This post is ultimately about the role technology plays in Burma-centered human rights action, the bulk of which is carried by a conversation with U.S. Campaign for Burma
board member Nickie Sekera. Bear with me, however, as the rambling preamble touches on how relatively small and intimate the nonprofit/activist tech world is.

Hello all - Alex Steed here.

I'll be covering the Personal Democracy Forum, which is occurring on Monday and Tuesday, in New York (at Jazz at Lincoln Center!) for the next two days. From the conference website:

In the past couple of days, I have had the great pleasure of having post-N2Y4 conversations with John Zoltner (a project representative from DatAgro) and Emily Jacobi (a project representative from Digital Democracy's Handheld Human Rights).

The Case Foundation's follow-up research and assessment report from their 2007-2008 America's Giving Challenge has been getting a lot of love on Twitter, and just in case you missed it, here it is:

The Giving Challenge: Assessment and Reflection Report

The report was written by the always fabulous Allison Fine and Beth Kanter.

A few highlights:

A little over a month back, we ran an interview with Eric Volz as a part of our coverage of the Berkeley Human Rights Center's conference, The Soul of the New Machine: Human Rights, Technology, and New Media. Volz was a panelist at the conference, where he discussed his experience as a political prisoner in Nicaragua, the online campaign which helped to keep his case alive, and the pros and cons of staging similar campaigns.

Mobile Active wants you to know that there are two Mobile Tech 4 Social Change events on the horizon. 'Tis the season for tech-for-good events, what with N2Y4 right behind us (have you checked out the wrap-up here?) and Personal Democracy Forum (find discounts for the NetSquared community here) on the horizon.

You'll find the events in:

The realms of the nonprofit tech space and the social entrepreneurship sphere share a lot of overlap. I've had a number of conversations, though, with those who identify more with the former realm sort of at a loss when it comes to navigating the latter. "I've created this awesome widget or application or I have this great idea, but I'm not quite sure how to move forward with it," is a common concern that I hear voiced quite often. 

If I'm remembering this correctly, I first heard about Jonathan Gosier from Nathaniel Whittemore, the Social Entrepreneurship blogger at Change.org. Nathaniel and I have known each other forever and ever, and he's the kind of guy who really lets you know about someone when he thinks that someone is awesome, and when he does this, I pay attention.

I was recently fortunate to speak with Allison Fine, an all-around do-gooder in the world of tech 2.0 (or whatever we're calling it these days - what are we calling it these days?) Among the many fabulous things for which Allison has been responsible, you might recall Give List, a crowdsourced a list of volunteery things that could be offered for Christmas. The project was developed in partnership with Techsoup/NetSquared C.E.O. Marnie Web.

Allison and I discussed - in essence - the planning of the order-of-operations used to put into action meaningful and effective web-outreach campaigns.

I am so excited to see the global faces and issues represented by the featured project introductions (adding to the excitement was the fact that the first presenters delivered and translated their introduction in French, included a "Yes We Can" reference, and incorporated a direct threat to tyranny in the Ivory Coast. Amazing.) While there is a lot of representation here from the states, this group is truly a global one in heart and representation.