by David Sasaki | Oct 8, 2014 | English
But I’m also skeptical of a certain kind of skepticism — a fatalistic, apocalyptic, complainalism — that merely points out all that is wrong with humanity without every considering what can be done to improve our condition.
by David Sasaki | Jun 10, 2013 | English
The theme of this year’s New Cities Summit in São Paulo was “the human city.” But what is a human city? And, for that matter, what is a city? We must be able to conceptualize the non-city in order to define the city and “cityness,”...
by David Sasaki | Dec 14, 2012 | English, Omidyar Network, Work
This blog post is a summary of a $202,500 grant from Omidyar Network to Cidade Democratica to continue developing their open innovation platform and business model. This information is also available in IATI-compliant XML. Amount of grant: Up to USD $202,500 Date that...
by David Sasaki | Mar 29, 2012 | English, Open Government, Work
Brazil-based transparency and freedom of information scholar Greg Michener has authored the first major report on the use of online platforms to understand and monitor parliaments in Latin America. Commissioned by the Open Society Foundations, “Parliamentary...
by David Sasaki | Dec 15, 2011 | English
Last Sunday Jorge Castañeda wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times Sunday Review warning Americans what happens when a country doesn’t have a middle class. Yesterday he extended his argument in an hour-long interview with Tom Ashbrook. Castañeda argues...
by David Sasaki | Oct 24, 2010 | English
Let’s say the I photoshop a picture of you so that it appears that you are involved in a crime. I anonymously upload that picture to Flickr, Picasa, Fotolog, and other photo sharing sites. Then I anonymously publish several blog posts that feature the photo and...
by David Sasaki | May 15, 2010 | English
Weekends like this. Locked up in my room, or in various cafes, with a constant intake of caffeine to keep my fingers tapping on the keyboard to the rhythm from my tinny laptop speakers. Right now: J-Live. Yesterday I worked about 12 hours on a single post, a general...
by David Sasaki | Nov 28, 2009 | English
What do ministers of culture do? This was the question asked by Slate political reporter Chris Beam back in 2007 when, in the same week, commandos raided the Iraqi culture minister’s house to arrest him for a 2005 assassination attempt on a fellow politician....
by David Sasaki | Oct 25, 2009 | English
I’m still playing catch up. The right words just aren’t coming to my head. I was, however, able to put up the second part of my “New Era of Media Development” series over at Idea Lab. I especially liked Ivan’s comment about...
by David Sasaki | May 18, 2009 | English
A couple months ago a French photographer and street artist who goes by JR gained a good deal of attention for his latest installation in Kibera, one of the world’s largest slums (population 1 million), located on the outskirts of Nairobi in Kenya. His work was...