Videos

Theme: What mechanism works better to resolve the issues?

Objectives:

• To discuss relevant Internet Governance Forum (IGF) related issues for the APNIC community.
• Update APNIC Members about the IGF process, including recent national and regional IGF initiatives, such as the APrIGF 2012 in Tokyo, Japan.
• Prepare for the seventh Annual IGF Meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan from 6-9 November 2012.

Panelists

1. Ang Peng Hwa, Director of Singapore internet Research Centre (SiRC) Presentation Slides
2. Paul Wilson, Director General, APNIC and MAG Member, IGF
3. Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet Society, India
4. Duangthip Chomprang, Regional Affairs Manager, Internet Society
5. Raúl Echeberría, Executive Director/CEO, LACNIC and MAG Member, IGF

• Click to read the Transcript
• Watch the full video

Pranesh Prakash responded to Barkha Dutt's question on what does a government do in a time of social unrest:

"I think in a time of social unrest there is leeway provided in laws for the government to take action. The law existing and the law allowing for it is a very different matter from the government actually making use of it. There are as shown in the United Kingdom, much better ways of combating situations of riots. As we have seen in India for instance, there are people who provoke riots from podiums yet don't get arrested and as we have seen in the UK, there are people who take part in riots and have been punished a great deal."

Video

See the full debate on NDTV

Sunil Abraham's article was published in Thinking Aloud on July 17, 2012

The question that my panel tried to grapple with was "In a world where nearly nine out of ten Internet users are not American, what is the responsibility of United States institutions in promoting internet freedom?" My co-panelists were Cynthia Wong who is with the Centre for Democracy and Technology, Mohamed El Dahshan a writer and journalist, Dunja Mijatovic the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media.

Internet freedom is a curious subject. It is a technology specific liberty - for a moment consider television freedom. The US has more Muslims than India has Christians. But Indian television in the average hotel comes in hundreds and there are at least 3 channels of Christian preaching. But US television in hotels is usually less than 50 channels with no channels of Islamic preaching. In fact even the reception of secular channels from the Islamic World like Al Jazeera is still difficult in America. Can we accuse the US of not having television freedom since their television features Christian evangelists but not Muslim evangelists? Should it be part of India's foreign policy to evangelize television freedom given that there is a large domestic industry with clear international potential?

In an ideal world - citizens will possess technology-neutral freedom to communication and expression. But nothing can be farther from the truth. Communication technologies are regulated using a plethora of policies and practices and very often these have a chilling effect on freedoms.

The following is my response to the technology-specific demands for deregulation from the US Government.

Text of the Open Letter[2]

Recognise Access to Knowledge (A2K) as pre-condition for freedom of expression: There is no difference between aggressive enforcement of imbalanced and obsolete intellectual property laws and censorship. The need of the moment is not more enforcement to protect obsolete business models against the everyday practices of ordinary netizens but rather the reform of intellectual property law (levies, broader exceptions and limitations, pools, statutory and compulsory licenses, prizes etc.) to keep pace with innovations in technology and the production of knowledge and culture.

Recognise privacy as pre-condition for security: The alleged tension between privacy and security is a false dichotomy. Blanket surveillance by design compromises security. Surveillance is like salt in cooking — essential in very small quantities but dangerous even if slightly in excess. Blanket surveillance technologies are only going make things easier for — and will only serve as targets for — current and future online villains.

Don't lose the moral high-ground: Remember, with great power comes great responsibility. Other countries are waiting to cherry pick from your worst practices. Also don't use trade agreements to selectively export components of US policy without the accompanying safeguards for civil liberties and rights. Citizens in oppressive and authoritarian states are depending on the US government, courts and civil society to protect their rights online. Don't undermine their capacity to shame their governments by holding up the US as the example of 'how to get things right'. They urgently need the US government to lead by example.

Recognise that freedom of expression has become a trade issue: This is unfortunate but this is true — thanks to the precedent set by the developed world when it came to asymmetric trade negotiations. Just as the US is interested in protecting the interests of its corporations in global markets — other governments are keen protect the interests of their own corporations. The optimal solution in this case is where all countries and corporations are equally unsatisfied. This will remain a continuing discussion.

