્નોલોજી સમાઈ ચૂકી છે. તેની સાથે નવી પેઢી એટલી વણાયેલી છે કે તેમને તે કૃત્રિમ ઉપકરણ નથી લાગતાં. આ ટેક્નોલોજી તેમની જીવનશૈલીનો એક ભાગ બની ચૂકી છે. ‘ડિજિટલ નાગરિકતા’ના સૌથી મોટી ઉંમરના સભ્યો તે છે જેમણે પોતાની ઉંમરના ત્રણ દાયકા પાર કરી દીધા છે.</p>
<p>જ્યારે સૌથી નાની ઉંમરના તેમને કહેવાય જેમણે તાજેતરમાં જ દુનિયાને જાણવા-સમજવાની શરૂઆત કરી છે. શક્ય છે કે દુનિયાનાં અનેક મહત્વનાં દસ્તાવેજોમાં હજુ તેમના નામનો સમાવેશ પણ થયો ન હોય. ડિજિટલ નાગરિકો દરેક જગ્યાએ છે. કદાચ તેઓ એવી માહિતીઓ અને જાણકારીઓના સ્ત્રોત છે જેમને આપણે વિકીપીડિયા પર વાંચીએ છીએ.</p>
<p>ડિજિટલ નાગરિકો સંપૂર્ણ રીતે નવી ટેક્નોલોજીમાં ઊતરી ચૂકેલા છે, નિપુણ છે. તેમને માટે ભૌતિક દુનિયામાંથી આભાસી-કાલ્પનિક દુનિયામાં પહોંચી જવું ડાબા હાથનો ખેલ છે. સમય અને સ્થળની મર્યાદાઓ તેમના માટે કોઈ અર્થ નથી રાખતી. તેઓ ધીમે-ધીમે, ચુપચાપ પરંતુ નિરંતરતાની સાથે આપણી દુનિયાની રૂપરેખાઓને બદલી રહ્યા છે. આ ‘ડિજિટલ નાગરિક’ આપણી દુનિયાના સ્થાયી નાગરિક છે અને હવે તેમની વાતો પર ધ્યાન આપવાનો સમય આવી ગયો છે. આપણે એ જાણવાનો પ્રયાસ કરીએ કે આ લોકો કોણ છે, તેઓ શું કરી રહ્યા છે, તેઓ પોતાના અંગે શું વિચારે છે અને કેવી રીતે તેઓ કશું પણ જાણ્યા વગર આપણા ભવિષ્યને નવો આકાર આપવાનું કામ કરી રહ્યા છે.</p>
<p>નિશાંત શાહ, લેખક સેન્ટર ફોર ઇન્ટરનેટ એન્ડ સોસાયટીના સંશોધન ડાયરેક્ટર છે.</p>
<p>This column on Digital Natives by Nishant Shah appeared in the Gujarati newspaper <a class="external-link" href="http://www.divyabhaskar.co.in/article/ABH-now-starwar-on-televison-1446568.html">Divya Bhaskar</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/digital-native-in-divya-bhaskar'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/digital-native-in-divya-bhaskar</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaDigital Natives2011-08-04T10:31:25ZBlog EntryDigital Natives with a Cause?— Workshop in South Africa—FAQs
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/digital-natives-workshop-faqs
<b>The second international Digital Natives Workshop "My Bubble, My Space, My Voice" will be held in Johannesburg from 7 to 9 November 2010. Some frequently asked questions regarding the upcoming workshop are answered in this blog entry.</b>
<p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"><strong>1. </strong><strong>When and where is the workshop going to be
held? </strong></p>
<p>The workshop will take place over three days from 7 to 9 November 2010, in Johannesburg, South Africa.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"><strong>2. </strong><strong>Who should apply? </strong></p>
<p>The organizers, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.africancommons.org/">The African Commons Project</a>, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.hivos.nl/english">Hivos</a> and the Centre for Internet and Society are interested in
hearing from <strong>young people</strong>, who
utilize <strong>digital technologies</strong> to
create <strong>social change </strong>in their
societies or social circles.</p>
<p>Further, the regional focus of the
workshop is on <strong>Africa</strong>, hence, only
African citizens or those in an African setting should apply.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"><strong>3. </strong><strong>How can I apply? </strong></p>
<p>You can fill an online <a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KLNMXGW">application</a>. Alternatively,
you can email <a href="mailto:digitalnatives@cis-india.org">digitalnatives@cis-india.org</a>
and ask for an email application.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"><strong>4. </strong><strong>What is Digital Natives with a Cause?</strong></p>
<p>"Digital Natives with a Cause?" is an international, collaborative research project which aims to increase the current understanding of Digital Natives (there is not one single definition, that’s why we’re doing this project! – but it could be understood as people who interact naturally with digital technologies) and their role in their particular societies.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"><strong>5. </strong><strong>What are the objectives of Digital Natives
with a Cause? How does this workshop fit in?</strong></p>
<p>"Digital Natives with a Cause?" aims to incorporate a first-person narrative of the use of technology by youth for social change into the ongoing dialogue. To do this, several case studies of varying cultural backgrounds and diverse methodologies will be compiled into a book. The case studies will be the result of three-day workshop conducted across the developing world. Last summer the Asian workshop happened in Taiwan. Next spring the South American workshop will take place in Chile.</p>
<p>"Digital Natives with a Cause?" also aims to incorporate the participants into a broad network of Digital Natives from around the world, with similar methodology and approach. Through this network, Digital Natives will be able to express concerns, share resources, stay connected with peers and learn from each other.</p>
<p>You can read a report on "Digital
Natives with a Cause?" <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/uploads/dnrep1">here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>6. OK, so what can I expect from this workshop?</strong></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">You can expect an informal setting where interactive methods of communication help you gain a better understanding of the context of your project. For example, you will get to meet and interact with the participants of the previous workshop in Taipei. You can expect to reflect about your project: Your motivation, methodology, focus, and context, to name a few, and to draw parallels into other projects in the region. You can expect to interact with a varied and diverse group of young people from around Africa, who like you, use technology for social causes. Overall, you can expect to gain a new perspective about yourself, and the importance of your work.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><strong>7. </strong><strong>Will I learn any new skills in this
