K. Nicole Kindred – Sustainability Consultant

On Tuesday I had the opportunity to attend World Pulse LIVE at the Paley Center for Media in New York City.

World Pulse is an organization that strives to bring a voice to women around the globe using new technology and media. One example of this was in the My Camera and Me against a Regime video – a video that was uploaded from a mobile phone by a women who was arrested during a Sudanese protest. World Pulse allows for an online area where women can come together to find and share their success stories.

For World Pulse LIVE, Martha Llano from Colombia, Beatrice Achieng from Uganda, and Sarvina Kang from Cambodia were selected to come to the US to discuss how they are using new media and technology to facilitate them as grassroots leaders.

The women told powerful stories of how they found their voices. In Martha’s talk she spoke about the dangers of living in the Columbia cloud forest and how she had learned to overcome the dangers. When people told her she should carry a gun, she refused, saying “I will not take a gun to speak for me, because I have my own voice and words”. She emphasized the importance of thinking globally and acting locally.

Sarvina told her story of being the only literate individual in a family of 35. She was the only girl in her family and her village to go to college and now has her Master’s in NGO leadership. She emphasized the importance of education for women in creating change and preventing social problems like sex trafficking.

Beatrice told her story of growing up in Uganda and her emphasis on HIV prevention and education. She emphasized how if you give hope to one girl, a grassroots leader will emerge. She told the story of how when her last brother died of AIDS, her mother lost all hope because only men can own land in Uganda; however, after she told her story on the World Pulse platform, the World Pulse members emphasized that they were behind her and she stood up to her village for the land and was able to keep it.

When asked what the women thought would be most beneficial to their communities in spreading their voice, all three women emphasized that their was a lack of technology in their communities, and solar panels would be an easy remedy.

World Pulse LIVE is also available launching an online tour for individuals who are not able to attend the event in person.

Last week I had the fortune of taking part in the annual Youth Assembly at the United Nations as a volunteer with Oxfam America. The Youth Assembly at the UN was created in 2002 as members of a Youth Outreach Sub-Committee at hte UN thought it was imperative to engage youth in the challenge and opportunities to realize the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

This year’s assembly took place over 3 days and hosted speakers from around the world and networking session to engage youth with non-profits who are working towards spreading the MDGs.

I was able to attend the MDG Campaign Night and Dinner on Wednesday night. At the dinner, youth learned of a number of non-profits who are working for the MDGs. Non profits that were present included 350.org, Engineers Without Borders, Oxfam, Habitat for Humanity, and Amnesty International among others.

I was preset with Oxfam America. Oxfam America is currently collecting signatures to tell President Obama to deliver a US strategy to end global poverty and recommit to meeting the MDGs by 2015. Right now, President Obama’s leadership is needed to bring US foreign assistance into the 21st Century so that we can more effectively use taxpayer dollars to drive greater results for people in need.

The dinner was sold out and a number of youth from countries all over the world were present to learn about the organizations working towards the MDGs.

The following 2 days of the conference hosted a number of speakers from the private sector, non-profits, the UN, and government organizations. One of the most impressive organizations I heard from was from Jing Zhou, founder of Girls In Tech/China and Girls 2.0. GITchina‘s sole mission is to spread this message by providing a platform on which women in technology can connect, empower and learn from one another. With the increasing importance of technology and its convergence with other professions, the necessity to educate, celebrate and support women in this field has become impossible to ignore.

I was also very excited to hear from Ishmael Beah, former child soldier from Sierra Leone and author of  A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.  Ishmael stressed the importance of education to create change. After the war in Sierra Leone made him an orphan and led him to a life as a child soldier, he had the opportunity to address the UN in the 1990′s and share his terrible experiences as a child growing up in those conditions. He was then adopted by an American women and was enrolled in school. Because he did not have any of his former transcripts from his war torn country, the school did not want to enroll him. However, after writing an essay on why he did not have transcripts, the school let him in. He credits his access to education for changing his life and believes the education is the core to all the MDGs.

On Tuesday I had the opportunity to attend a panel discussion on Fundraising and Community Organizing through Social Media.

The panelists included Laura Kozien of ACCION USA (@accion_usa), Danielle Silber of the International Rescue Committee (@theIRC), and Angela Jackson with the Global Language Project (@GlobalLang). The panel was moderated by Ben Jervey, “The New Ideal” columnist at GOOD Magazine (@GOOD).

Each of the panelists had taken part in an online fundraising contest. For example, Sam’s Club Giving Made Simple grant challenge, American Express Members Project, and the Pepsi Refresh Project.

The panel discussed ways in which to evaluate whether an organization should enter a contest, ways to get your donors and networks on board to support the contest, and ideas on how to follow up with supporters once the contest has finished.

When it comes to engaging social media for support, one of the main questions that comes up is how much contact is too much contact. Determining how often you should reach out to your social media contacts is always difficult. Too often may seem nagging and needy. Not enough looks like you’re not engaged. While this varies from organization to organization, there are number of tools available for social media which will allow you to program how often you contact your online connections. However, one of the main fears that I’ve come across is that too much automation removes the personal aspect of social media.

One of the participants recommended the book Share This!: How You Will Change the World with Social Networking by Deanna Zandt. The book discusses how Social Networks can be powerful tools for mobilizing communities to rally behind causes. 

 

A couple of weeks ago I attended Ignite NYC IX where I heard a short presentation from Zach Lieberman.  This particular Ignite event was part of Internet Week and featured a number of speakers talking on new technologies that have been developed.

Zach spoke primarily on the EyeWriter Initiative that he helped develop. The EyeWriter Initiative is a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus and custom software that allows graffiti writers and artists with paralysis resulting from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to draw using only their eyes.

Members of the Initiative teamed-up with a LA graffiti writer, publisher and activist, named Tony Quan, aka TEMPTONE. Tony was diagnosed with ALS in 2003, a disease which has left him almost completely physically paralyzed… except for his eyes. The international team is working together to create a low-cost, open source eye-tracking system that will allow ALS patients to draw using just their eyes. The long-term goal is to create a professional/social network of software developers, hardware hackers, urban projection artists and ALS patients from around the world who are using local materials and open source research to creatively connect and make eye art.

“Art is a tool of empowerment and social change, and I consider myself blessed to be able to create and use my work to promote health reform, bring awareness about ALS and help others.”

– Tony Quan, aka TemptOne

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to attend the #promise conference as part of Internet Week New York. The day long conference hosted a variety of speakers from large corporations such as Pepsico, MTV, and GE to internet start ups and non-profit organizations.

The goal of the conference was to explore the ways in which people are using the internet and social media to engage people in conversations to create change.

The first part of the day featured speakers from Pepsico, Timberland, and GE. Pepsico spoke primarily on their recycling campaign, while GE spoke on their healthymagination campaign. Both of these speakers seemed like a giant commercial and I was a little nervous, that the entire day was going to pan out into a big greenwashing conference, but fortunately the rest of the day was a bit more enlightening. One of the good things that did come out of the morning talks was that all the corporations recognized that the reason corporate social responsibility exists is that individuals are influencing corporations to create change and become more responsible for their actions.

One of the gifts that we got when we signed into the conference was a copy of Douglas Rushkoff’s book, Life, Inc. One of the panel sessions sat down with Rushkoff to discuss his book and the concept of how the world became a corporation and how we can now take it back. Rushkoff stressed that the best business is business that does something good. The doing good is profitable, maybe not at the rate that investment bankers like, but in terms of overall sustainability.