Address developing country anxieties around critical internet infrastructure: Security by obscurity will no longer do — security by transparency through open standards, technologies and governance is the only way to fears and build a trust-worthy and secure Internet for all of us. For example, there is urgent need to develop standards for supply chain audits of information infrastructure. The US has dealt with the fear of back doors by banning the use of hardware and software from countries it does not trust. The developing world is not sure if there are back-doors in hardware and software manufactured by US corporations.

Time has comes to address this and other related anxieties.

Appreciate diversity in nomenclature: 'Freedom' and 'liberty' may be appropriate terms to use in the United States of America. But openness may be more in countries that are not yet full and robust liberal democracies. The Internet Governance Forum for example uses 'openness' instead of 'freedom'. Openness is also preferred because it includes 'freedom of expression', 'freedom of information' (also known as right to information, access to information or public and 'free knowledge' (free software, open standards, open content, open access, open data, open educational resources, etc.)

Don't be too instrumental in your interventions: Don't undermine the local credibility of like-minded civil society, think-tanks and research organisations by being too directive in your support. Managerialism will undermine reform of policies and practices in information societies and so does inappropriate/premature monitoring and evaluation (for example, looking for explicit attribution in terms of casual connections between your actions and outcomes). There is a need to support greater reflexivity in the global information society by developing institutional capacity in developing countries through unrestricted funding. True critical thinking is the foundation of both scientific progress and open societies. Go out of your way to find and support those who disagree with you. Protect the plural foundation of our networked society!

Video

Sunil Abraham was a speaker along with Cynthia Wong, Mohamed El Dahshan and Dunja Mijatovic in Plenary IV Debate 3 at the Internet at Liberty 2012 event organised by Google on May 24, 2012.

View the video on YouTube

The core aim of the dedicated half-day consultation programme was to discuss, deliberate and debate over the internet related concerns, covering the larger theme of internet and outlining India’s progress towards ‘Internet Access for All’, and specific areas of concern – right to information, internet & information access, internet governance, Internet regulation, content specifications, cyber law, and appropriate policy framework.

The consultation was an effort to encourage stakeholders to adopt relevant, appropriate and time bound measures to accelerate the availability, affordability and accessibility of the internet and address issues around it.*

Video

External Links

• *See the original info published at Digital Empowerment Foundation, Multi-Stakeholder Consultation on ‘Internet Rights, Accessibility, Regulation & Ethics’ : Digital Empowerment Foundation, http://bit.ly/OGyYeg, last accessed on June 29, 2012.
• Click here for the Event Agenda
• See the video on YouTube

Watch the video below

Click to see the original from YouTube.

Sunil Abraham was a speaker in Plenary IV Debate 3: In a world where nearly nine out of ten Internet users are not American, what is the responsibility of United States institutions in promoting internet freedom? Cynthia Wong, Mohamed El Dahshan, Dunja Mijatović and Judy Woodruff were the other speakers in this panel. See the video below:

Video

Internet at Liberty 2012: Plenary IV - Sunil Abraham, Cynthia Wong, Mohamed El Dahshan and Dunja Mijatović

View the video on YouTube

Firstpost published Nishant Shah's column along with the video that CIS and ALF had made on 'shit people say about piracy' as a lead story on June 7, 2012. 

9 June is going to be a big day in India, for all concerned with internet regulation, censorship and the current attacks on file-sharing.

The International Hacker group Anonymous – a group that has become iconic with its members wearing Guy Fawkes mask as they mobilise protest and hacker attacks on what they see as tyrannical regimes – has called for marched protests in 16 Indian cities, to demand a free and open Internet.

They have already started launching Denial of Service attacks and taking down websites owned by the Indian government to express their displeasure about the recent regulation of the internet. Whether or not their guerrilla tactics are efficient and effective, in the right or not, is something that has been discussed quite popularly.

There are hordes of people who think of them as the NewAge Mutant Ninja Hackers, who are protecting our digital worlds from being clamped down. There are others who paint them as the Big Bad Wolf who huffed and puffed and will blow our houses away.

You might be sympathetic, suspicious or scared of the emergence of such a ‘crowd vigilante’, sporting the slogan that has spawned Internet memes galore – Y U No Wake up? – But there is no doubt that the rise of such a collective signals how discourse around piracy, rights, and openness is no longer in the domain of the uber-geek and the academic researcher.