workshop?</strong></p>
<p>The short answer is no. The "Digital Natives with a Cause?" project does not aim to train or to build existing capacities among youth users of technology. That said, you will definitely gain a lot of perspective on your individual project and you will learn how it relates to ongoing development processes in the region. You will also meet, interact and hopefully befriend other young users of technology like yourself, enlarging your scope and enriching your experience.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraph"><strong>8. </strong><strong>Will expenses be covered?</strong></p>
<p>Yes. Expenses associated with the workshop
(travel and accommodation) will be provided for selected participants.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst"><strong>9. </strong><strong>When is the last date to apply? </strong></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><strong> </strong>The last day to apply is Tuesday, 12 October 2010.</p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><strong>10. </strong><strong>Where can I get more information?</strong></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"> Do check out <a href="http://www.digitalnatives.in/">www.digitalnatives.in</a> for more
information, and please email <a href="mailto:digitalnatives@cis-india.org">digitalnatives@cis-india.org</a>
for questions and concerns.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/digital-natives-workshop-faqs'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/digital-natives-workshop-faqs</a>
</p>
No publishertettnerRAW EventsDigital NativesFeaturedWorkshopResearchers at WorkEvent2015-05-15T11:35:11ZBlog EntryThe geek shall inherit the earth
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/geek-inherit-earth
<b>Demystifying the mysterious -agents changing the world around you. </b>
<p>I met somebody last night who called herself a digital dinosaur. She grew up in the ’80s, got her first computer in the ’90s, trained herself as a geek, found a career as a coder (moonlighted as a hacker), helped people create their personal web pages, and has worked in the IT industry for more than a decade now. In her day, she was the cyber-guru, instructing friends, families, acquaintances and people who wrote to her on the dos and don’ts of cyber-living. And now, she finds herself strangely disconnected from Web 2.0, which is expanding faster than we can understand it.</p>
<p>Her relationship with Internet technologies was one of creation; coding, cracking, hacking, controlling the world in binaries, in bits and in bytes, and that world is now receding.</p>
<p>The new wave of Internet users, who are Born Digital, relate to technologies in new ways. Coding has become the domain of the professional developer and programming is limited to a handful of geeks.</p>
<p>These digital natives occupy environments where it is more about game and expression. Their relationship with the internet is about creation and dissemination of information. They create networks and webs of relationships, with machines and people alike. They treat their gadgets as extensions of themselves and map their physical lives on to their virtual worlds. They are different, even from the earlier generation of technocrats, in how they relate to and understand the new technologies.</p>
<p>Digital natives are everywhere. They are in universities and colleges, multitasking, preparing a classroom presentation while chatting with friends and tracking their online gaming avatars. They occupy offices, glued with equal passion, to dating or social networking sites, and moderating geek mailing lists.</p>
<p>We chance upon them in homes and bedrooms, sharing their most intimate details using live cam feeds and audio/video podcasts. If these images are familiar to you, you have encountered a digital native. It might have, recently, been a child who knows how to use the mobile phone more effectively than you do, or a teenager who can connect your machine online while thumb-typing on the cell-phone, in a language which is not very familiar to you.</p>
<p>It could also be the saucy colleague in office, who is always on the information highway, making jazzy presentations or playing games with his virtual avatar, or the taxi driver who has learned the power of GPS maps or even the chaiwallah who uses his mobile phone to download new music and conduct a romantic affair.</p>
<p>It is no surprise then that the digital natives appear mystifying, slightly frightening figures to those around them. Parents are concerned that they are losing touch with these youth who inhabit first and Second Lives seamlessly. Teachers lament that they value everyday cultural production on YouTube and blogs over canons and classics.</p>
<p>Policymakers are worried that they unwittingly break law and regulations through peer-to-peer sharing of information. Cultural industries are startled at how they produce as much as they consume, using easily available inexpensive tools to push the boundaries of cultural production; remixing, distorting, morphing and harvesting the potential of digital objects.</p>
