September 9th, 2008
Register for Microsoft’s ICT for Development Conference in Washington DC
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(Cross-posted on my official fellowship blog — How Global Values Shape Communications Technologies)
I believe that the most powerful application of social media is to help citizens self-organize themselves into virtual communities to work towards social change. In BRIC countries, where mobile penetration is much higher than PC penetration, such communities will need to be designed in an “access agnostic” manner, which means that the content/ community exists in the “cloud” and can be accessed by multiple mediums including websites, RSS feeds, voice portals and even text messages.
So, when I attend Microsoft’s ICT for Development Conference (see agenda) in Washington DC on September 22-23 2008, I’ll be interested to find out if development agency leaders, private sector practitioners, non-profits and activists share my enthusiasm for the use of social media for social change. The conference is free, but there are limited seats, so you need to register in advance at DevEx, a community for “professionals working in international development, global health, and foreign assistance”.
Incidentally, Microsoft runs some interesting initiatives under its Unlimited Potential program and James Utzschneider runs a cool blog on “Microsoft’s commitment to create sustained social and economic opportunity for the next 5 billion”.
