I am so so unbelievably stockedexcitedhappybreathlessinanticipation for this event. Seriously.
I read her book, Dead Aid, when it first came out and it opened my eyes to a very different perspective of aid, development and the financial world. Her views are a challenge and a strong vision on how to address the global poverty issue. Spread the word (and read the book!)
I recently attended a roundtable hosted by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada for a 25@25 discussion. The discussion emerged from the 25@25 video competition as a forum for participants and partners to share their experiences and examine future ways to engage youth in promoting Canada-Asia relations.
The video competition was a huge success and what I thought to be a really creative way of engaging youth to think about issues about Canada-relations. The issues that came out of the contest, harness the collective capability and genius that would spur growth and research direction of the foundation. Some of the themes that emerged included: People as a resource, representation in the media, self-identity and green technology exchanges.
“Capabilities to develop new kinds of relationships, sense important developments, add value and turn nascent networked knowledge into compelling value are becoming the bread and butter of wealth creation and success.”
- Wikinomics, Don Tapscott
On a another level, it was a great learning opportunity for me to step into an area and network of which I was not really connected to, all because I stepped out of my network circle. It reminded me a great TED video by Ethan Zuckerman on Listening to Global Voices. He spoke about how even though the web connects the whole world, we really end up being stuck in our own web bubble rather than listening to what the world has to share.
So in the spirit of collaboration, here are my favourite sites on listening to global voices:
1) OpenIDEO: An online platform where people collaborate to design better for social good. It’s a wonderful dynamic resource on tackling global resources and I’m going to submit a solution to one of their problems soon!
2) World Pulse: A global network that broadcasts and unites women’s voices from all over to create a powerful voice for change. What I love about this is not only is it a print and web magazine but it’s also an interactive community newswire, PulseWire, where women can collaborate and connect to solve global problems.
3) Global Voices: An international community of bloggers who report on different global issues with topics ranging from arts to politics. It’s an amazing resource and my fav feature is the different languages that you can read the website in. (I occasionally flip the switch over to Indonesian, just cause! And it’s so interesting to read the same article both in English and in another language!)
4) paper.li: This is a little different than the above three platforms as it really is more a snapshot of the things/links that you tweet about, but I love the creative format and I find it super interesting the way it picks up on the different things I’m browse through online. Below is a snapshot of what it looks like and I thought I’ll share this one just for fun!
So..what global voices have you been listening to?
One of my BIGGEST sources of motivation of starting this blog, (besides major encouragement and help in getting this blog up and running, from one of the most incredible people in my life, Andre) is a this post by Ethan Zuckerman.
His post walks us through a Lokman Tsui’s PHD Dissertation on Global Voices and the people behind it. He takes us through three models of journalism, essentially, how we need to move away from the current models and towards objectivity as a key journalistic value towards HOSPITALITY.
Lokman proposes that “the internet has challenged us to rethink and re-imagine journalism and democracy” and we have not yet done a good job fully utilizing its potential. If we then compare media to politics, where political democracies have functioned best where they represent a broad range of interests, opinions and people, why then, can’t media be representative and as hospitable, offering a space for conversation?
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“Why has hospitality slipped away? Is it because we’re experiencing the false intimacy of a globalized world? Lokman suggests that we’re seeing a paradox of choice emerging online — as we’ve got more choices, we often make decisions that isolate and cocoon ourselves. Part of this may come from the biggest way in which we isolate ourselves — we restrict the flow of people across national borders to a much greater extent than we restrict financial or cultural flows. Perhaps we’ve become better at accomodating a person’s CDs or movies, but less good at accomodating the person herself.
This means that hospitality is a duty and an obligation, but that we shouldn’t pretend that we can prevent exclusion from some spaces.”
- Ethan Zukerman, Lokman Tsui on hospitality, journalism and Global Voices.
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All that being said, I would hardly imagine to call myself a journalist, but, I, at the very least, am going to do my part to offer this s p a c e for conversation, and share my opinions. I truly believe that having our ideas out there is becoming increasingly important in a connected world. So here’s a little background on myself and what I plan to use this s p a c e for.
I have something to say. Do you?
