Rising Voices: Helping the global population join the global conversation October 28, 2008

Rising Voices: Helping the global population join the global conversation
David Sasaki
Tuesday, October 28, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor
RSVP required (rsvp@cyber.law.harvard.edu)
This event will be webcast live at 12:30 pm ET.

Most Kenyans spend idle afternoons discussing technology in trendy cafes. Nearly all Venezuelans oppose Chavez. And throughout the Middle East you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who supports sharia law. Or, at least, those would be your impressions of the world as shaped by the ever-expanding global blogosphere. As much as participatory media have democratized how we find out about the world around us, the new global voices tend to come from a narrow demographic: highly educated, urban, and upper-middle class. Rising Voices is a citizen media outreach initiative of Global Voices. Over the past year and a half it has provided micro-funding and training resources to 16 projects in communities in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe which previously had little or no online representation. David Sasaki, Global Voice's director of outreach, will discuss the successes, challenges, and lessons learned over the past 18 months of training under-represented communities how to take advantage of new media tools to participate in the 21st century global conversation.

About David
David “Oso” Sasaki is the Director of Rising Voices, a global citizen media outreach initiative of Global Voices Online. He manages a portfolio of small-scale projects around the developing world that use citizen media to effect social change. Prior to his current focus on outreach he served as Global Voices’ Latin America Regional Editor, monitoring the Latin American blogosphere, highlighting key content and translating select posts from Spanish to English. Sasaki transitioned into online journalism after working as a freelance web developer and English instructor in Monterrey, Mexico. He now splits his time and residence between North and Latin America and writes frequently at Rising Voices, Idea Lab, and on his personal weblog.

Official Website: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2008/10/sasaki