<p>While many of these concerns are serious and need to be addressed, this column tries to focus on demystifying the digital native. Across borders, digital natives have been responsible for changing the contours of our world. They have fought repressive governments, like we saw in Iran’s Twitter revolution. They have mobilised people to challenge fundamentalism (the Pink Chaddi campaign in India). They have come to the aid of the needy and the ailing, like we saw during the recent natural disasters in Chile and Taiwan.</p>
<p>Digital natives are behind awareness initiatives to protect their privacy and right to information on social networking sites like Facebook.</p>
<p>They have changed the way knowledge is produced and consumed on online encyclopaedias like Wikipedia. They demand better education, transform their societies and show us the familiar through strange and uncanny lenses. Around the globe, in developed and developing information societies, digital natives are introducing radical changes that recalibrate our reality even as we live it.</p>
<p>Read the article in the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-geek-shall-inherit-the-earth/687985/1"><u>Indian Express</u></a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/geek-inherit-earth'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/geek-inherit-earth</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaDigital Natives2012-01-03T10:34:03ZBlog EntryDigital Natives Workshop in South Africa - Call for Participation
http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/workshop-in-south-africa
<b>The African Commons Project, Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society have joined hands for organising the second international workshop "My Bubble, My Space, My Voice" in Johannesburg from 07 to 09 November 2010. Send in your applications now! </b>
<h2>An Open Call for Participation</h2>
<p>As the Internet and
digital technologies become more widespread, the world is shrinking: we are
constantly connected to our contexts, our people, our cultures and our
networks. And you, yes YOU are a part of this change. In fact, as a Digital
Native – someone to whom digital technology is central to life – you are
directly affecting the lives of many, sometimes even without knowing about it.</p>
<p>The organisers are calling out to young users of technology to join this global conversation. The three-day workshop will focus on how the young people use the tools and
platforms at their disposal to create social change in their
environments. We want to hear from you: If you have used digital technologies
to respond to problems, crises, or needs in your community or social
circles, we want to hear your story. These can be stories where you have made a
significant impact by initiating campaigns or
movements for a particular cause, stories where you have used technologies for
learning, sharing, exchanging and disseminating information, stories where you
have either organized or been part of a digitally organized event (online or
offline) such as a petition or campaign, or stories where you used social
media like blogs, social networks, discussion group, etc., which led to an
interesting social outcome. </p>
<p>We invite you to share your perspectives in an
informal conversation with people having a similar approach from the neighbouring
community. The workshop will involve participants from around Africa, who
will be guided by facilitators in an interactive and engaging dialogue. Results
from the workshop will be used to establish a network of collaboration and
support for Digital Natives.</p>
<p>Participants
can register by filling in an online <a class="external-link" href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KLNMXGW">application</a> form by 12 October 2010.</p>
<p>Expenses relevant to the project will be granted to
the selected participants. For any questions, concerns or comments please
contact <a href="mailto:digitalnatives@cis-india.org">digitalnatives@cis-india.org</a>.<br />
<br /><strong>
Dates</strong>: November 07 to 09, 2010<br /><strong>
Venue</strong>: Johannesburg, South Africa</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/workshop-in-south-africa'>http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/workshop-in-south-africa</a>
</p>
No publishertettnerDigital ActivismFeaturedDigital Natives2011-08-04T10:31:05ZBlog EntrySeptember 2010 Bulletin
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2010-bulletin
<b>Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! In this bulletin we bring you updates of our research, news and media coverage and announcement of events organised in the month of September 2010.</b>
<h2><b>News Updates</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Conference: Internet at Liberty 2010: This conference is being held in Budapest from 20 to 22 September 2010. It is co-sponsored by Google and Central European University. Sunil Abraham and Anja Kovacs are attending the conference. <a href="http://bit.ly/afo0WY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/afo0WY</a> </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "> INDIA Fears of Privacy Loss Pursue Ambitious ID Project: Fears about loss of privacy are being voiced as India gears up to launch an ambitious scheme to biometrically identify and number each of its 1.2 billion inhabitants. <a href="http://bit.ly/dnJDRu" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dnJDRu</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Innovate / Activate: The event will be held on 24 and 25 September 2010 at New York Law School. <a href="http://bit.ly/cbICFq" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/cbICFq</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Webinar: Closed for Business: A Global Panel Discusses International Copyright Laws and Their Impact on the Open Internet <a href="http://bit.ly/a3ZFBw" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/a3ZFBw</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The madness of software patents <br />India’s patent law excludes software per se, yet over a thousand patents have been granted, writes Lata Jishnu in an article published in Down to Earth. <a href="http://bit.ly/cpHd7R" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cpHd7R</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Why piracy is tough to rein in <br />“Video market is being treated as a poor cousin of the film industry” <a href="http://bit.ly/aDUpiY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aDUpiY</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Transparency and MDGs: the Role of the Media and Technology <br />Key quotes from sixth panel <a href="http://bit.ly/b3a0YC" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/b3a0YC</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Copyright bill restricts Net access <br />Law to curb piracy may fetter creativity <a href="http://bit.ly/cFj3rD" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cFj3rD</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">科技改變社會 數位原生代計畫 <br />The Chinese language press covered the Digital Natives workshop in Taipei. <a href="http://bit.ly/bPhEO4" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bPhEO4</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">科技改變社會數位原生代掀波 <br />The Chinese press published an article on Digital Natives. <a href="http://bit.ly/bHaQor" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bHaQor</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Information is Beautiful hacks in India with David Cameron <br />The Prime Minister took some of the UK's top hackers and data experts with him to India this week. David McCandless was with them. <a href="http://bit.ly/dr3AJ2" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/dr3AJ2</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Events</b></h2>
<ul>
<li>International Conference on Enabling Access to Education through ICT: ICT workshop in New Delhi from 27th to 29th October, 2010...Registrations open!<a href="http://bit.ly/9flyEK" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9flyEK</a> </li>
<li>A Talk by Philipp Schmidt: Philip Schmidt of Peer 2 Peer University will be giving a lecture at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore on 6 October, 2010. <a href="http://bit.ly/aVyzMq" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aVyzMq</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Research</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">On Talking Back: A Report on the Taiwan Workshop: What does it mean to Talk Back? Who do we Talk Back against? Are we alone in our attempts or a part of a larger community? How do we use digital technologies to find other peers and stake-holders? What is the language and vocabulary we use to successfully articulate our problems? How do we negotiate with structures of power to fight for our rights? These were the kind of questions that the Talking Back workshop held in the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica in Taiwan from 16 to 18 August 2010 posed. <a href="http://bit.ly/daE4dM" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/daE4dM</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Binary: City and Nature: A continuation of the last post wherein I am looking at various other representation of the city in both classical and popular medium, today I am writing my views on the analysis of certain Miniature paintings. <a href="http://bit.ly/b5FP5D" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/b5FP5D</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Of the State and the Governments - The Abstract, the Concrete and the Responsive: This post examines the concepts of state and government to lay the ground for understanding responsiveness enforced through transparency discourses and the deployment of ICTs, the Internet and e-governance programmes. It also lays the context for understanding why and how ICTs. Internet and e-governance have been deployed in India for improving government-citizen interfaces, eliminating middlemen, delivering services electronically and for introducing a range of similar reforms to institute transparency and a responsive state. <a href="http://bit.ly/cNLKcY" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cNLKcY</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Responsive State --- Introduction to the Series: This post is an introduction to a series of posts on the concept of the 'responsive state'. In this series, I try to explain the various meanings that the term responsiveness has come to acquire when it is used in relation with the discourses surrounding transparency and the deployment of ICTs and the Internet to enforce transparency and thereby create a responsive state. Understanding the notion of responsiveness requires us to revisit and analyze certain concepts and the relations that have been drawn between concepts such as state, government, politics, administration, transparency, effectiveness, government-citizen interface, ICTs and effectiveness, among others. <a href="http://bit.ly/agBOiq" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/agBOiq</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Attentional Capital in Online Gaming: The Currency of Survival <br />This blog post by Arun Menon discusses the concepts of