These are concepts with very material realities that affect our everyday functioning and require not only better policies but also a more nuanced public discourse. Today, I look at some of the most ludicrous things that have been said about file-sharing, around the world, wondering why this idea of sharing has evoked such startling responses from different quarters.

File sharing and depression: There has always been a concern about the physical well-being of internet users. From Internet addiction rehabilitation clinics in China to online support groups for internet addicts (I swear I am not making this up!), from doctors worried about posture and eye-sight to mothers concerned about violent video games, we thought we had heard it all.

And then came the extraordinary study that suggested that file sharing might lead to depression. Or rather, if you are an avid file-sharer on the internet, you are prone to attacks of depression. This had the twitter world abuzz, where people were trying to make sense of this ‘scientific’ study that connected spending long hours on the interwebz with mental illness. A trending tweet just about summed up the situation, when it said, “File sharers are depressed only because of what is done to them when they share”.

File sharing and jobs: There was a time when the Music and Film Industry Associations (MAFIA) around the world used to protest file sharing by painting a romanticised picture of the independent starving artists, from whose mouths, we stole morsels, as we shared their work without paying for it. But that argument collapsed in the days of Napster (remember that?) and it has been proven over and over again, that the artist almost always benefits from their work being shared.

However, lately, research from respectable universities (expensively funded by respectable interested parties) have started hitting the real you, rather than the imagined artist. Every torrent being downloaded on the web is correlated with a lost job, because these companies can no longer afford to hire as many people as they used to, because of the growing losses. And then it goes into complicated mumbo-jumbo about how that one torrent that sits merrily on your computer, actually affects all the jobs to kingdom come and will be responsible for your children’s unemployment.

They remain silent about the jobs lost because of the funding that went into buying supporting this research.

I am not a Pirate: And lest you go away with the idea that the rest of the junta does not gaff, here are some of the gems that have come our way while working with people in the field. It is common, for instance, for people to take a moral stance on piracy, radiating a holier-than-thou ethical persona, without realising that recording that last IPL match to watch later on your tablet is also an act of piracy.

Then there are those who only consume material pirated by others, happily ignoring the fact that the ring-tone that they copied from their friend is also an act of piracy. Ditto, people who claim “I am not a pirate”, meaning that they haven’t yet figured out the bittorrent system and hence go to the local corner shop to buy pirated DVDs of the latest releases. In their heads, they have paid somebody for the material and hence it must be alright.

Piracy is not a one-point source process. It is a networked ecosystem, and I am still to find that one person who has never shared anything and make a video of them saying “I am not a pirate”. But that is probably just wishful thinking.

There are many more such instances which make your mind boggle and your eyes goggle and you wonder if you heard it right for the first time. Do share your favourite ones if you can. In the meantime you might also want to look at the new meme video ‘Sh!t People say about Piracy’ that captures some of these responses in their absurdity.

Video

(Video by The Centre for Internet and Society , and the Alternative Law Forum)

Follow the video on YouTube

The discussion was broadcast on Yuva iTV. See the video below:

Video

Click for the video on YouTube

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, CIS was the Master of Ceremony on Day 1, March 14, 2012. Mr. Ravi Shanker, Administrator, Universal Service Obligation Fund, Dr. Govind, CEO, National Internet Exchange of India, Ms. Swaran Lata, Director and Head of Department, TDIL Programme, DIT, Mr. R.N. Jha, Deputy Director General (International Relations), Department of Telecommunications and Ms. Archana Gulati, Financial Advisor, National Disaster Management Authority gave the welcome addresses. FG AVA chairman, Mr Peter Olaf Looms (European Broadcasting Union and Denmark) chaired the meeting assisted by the Working Groups coordinators.

The event provided an in-depth insight of topics and measures to improve the accessibility of AV media: Captioning (pre-prepared and live), Audio/Video Description and spoken captions, visual signing and sign language, emergency access services with examples referred from digital broadcast television and mobile telephony media. The participants gained a better understanding of:

• How to Get started – that is, the strategies for establishing and expanding new accessibility services (how it can be done, what it costs, what business models exist to ensure the viability of accessibility services);
• How standards can help developing countries plan and implement the transition from analogue to digital TV (what issues need to be addressed to optimize the Digital Dividend; making sure that various groups of vulnerable viewers are not disenfranchised by the digital switchover); 
• Human resource development for improved usability and accessibility (closely tied to work being done by the Audiovisual Media Accessibility Focus Group’s Working Parties).

