In 2010 and 2011 I maintained the bilingual blog Información Cívica to document my full time consultancy for Open Society Foundations. I was aided by my co-author, Juan Arellano. Through case studies and interviews, the blog sought to document and evaluate the use of technology and information by Latin American civil society, and help narrow the divide between the influential “digerati” and more experienced public advocacy groups.
In 2010 I directed a team of 16 researchers to complete a global mapping of technology projects that aim to promote transparency, political accountability and civic participation. The six-month mapping culminated in a widely referenced final report and lead to a second phase of research that focuses on in-depth, longer term impact evaluation.
In 2008 I was invite to the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center to cover the four-week event “Making the eHealth Connection,” which brought together researchers, policy makers, and philanthropists to discuss the potential of technology to make healthcare more affordable, effective, and accessible.
In 2008 I joined eight other American bloggers on a tour of South Africa organized by International Marketing Council, a government agency responsible for “promoting South Africa as a destination for investment and travel and as a source of innovation and high quality goods and services.” The trip was organized by Simon Barber and led by Graeme Addison.
In 2008 and 2009 I visited Liberia for a series of media training workshops with Liberian journalists. I published a post in 2008 reviewing the first blogging workshop and in 2009 I made a video of interviews with Liberian photojournalists. The experience opened my eyes to the difficulties of media development in post-conflict countries with few resources for journalists and media organizations.
Since its founding as a recipient of a 2007 Knight News Challenge grant, I directed Rising Voices, a citizen media training initiative of Global Voices, to train over 25 under-represented communities around the world to take advantage of new media tools to effect social change. I authored the Introduction to Global Citizen Media, which has been translated into six languages, and edited Blogging Positively, a guide to citizen media related to HIV/AIDS.
From 2005 to 2007 I was Global Voices’ editor for Latin America. I recruited, trained, and edited a team of fifteen contributing authors who curate the most interesting online conversations from blogging communities throughout Latin America. I also oversaw the launch of the Spanish-language version of Global Voices. Today Silvia Viñas is the Latin America editor and Juan Arellano manages the Spanish-language site.