production, labour and race in virtual worlds and their influence on the production of attention as a currency. An attempt is made to locate attentional capital, attentional repositories and attention currencies within gaming to examine 'attention currencies and its trade and transactions in virtual worlds. A minimal collection of attention currencies are placed as central and as a pre-requisite for survival in MMOs in much the same way that real currency become a necessity for survival. The approach is to locate attentional capital through different perspectives as well as examine a few concepts around virtual worlds. <a href="http://bit.ly/aaGZj8" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aaGZj8</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">What's in a Name? Or Why Clicktivism May Not Be Ruining Left Activism in India, At Least for Now: In a recent piece in the Guardian titled “Clicktivism Is Ruining Leftist Activism”, Micah White expressed severe concern that, in drawing on tactics of advertising and marketing research, digital activism is undermining “the passionate, ideological and total critique of consumer society”. His concerns are certainly shared by some in India: White's piece has been circulating on activist email lists where people noted with concern that e-activism may be replacing “the real thing” even in this country. But is the situation in India really this dire? <a href="http://bit.ly/9a3I0G" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9a3I0G</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Sexuality, Queerness and Internet technologies in Indian context: This blog post lays out the discursive construction of sexuality and queerness as intelligible domains in the Indian context while engaging with ideas of visibility, representation, exclusion, publicness, criminality, difference, tradition, experience, and community that have come into use with the critical responses to queer identities and practices in India. <a href="http://bit.ly/byfPye" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/byfPye</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Accessibility</b></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Enabling Access to Education through ICT - A Conference in Delhi: The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore in cooperation with the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICT (G3ICT), a flagship advocacy organization of the UN Global Alliance on ICT and Development (UN-GAID), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UNESCO, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment and the Deafway Foundation is organizing an international conference, Enabling Access to Education through ICT in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The event is sponsored by Hans Foundation. Registration for the conference has begun. <a href="http://bit.ly/bmrkf7" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bmrkf7</a></p>
<hr />
<h2><b>Access to Knowledge<br /></b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Pre-grant Opposition Filed for a Software Patent Application by Blackberry Manufacturers: A pre-grant opposition was filed against a software patent application filed in the patent office by Certicom, a wholly owned subsidiary of Research in Motion (RIM), manufacturers of Blackberry. The opposition was filed on August 31, 2010 by the Software Freedom Law Centre which has recently expanded its operations to India. This exciting development was announced by Mishi Choudhary from SFLC on the lines of the seminar on “Software Patents and the Commons” organised on 1 September 2010 in Delhi jointly by SFLC, the Centre for Internet and Society, the Society for Knowledge Commons and Red Hat. Filing more such oppositions to software patents in India was in the pipeline and this is just the beginning of a movement to take on monopolisation of knowledge and ideas through patenting software, the organisers said. <a href="http://bit.ly/9wE1Xs" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9wE1Xs</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">First Post-Bilski Decision - Software Patent Rejected: In the first decision post-Bilski, the Board of Patents Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) rejected a software patent claimed by Hewlett-Packard. The ruling in this case has buttressed the fact that the Bilski decision furthered the cause of narrowing the patentability of software even though the Supreme Court of the United States totally avoided mentioning software patents or the applicability of the machine or transformation test for software patents in its decision. <a href="http://bit.ly/cnPw7E" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cnPw7E</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The Bilski Case - Impact on Software Patents: The Supreme Court of the United States gave its decision in Bilski v Kappos on 28 June, 2010. In this case the petitioners’ patent application sought protection for a claimed invention that explains how commodities buyers and sellers in the energy market can protect, or hedge, against the risk of price changes. The Court in affirming the rejection by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit also held that the machine- or-transformation test is not necessarily the sole test of patentability. The Court’s ruling of abstract ideas as unpatentable and its admission that patents do not necessarily promote innovation and may sometimes limit competition and stifle innovation have provided a ray of hope. In the light of the developments, the Bilski decision as far as patentability of software is concerned may not be totally insignificant, says Krithika Dutta Narayana.<a href="http://bit.ly/bjrPGh" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/bjrPGh</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Openness</b></h2>