Regulators and legislators working on measures to improve digital media’s compliance with international accessibility conventions and directives; accessibility service advocates from organizations representing persons with disabilities; media executives from public service and commercial TV channels seeking compliance with media accessibility regulation; consumer electronics manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers examining the business implications of demographic changes and media regulation participated in the meeting.

Peter Olaf Looms, Chairman, ITU-T, FG AVA  made a presentation on Introduction to the Tutorials covering topics like what does this tutorial cover, what will I be able to do, focus on action, target groups, the rational of accessible media who needs them, what can be done to improve television accessibility, etc.

Dr. Takebumi Itagaki made a presentation on Producing and delivering access services – the options covering topics like the current situation in EU, chain of power / funding public broadcasting in EU, analogue to digital switchover, activity 9 TV standards and regulation, etc.

Mr. AK Bhatnagar, Engineer-in-Chief, Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) also participated in this event.

Click for the meeting report on ITU website.
Click for the agenda of the meeting on ITU website.
Download the list of participants here

VIDEOS

Nishant spoke about the ways by which technology revolution and change has been characterised through the question of voice (how technology has enabled for alternative voices to emerge as ways by which they can be heard), question of amplification (what 10 years ago might have been local phenomena are becoming global spectacles) and the question of power (what really happens when voice and amplification comes to an end). 

Nishant said that in the last three years of revolutions we have also now witnessed this extraordinary thing where lot of promises were made of different kinds of revolution but which never materialised in terms of what they intended to. Citizen action happens but it doesn’t lead into anything concrete. One of the examples from India was the Anna Hazare’s campaign or India’s fight against corruption. There was this immense amount of campaign on the corruption in Indian bureaucracy and political society... the only instance of mass mobilisation that we saw in India in recent times apart from the cricket series...and how the campaign in seven short months has totally disappeared from public discourse.

For more, watch the video now:

Date: March 9, 2012
Time: 12 to 1 p.m.
Venue: Library Conference Center Presentation Room, University of California

Who’s the Everyday Digital Native? This global video contest has the answer

They effect social change through social media, place their communities on the global map, and share a spiritual connection with the digital world - Meet the Everyday Digital Native

The Everyday Digital Native video contest has got its pulse on what makes youths from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds connect with one another in the global community – it’s an affinity for digital technologies and Web 2.0-mediated platforms coupled with a drive to spearhead social change. The contest invited people from around the world to make a video that would answer the question, ‘Who is the Everyday Digital Native?’. Following a jury-based selection process, the final videos are now online and open for public voting.

Run by the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) with the support of Dutch NGO HIVOS, the contest will see the top five videos with the most votes declared winners on April 1, 2012. The 12 finalists in the video, who come from different parts of the globe, are each vying for the top prize of USD 500 and a chance to have their shorts screened in a film screening and panel discussion hosted by CIS.

Referring to the theme of the contest, Dr Nishant Shah, Director of Research and Co-founder of the Centre, says that the contest aims at highlighting the alternative users of digital technologies. These are people who are often not accounted for either in mainstream discourses of changemakers or in academic biopics on digital natives. “The 12 video proposals show that the everyday digital native does not wake up in the morning and think, ‘hmmm today I will change the world’. And yet, in their everyday lives, when they see the possibility of producing a change in their immediate environments, they turn to the digital to find networks that can start a change”, says Shah.

Apart from the top five public selections, the jury members will be instrumental in picking their two favorites among the finalists. Talking about the range of ideas that participants sent in jury member Leon Tan, a media-art historian, cultural theorist and psychoanalyst based in Gothenburg, Sweden, says, “The contest is an exciting project as it has the potential to portray the lives of digital natives from different corners of the world. The generosity of the contestants in creating video proposals is commendable as is the range of ideas suggested. The ideas address both the opportunities and risks of what we might call digital life.”

