I recently had the opportunity to catch up on the work the Digital Democracy team is doing.  Digital Democracy was an N2Y4 Featured Project.  Here's a great recap from Emily and Mark:

Handheld Human Rights: Thanks to support from NetSquared/FACT and UC Berkely's Human Rights Center, they launched Handheld Human Rights this fall in Thailand, a system that uses mobile phones to connect human rights workers around Burma's borders. In September, they deployed the local portal with our partner the All Burma IT Student Union. They are currently logging human rights abuses onto a public map using the Ushahidi platform, and looking for the funding to extend the system to other neighboring countries.

Other work in the region: In addition to launching Handheld Human Rights, they launched two other programs in conjunction with their trip to Southeast Asia, and are continuing with each in 2010.

• Project Einstein Thailand - a photo training with youth in the Mae La Refugee Camp. View photos and videos they filmed and broadcast live on the web. This spring, they are working to connect those youth with resettled Karen refugees in Indiana using the Project Roebling platform they're building with MIT and Eyebeam.
• Digital Democracy TV - an Internet TV show exploring how technology is changing the world. Episodes have covered a range of topics, including Thai Netizens, Burma's political prisoners, and the role of technology in the Burmese democracy movement. 

Finally, on Thursday Mark and Emily have been invited to attend Secretary Clinton's speech on Internet Freedom at the Newseum. Given Google's recent decision on censorship in China (read our blog post about it) they are honored and excited to begin the year in the midst of such important conversations about Internet policy and freedom of information.

They've also been doing work in terms of Haiti response: They had colleagues on the ground in Haiti before the earthquake struck, working on Project Einstein Haiti, and they have also been helping the Ushahidi team and the Crisis Mappers Network.

.To learn more about Digital Democracy and their projects, visit: http://www.digital-democracy.org/