social media

One of the objectives of the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference is the creation of a Silicon Valley Standard (SVS). This is a principled statement incorporating the issues discussed at the 2011 Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference. The document includes 15 principles based on the 15 workshop topics covered at the conference.

The document is designed to complement other existing frameworks and uses the international human rights framework as its foundation. These principles served as a useful basis for discussion during the panels and represent a standard, which we hope the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector will use after the conference.

As the Internet and digital technologies become more widespread, the world is shrinking: we are constantly connected to our contexts, our people, our cultures and our networks. And you, yes YOU are a part of this change. In fact, as a digital native– someone to whom digital technologies are central to life – you are directly affecting the lives of many, sometimes even without knowing about it.

I woke up this morning to the news that del.icio.us is going to be shut down, which is quite sad news for many veteran social media enthusiasts. The best summary of the news, its implications and what our options are is on Beth's Blog, which is crossposted in full below.

As usual, hit the reply button in your email to share your thoughts/ideas/questions in the comments to this post.

I wanted to pass on this great elearning opportunity which I received today via the @risingvoices mailing list. It would be great to see many Kabissa members in Africa participate. "Join the Applicants Group, and you could be one of thirty women selected to participate in the full five-month citizen journalism and empowerment training program!"

If you use Facebook, you are now potentially broadcasting your location to your "Facebook friends" or the world.

Last week we made an appeal to Kabissa members to help us meet an important deadline for Kabissa on Sunday, August 15. By that day we needed to have raised $4,000 from at least 50 people to secure a permanent spot on Global Giving, an initiative that lets you select the projects you want to support, make a tax-deductible contribution, and get regular progress updates - so you can see your impact.

I would like to thank everyone who donated recently to Kabissa through Global Giving. I am deeply grateful that you have answered my call. In the coming weeks I will be posting a progress report to explain in more detail how your money will be spent.

Kabissa is honored to have been invited to take a coveted place on Global Giving, an online marketplace that connects you to the causes and countries you care about. You select the projects you want to support, make a tax-deductible contribution, and get regular progress updates - so you can see your impact. To keep our place, we need to raise at least $4000 from at least 50 people by 15 August.

I just received my first Twitter Qwitter (@usequitter) notification (see below), and am pleased with how it will help me to keep track of who has "unfollowed" @kabissa on twitter, a feature lamentably missing from @Twitter out of the box. You see, I follow everyone who follows me so that I can get to know them and allow them to send me direct messages. Unfortunately there are alot of twitter spammers out there who follow at random and then unfollow shortly thereafter, which causes unwanted clutter in my twitter stream.