Adds Shashwati Talukdar, a filmmaker and jury member from India, “It was really interesting to see how different all the proposals were. Some of them were taking the notion of digital native as a personal one and some were very clearly political and sought an intervention in the real world. Dutch digital media artist and jury member Jeroen van Loon refers to a proposal from the USA where the participant wanted to explore the possibility of unplugging from his digital life. “It’s very interesting how digital natives question their own world. The proposals are good examples of how technology and culture constantly change each other. We can learn a lot from the global digital natives.” 

Profiles of the finalists and their videos can be viewed here.

Draft Agenda

Securing Citizens through Technology

The SecureIT 2012 Inaugural Session would present an overview of the security scenario in the country, and place the use of ICT towards ensuring national security centrestage. The inaugural would also highlight the use that ICT is being put for in effective disaster management, minimising material as well as human loss.

The session would aim at identifying a policy roadmap towards making effective use of ICT for the purposes of national security, well-being of citizens and businesses in times of disaster and an uncertain external environment and identify the major policy objectives for the sector as a whole.

Introductory Remarks: Dr Ravi Gupta, CEO Elets Technomedia and Editor-in-Chief, egov
Welcome Address: Dr M P Narayanan, President, Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies
Inaugural Address: Anil K Sinha, Vice Chairman, Bihar State Disaster Management Authority, Government of Bihar – Chief Guest, SecureIT 2012

Panel Discussion:

• S Regunathan, Former Chief Secretary, Government of NCT of Delhi
• R S Sharma, Director General, UIDAI
• Shankar Aggarwal, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Government of India
• Shambhu Singh, Joint Secretary (North East), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India
• Ajay Sawhney, CEO, National e-Governance Division, Government of India
• Major General (Dr) R Siva Kumar, Head, (NRDMS), Government of India

Information Security – Securing Networks, Communications, Data and Applications

In the modern Information Age, knowledge is power like never before. A robust, secure communications network is not only desired, it is an absolute imperative in order to allow efficient functioning of the state. The communications networks have to be secured from state and non-state actors inimical to India. This session would highlight some major threats to the national communications infrastructure and the policies being adopted to counter these threats.

Chair: Ravi S Saxena, Additional Chief Secretary, DST, Government of Gujarat
Key Note Speaker: Dr Gulshan Rai, Director General, CERT-In

Distinguished Panellists:

• S K Basu, Vice President, NIIT Technologies
• Manas Sarkar, Head Pre-Sales (India & SAARC), Trend Micro
• Ruchin Kumar, Principal Solution Architect, India and SAARC, Safenet India Pvt Ltd
• Dr Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council of India
• Rajan Raj Pant, Controller, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of Nepal
• Prof. Anjali Kaushik, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon

ICT in National Security and Policing

India faces a multiplicity of security challenges from within and without. Conventional responses to these challenges are no longer adequate and technology is being increasingly deployed to make the nation safer and more secure for residents, visitors and businesses. The legal framework has also been modified to incorporate modern technological advances.

The MHA has embarked upon a major project – Crime and Criminal Tracking System (CCTNS) that is expected to bring about a major overhaul of the policing system of the country.  In this session, CCTNS and state adaptations of ICT in policing would be discussed along with an overview of technological advances in the field of security.

Chair: S Suresh Kumar, Joint Secretary (Centre-State), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India

Distinguished Panellists:

• NSN Murty, General Manager, Smarter Planet Solutions - India/ South Asia, IBM
• Col Vishu Sikka, (Retd) General Manager – Defence, Aerospace & Public Security, SAP India & Subcontinent
• Joachim Murat, Director of Sagem Morpho Security Pvt Ltd.
• Hemant Sharma, Vice- Chair, BSA India Committee
• Raj Prem Khilnani, DGP (Homeguard and Civil Defence), Maharashtra
• Rajvir P Sharma, Additional Director General of Police, Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force
• Loknath Behra, IGP, National Investigation Agency
• Purushottam Sharma, IGP, State Crime Records Bureau, Madhya Pradesh
• Ranjan Dwivedi, IGP, UP Police
• Sanjay Sahay, IGP, Karnataka State Police

Managing Information for Safety and Security

In the modern age, ICT is deployed in a variety of ways for enhancing citizen safety and security. ICT is being widely used for disaster management, urban planning, census operations etc.

