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Cute Cats to the Rescue? Participatory Media and Political Expression
Some years back, I gave a talk at O’Reilly’s ETech conference that urged the audience to spend less time thinking up clever ways dissidents could blog secretly from inside repressive regimes and more time thinking about the importance of ordinary participatory media tools, like blogs, Facebook and YouTube, for activism. I argued that the tools [...]
Department of Coffee
A Roads and Kingdoms report, Department of Coffee Co-founded by Wongama Baleni is bringing the coffee culture to the townships: Bringing Coffee to the Townships from Roads and Kingdoms on Vimeo.
Beyond “The Crisis in Civics” – Notes from my 2013 DML talk
Two weeks ago, I gave the opening keynote at the Digital Media and Learning conference in Chicago. The conference, which explores how digital media is and could be changing education and learning, focused on the theme of “Democratic Futures: Mobilizing Voices and Remixing Youth Participation“. In the spirit of the theme, my talk examined how [...]
Get out there and see South Africa!
Eita everybody! A very big, a warm, South African handshake for everybody. For those of you who don’t know what a South African handshake is, check it out. For those of you who do know, check out the link too – quite cool, thanks so much ubuntu bridge for the video! So, the last bit of [...]
Corporate America and the Harlem Shake: Perfect Together
When we’re not doing more serious work like documenting geographic and gender biases in media, or helping provide information to domestic workers about their rights, we at the Center for Civic Media like to talk memes. The other morning, over breakfast, we were considering what makes a dance video parodies a highly participatory and cross-cultural [...]
Mohamed Harding | Roboticist
David Sengeh of Innovate Salone writes: Mohamed S. Harding is a 17-year old student at Prince of Wales secondary school in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Having professed his interest in robotics and engineering to his uncle, who then toldShow More Summary
Is civics in crisis? Or just changing its shape?
In late January of 2012, Austin Oberbillig and Evan Ricks, students at Olympia High School in Olympia, Washington made a video called “Lunch Scholars“. The video was meant to be a high school version of “Jaywalking“, a sketch Jay Leno has done for twenty years, where he asks people on the street near his Hollywood [...]
Open Source Philosophy
From Open Source Ecology: Open Source Philosophy. from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo.
The Globalization of Sumo – My talk at MSR SCS 2013
Microsoft’s Social Computing Symposium is one of my favorite conferences of the year. It’s small, invitation only, curated by some of the smartest people in my field, and attracts a wonderful combination of smart folks I hadn’t previously known about and friends I’ve known long enough that they are becoming family. Because it’s a small [...]
The flywheel in the farmer’s field, or why innovating around infrastructure is so hard
So we’re in the Home Depot, which we’ve visited almost every day since Colin’s been staying with me. That’s because we’re building a cabin, and while we’ve got a good local hardware store, they don’t have lumber, and while there’s a good lumberyard a bit further away, their tool selection is lousy. And Colin’s complaining [...]
A Mauritanian Convoy to Gaza
For some time now I have been following the Mauritanian Salafi Sheikh Muhammad al Hasan Ould Dedew and the country’s Islamist Tewassoul Party, for which Sheikh Dedew acts as a spiritual mentor. One important aspect of Islamist activism in Mauritania … Continue reading ?
Taxi Sister
From a Year in Dakar: Image courtesy of a Year in Darkar One of Senegal's Taxi sisters, Amy Ndiane, 30, shouts out to a fellow taxi driver. The female taxi drivers are breaking new ground in the capital city of Dakar. DAKAR, SenegalShow More Summary
Hey VICE: Your documentary is bad, and you should feel bad
Shortly after I posted a review of Mads Brügger’s “The Ambassador”, a film that raised some interesting questions about what constitutes ethical and responsible journalism about Africa, I got a reminder about just how low alleged journalists can go in reporting about places they don’t know. I got a PR pitch from the folks at [...]
What to make of Ai Wei Wei’s “Gangnam Style”?
It’s a good time to be PSY. The Korean rapper has become an international celebrity with the unexpected success of Gangnam Style, the absurdly catchy song that’s introduced much of the world to K-Pop, while simultaneously critiquing and subverting the genre. The star recently met with UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, who politely relinquished his [...]
Build. Make. Hack. Grow.
For the young makers out there, from DIY: This is our heroic vision for the power of practical skills. It's also the reality on DIY today. Using our app and site, thousands of young Makers build, hack, and share. They do challenges, and earn Skill Patches. They inspire each other to level up. We hope you love it. Build. Make. Hack. Grow. from DIY on Vimeo. via Adafruit
The Free Syrian Army deploys kittens, the ultimate Internet PR weapon
FSA Kittens is a tumblr blog dedicated to celebrating the kittens fighting to overcome the Assad regime in Syria. The dozen or so posts range from the documentary to the deeply whimsical: This FSA kitten, Yasmeen, is on sniper-duty. Yasmeen’s commander shared with FSA Kittens Yasmeen’s sniper log for August 23rd: 8:30 am: Two regime [...]
Sasa | A storefront for vendors
Just launched: SaSa has created an online storefront for vendors in under served communities which uses MMS uploads, SMS notifications, and mobile payments. Aimed at shortening the distance between credit-based consumers and developing nation vendors: SasaAfrica from SasaAfrica on Vimeo.
Stone Spray 3D Printer
From the expanding 3d printer world: Stone Spray Project from Stone Spray on Vimeo. StoneSpray: It is a revolutionary construction method which uses sand as the base material and a liquid binder to bind the granules of sand together. And uses a jet spray system to spray the mix of sand and liquid binder, for constructing dynamic forms of architecture. via Make
I said brrr, its cold in here…
Hola seven, Whats up, whats happening fellow members of this fantastic country?! That’s right, you will have noticed I changing things up with the greeting, this was for a few reasons. Firstly, change is as good as a holiday and who doesn’t like a holiday. Secondly, it’s time to beef (or tofu – for all [...]
Happy distractions: sumo, South African music, and Islamic hackerfic
This year is the first in decades where I’ve been beneficiary and victim of the academic schedule. While I spent almost a decade at the Berkman Center, research at that institution continues year-round, and there’s not much of a summer lull. The Media Lab is closer to the traditional academic cycle, as many students head [...]