<ul>
<li> Free Access to Law—Is it here to Stay? An Environmental Scan Report: The following is a preliminary project report collaboratively collated by the researchers of the "Free Access to Law" research study. This report aims to highlight the trends, as well as the risks and opportunities, for the sustainability of Free Access to Law initiatives in each of the country examined. <a href="http://bit.ly/9VVzkk" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9VVzkk</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Open Access to Science and Scholarship - Why and What Should We Do?: The National Institute of Advanced Studies held the eighth NIAS-DST training programme on “Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Science, Technology and Society” from 26 July to 7 August, 2010. The theme of the project was ‘Knowledge Management’. Dr. MG Narasimhan and Dr. Sharada Srinivasan were the coordinators for the event. Professor Subbiah Arunachalam made a presentation on Open Access to Science and Scholarship. <a href="http://bit.ly/ciohYy" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/ciohYy</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Internet Governance</b></h2>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Moldova Online: An Interview with Victor Diaconu: In this interview for Russian Cyberspace, set up with the help of Sunil Abraham (Executive Director at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India), computer software professional Victor Diaconu explains the nature of Internet use, state control and the development of blogging and social media platforms in Moldova. Victor works at Computaris in Chisinau. He is Moldova educated, and has travelled to several western countries (including lengthy stays to US, UK) to learn about and understand what there is to be done in Moldova. Sudha Rajagopalan interviewed Victor Diaconu. <a href="http://bit.ly/cgIvXT" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cgIvXT</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Presentation of the UID project by Ashok Dalwai – A Report: On Tuesday, 7 September 2010, Ashok Dalwai, the Deputy Director General of the Unique Identification of India (UIDAI), gave a lecture at the Indian Institute for Science in Bangalore. Representing the UID Authority, his presentation explained the vision of the project and focused on the challenges involved in demographic and biometric identification, the technology adopted, and the enrolment process. Elonnai Hickok gives a report of his presentation in this blog post. <a href="http://bit.ly/aAy5DG" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/aAy5DG</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Beyond Access as Inclusion: On 13 September, the day before the fifth Internet Governance Forum opens, CIS is co-organised in Vilnius a meeting on Internet governance and human rights. One of the main aims of this meeting was to call attention to the crucial, yet in Internet governance often neglected, indivisibility of rights. In this blog post, Anja Kovacs uses this lens to illustrate how it can broaden as well reinvigorate our understanding of what remains one of the most pressing issues in Internet governance in developing countries to this day: that of access to the Internet. <a href="http://bit.ly/cgS9py" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/cgS9py</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Summary of UID Public Meeting, August 25 2010: A summary of the "No UID" public meeting that took place on Aug. 25th at the Constitution Club, New Dehli. <a href="http://bit.ly/9epHTz" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/9epHTz</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">No UID Campaign in New Delhi - A Report: The Unique Identification (UID) Bill is not pro-citizen. The scheme is deeply undemocratic, expensive and fraught with unforseen consequences. A public meeting on UID was held at the Constitution Club, Rafi Marg in New Delhi on 25 August, 2010. The said Bill came under scrutiny at the meeting which was organised by civil society groups from Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi campaigning under the banner of "No UID". The speakers brought to light many concerns, unanswered questions and problems of the UID scheme. <a href="http://bit.ly/97HwbS" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/97HwbS</a> </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Wherever you are, whatever you do: Facebook recently launched a location-based service called Places. Privacy advocates are resenting to this new development. Sunil Abraham identifies the three prime reasons for this outcry against Facebook. The article was published in the Indian Express on 23 August, 2010. <a href="http://bit.ly/adXVjB" target="_blank"><br />http://bit.ly/adXVjB</a> </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><b>Telecom</b></h2>
<ul>
<li>What a highway can do: Despite signs of transformational change, we need more - SOPs and quality <a href="http://bit.ly/deUbmU" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/deUbmU</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2010-bulletin'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2010-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceCISRAWOpenness2012-08-10T07:22:30ZPage