In this session, discussions would highlight some path-breaking uses of ICT for enhancing citizen safety in a number of diverse settings.

Chair: N Ravishanker, Additional Secretary, Universal Service Obligation Fund, DIT, Govt of India

Distinguished Panellists:

• Sandeep Sehgal, IBM, VP, Public Sector, India and South Asia
• Sanjeev Mital, CEO, National Institute of Smart Governance (NISG), Government of India
• Dr R C Sethi, Additional Registrar General of India
• Maj Gen R C Padhi, Assistant Surveyor General, Survey of India
• Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Center For Internet Society
• V S Prakash, Director, Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, Karnataka
• Rajiv P Saxena, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre, Government of India
• Jay Kay Gupta, Fire Chief, Delhi Development Authority

VIDEO

The award function organised by the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore was held at the Sambasivan Auditorium, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in Chennai on 14 February 2012. Leading luminaries such as Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam, Prof. G Baskaran and Prof. K Mangala Sunder participated in the award felicitation ceremony.

Giving the welcome speech, Prof. Arunachalam, distinguished fellow at CIS said that Dr. Jayakanth works for the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, has trained many students and helped a number of institutes to set up open access repositories. Prof. Arunachalam added that the event is being celebrated in India as the winner is from India and specified that it is being held at the MS Swaminathan Foundation as this was the institution that hosted the first workshop to promote open access. Prof. Swaminathan had a vital role in arranging funds for the workshop. About 50 people had learnt what open access was, how to set up open access repositories, how to use the EPrints software, etc. For this very reason it was decided to hold the event in Chennai and not Bangalore where Dr. Jayakanth is based.

Felicitating Dr. Jayakanth, Prof. Swaminathan who presented the award added that it is important to highlight the contributions of those who really convert the concept of social inclusion to reality. He said that today every politician talks about inclusive growth. What is this inclusive growth, how do you convert exclusion to inclusion? Exclusion creates large problems, social problems, economic problems, etc. On a concluding note, Prof. Swaminathan said that the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh has declared 2012-13 as the year of science and he hopes that there will be a new science policy and technology policy and that he hopes that a very important component of that should be methods of ensuring open access including open access to knowledge and open access to literature.

In his award acceptance speech, Dr. Jayakanth said that the atmosphere was very overwhelming and never in his two-and-a-half decade old career he had the opportunity to speak amidst such luminaries and added that it was a privilege and prestige to have received the award from Prof. Swaminathan, the father of the Green Revolution in India. He also added that no event in India or elsewhere is complete without the active participation and mentioning of the name of Prof. Arunachalam, the greatest advocate of open access that India has seen so far, and that he wouldn’t have been here at the award ceremony but for the timely intervention of Prof. Arunachalam.

Dr. Jayakanth concluded by saying that he would like to thank Prof. NV Joshi, Prof. Derek Law, Prof. Alma Swan, Prof. Balaram, Prof. N Balakrishnan, Prof. Giridhar, and Prof. TB Rajashekar, and particularly the students of the information and knowledge management programme at the National Centre of Science Information, Indian Institute of Science, who were responsible for the growth of a repository granting more visibility to the 32,000 publications that are part of the repository.

Prof. Mangala Sunder of IIT Madras and Prof. G Baskaran of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, also participated in the event. Prof. Sunder said that it is for the kind of information that we talk about, which we want to make public for which champions like Dr. Jayakanth have been working on the sidelines but working so efficiently to get institution after institution to convert what is known as a rigid framework into a flexible more open policy of bringing their scientific content to their intellectual information content. He said that he works in the area of content development from the point of view of education and he understands the difficulty of bringing material to the public.

There are many issues, such as issues about copyright, issues about people owning the information, issues about people feeling very rigid on what they want to say in the public, etc. Dr. Jayakanth has gone through all these exercises for the last 30 years in slowly creating the “little after little” what are called the waterways to finally see that everyone benefits. The linking of science, knowledge and sustainable development to open access to information, open access to research and open access to content completes the whole cycle of knowledge.

Prof. Baskaran said that it is a very well deserved award and Dr. Jayakanth has definitely raised the bar for future awardees. Prof. Baskaran stressed upon the aspects of open access. He said that as a theoretical physicist he understands the need for open access very well. Physicists, when they have new research results place them in arXiv, the open access repository for preprints in physics. Some people wonder what if some physicists deposit all kinds of articles in the arXiv. Experience has shown that 99 per cent of the articles appear in good journals later. He added that once it is put in the arXiv, the whole world gets access and a bad paper will be noticed and commented upon by many. No one likes to be the author of such a paper! He urged that other sciences, especially the life sciences should have a repository similar to arXiv and requested Prof. Swaminathan to take the intiative at MSSRF.

Dr. Francis Jayakanth

Dr. Francis Jayakanth is a library-trained scientific assistant based at the National Centre for Science Information (NCSI), the information centre of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore. He has played a significant role in the establishment of India’s first institutional repository (IR) (http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in). He now manages the IR and has provided technical support for establishing IRs in many other universities and institutes in India. He has been the key resource person at many events to train people in setting up IRs and open access journals. He has delivered presentations on IRs, open access journals, the OAI protocol, OAI compliance, and the benefits of open access to authors and institutions and the role of libraries. He has developed a free and open source software tool (CDSOAI), which is widely used. Dr. Jayakanth can indeed be considered an open access ‘renaissance man’, an advocate and technical expert in all aspect of open access development and an inspiration to all, both at the research and policy level.

See Francis's presentation on Who Benefits from Open Access to Scholarly Literature? [Powerpoint, 1523 KB]

See the video of the award function below:

A Day in the Life of a Digital Native: Story scripted, shot and edited by Leandra (Cole) Flor. The video is an extension of Cole's photo essay "Mirror Exercises" conceptualized for 'Digital AlterNatives with a Cause' Book 1 To Be. Download the book.

Top 5 winners of the Digital Native video contest selected through public votes. From left to right: Marie Jude Bendiola, T.J. KM, Thomas Burks, John Musila and MJ.

The Jury Prize for  Two Best Videos goes to John Musila (Kenya) and Marie Jude Bendiola (Singapore)! Congratulations to all winners. The Top 5 winners win the grand prize of EUR 500 each!

Our Top 10 contestants: Click on their profile to watch their videos

	Marie Jude Bendiola I come from a third world country where technology seemed to be hard to reach back in the 90s; especially by the not-so-privileged. As we progressed, technology has not only become ubiquitous (in malls, various institutions and technological hubs) but also, it has come to be used by the common man. My video will answer how technology bridges the gap between dreams and reality. It will be a fusion of documentary and re-enactment of real life events and dramas. Read More
	Cijo Abraham Mani The power of digital media will be presented to audience with the help of showing tweet-a-thon panel discussions, blood aid tweets getting spread, etc. Read More
	TJ K.M. My video explores the spiritual aspect of digital technology and how rather than getting in the way of our spiritual expression, it is actually bringing us face to face with it, if only we choose to look.  The video will be a mixture of live action and stop motion animation/puppetry where digital devices take on a transcendent character similar to nature spirits in various cultures. I plan to investigate the tendency to exclude digital devices and technology from being categorized alongside nature as if it is somehow exempt from or superior to this category. Using symbolism and motifs from various cultures such as the Native American Hopi, Balinese Hinduism and Japanese Shintoism, my video will create a world where the technology we use daily is viewed not just as a means for socio-cultural exchange and communication but is available for the nurturing of our souls if we so choose. Read More
	Thomas Burks We have a small production company in Birmingham, Alabama. I was hired on a year ago to do film and commercials for them as they expand into advertising and video coverage of events. We only have about 3 employees including myself, working out of our homes. We recently acquired a space to open a studio and retail location downtown where we live. We use Facebook, blogs, and viral marketing all the time to get our name out there. Our account executive is constantly monitoring our Facebook for client orders and bookings. We are beginning to use twitter to provide information more fluidly to people. We believe this might be a year of growth for our small company, as we are becoming able to provide much higher quality content. We're fully digital; constantly updating our websites and blogs, and I believe we would be able to tell a great digital story. We submit numerous small films and skits; we cover awesome concerts, and rely so heavily on the digital world to show our content. That will be the gist of our video. Read More
	John Musila Map Kibera Trust is an organization based in Kenya’s Kibera slums. Using digital gadgets and technology, they have transformed the community by placing it on the map as it was only seen as forest when viewed on a map. They also film stories around the community and share them with the world on their YouTube channel and other social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Through this they have been able to highlight and raise awareness about the challenges the community faces. Our video would show Kibera’s role in bringing about change. Read More
	Andrés Felipe Arias Palma I think many people are digital natives unknowingly. Being a digital native is a relationship with activism and society, not as they initially thought. It was a condition of being born in specific times and external factors. In the video, I will interview people about who and what is a digital native? How to use the Internet? What are the advantages and disadvantages for society where everything is run with the power of the Internet? Read More
	Martin Potter Over a period of nearly four years, moving across small towns in Australia and South East Asia, I have seen the most extraordinary innovations at a local community level. My video will focus on these local stories with global impact. I am pursuing a PhD in participatory media and this will lend a uniquely academic perspective on the concept of collaboration, community life and innovation. Read More
	E. James Rajasekaran I live in the temple town of Madurai in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. I am a social worker and the plight of people living in slims is something that my NGO is closely associated with. My video will bring out the efforts of the people who live in the slums of Madurai. Read More
	Anand Jha Bangalore is home to a lot of technology start-ups. A lot of geeks, who find it limiting to work for corporations, are driving a very open source-oriented, frugally-built and extremely demanding culture. While their products are standing at the bleeding edge of technology, their personal lives too are constantly driven on the edge, every launch being a make or break day for them. The project would aim at capturing their stories, their frustration and motivation, looking at the possibilities of Indian software scene moving beyond the services and back-end office culture into a more risk prone but more passionate business of technology. Read More
	MJ As a digital native living in a developing country, I have carried out a series of both online and offline projects, which have always striven to benefit Zimbabweans in a number of ways since 2000. These projects have greatly increased my interactions with computers. I might say, I got married to a computer in 2000 when I bought my first PC; in a way, my relationship with my computer is intimate. Even though this computer I bought is an old 386 machine made obsolete by the faster Pentium III models, this did not change my love for the computer. My video will focus on a dream-like moment of my digital life. Read more

Jury Members

Shashwati Talukdar Shashwati Talukdar grew up in India where her engagement with theatre and sculpture led to filmmaking, and a Masters degree from the AJ Kidwai Mass Communication Research Center in Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She developed an interest in American Avant-Garde film and eventually got an MFA in Film and Media Arts from Temple University, Philadelphia (1999). Her work covers a wide range of forms, including documentary, narrative and experimental. Her work has shown at venues including the Margaret Mead Festival, Berlin, Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Kiasma Museum of Art and the Whitney Biennial. She has been supported by entities including the Asian Cine Fund in Busan, the Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts among others.
Leon Tan Leon Tan, PhD, is a media-art historian, cultural theorist and psychoanalyst based in Gothenburg, Sweden. He has written on art, media, globalization and copyright in journals such as CTheory and Ephemera, and curated media-art projects and art symposia in international sites such as KHOJ International Artists’ Association (New Delhi, 2011), ISEA (Singapore, 2008) and Digital Arts Week (Zurich, 2007). He is currently researching media-art practices in India, and networked museums as an expanded field of cultural memory making.
Jeroen van Loon Jeroen, digital media artist, investigates the (non-) impact of digital technology on our lives. For two months he went analogue, refrained from connecting to the World Wide Web, and communicated through his Analogue Blog. He is currently working on Life Needs Internet in which he travels around the world and collects people's personal handwritten internet stories.
Becky Band Jain Becky Band Jain is a non-profit communications specialist and blogs on everything from technology to psychology and culture. She spent the last five years living in India and she’s now based in New York. She’s a dedicated yoga and meditation practitioner and is passionate about ICTD and new media.
Namita A. Malhotra Namita A. Malhotra is a legal researcher and media practitioner and a core member of Alternative Law Forum in Bangalore, India. Her areas of interest are image, technology, media and law, and her work takes the form of interdisciplinary research, video and film making and exploring possibilities of recombining material, practice and discipline. She is also a founder member of Pad.ma (Public Access Digital Media Archive) which is a densely annotated online video archive.

Share this page on: