As everyone has mentioned, picking just a few selections from the excellent proposals to nominate for the NetSquared Technology Innovation Fund is very hard, given the quality of the proposals — I can't imagine anyone will be voting for fewer than 10!

I helped to develop the Genocide Intervention Network's proposal — An Anti-Genocide Community: Building the Political Will to End Genocide — and thus one of my ten votes will be going to that project.

I had a few qualifications in building my list — criteria that encompass our own proposal:

• At least half of the projects I nominated would be located in the Global South, because of the large divide that already exists between technology in the Global North and the Global South — and NetSquared's position to help alter this.
• The projects I nominated would be grounded in community concerns or community initiatives. For me, that is broad enough to encompass a "community" of human rights workers or even, potentially, nonprofits. But I wanted to see a demonstrated need for the technology or service.
• Needless to say, the projects I nominated would be involved in innovative community-building and/or social networking. A number of projects seemed like very worthwhile charities but outside the scope of this particular conference/fund.

There were many, many good projects I couldn't include — even projects I had posted comments on. In particular, the "tools for nonprofits" generally got ruled out, as well as any project that seemed to have substantial momentum and/or financial backing already — while these are no doubt worthwhile projects, I think it's important to find and fund those projects that might not happen otherwise. These "runners up" are listed at the bottom.

The 10 projects I selected, and the reasons for selecting them (vision statements in italics):

• The Nata Village blog (Botswana): Empowering social change. Online community building. Amplifying marginalized voices. Facilitating leadership development. I can't imagine a more perfect project for NetSquared. A unique opportunity to witness the battle to control the spread of HIV/AIDS in an African village. Nata, Botswana is a village of hope. Donations from the blog are used to help the 400 orphans, people living with HIV/AIDS, Nata clinic, and a youth group.
• Social Web Tools for Developing Countries: Yankana.org (Ecuador): There were a lot of proposals from folks in the Global North proposing various social networking tools to benefit marginalized communities and/or the Global South. This project is actually based in the Global South, and grows out of the organization's experience in the field. This local knowledge, in my opinion, gives it the edge. Yankana is a project designed to help non profits located in developing countries to adopt and benefit from social web tools in their fields of work, without technical skills, financial resources for infrastructure or english language knowledge.
• moulin Wiki: The Offline Wikipedia (Mali): Such a simple yet vital project — bringing Wikipedia to those without Internet access. With documented use growing across Africa, I think this project should win our support. The moulin wiki project is our attempt to improve the access to basic information and reference material in developing countries by making it possible to access Wikipedia, the world’s largest, free encyclopedia, offline.
• Telecommunications and Microfinances for The Poor and The Poorest (Peru): Open-source wireless communications project that will provide a foundation for social networking. I would have liked the proposal to be a little more explicit about connecting those equipped with the technology with online communities or advocacy, but even so, I think it was a very strong proposal. This project will provide rural families in the Andes of Peru with access to telecommunications and microfinancial services in their communities for the first time.
• Project ABC: Community Literacy in the Bateyes (Dominican Republic): Like the Peruvian project (see above), I was initially skeptical because it seemed like this was simply an example of funding a new technology to an underserved community — an important project, but not necessarily within the NetSquared scope. But I was won over with the explicit attention to community capacity-building and a kind of proto-network-centric advocacy (given that the network is still being built). Developments are also used as a model for other nonprofits in the area. Project ABC works in Haitian-Dominican communities of the Dominican Republic establishing community-based literacy programs. ABC utilizes the resources of social web to innovate its programs, build solidarity, and broaden its impact.
• The Hub (United States): One of my favorite projects. Videos of human rights abuses spread through social networking and online communities could be truly revolutionary for this entire "sector" of nonprofits and NGOs. Imagine a My Space meets You Tube for human rights — an online destination where global citizens could learn the strategies and access the tools they needed to use their visual documentation of abuses to create community action and change.
• The People, Yes (United States): Community-based initiative to bring marginalized communities into the online discussion. Not only compelling, but realistic — develop the online community "voice" first, then branch out to social networking. The People, Yes is about hitting the streets (shelters, jails and other avenues found on the other side of the digital divide) to find new voices to add flavor to a local community blogosphere.
• Kabissa 2.0: Strengthening the Social Web in Africa (United States, but seems strongly grounded in Africa): As I noted in my comment on this proposal: I love how this project engages in and furthers the social capital and social power in the communities you serve. Instead of setting yourself up as the gatekeeper of social change, you're empowering the people — who stand to benefit from greater democracy — with greater access to democracy in self-organizing. Marries power of Web 2.0 with passion of 900+ African orgs in our network. Savvy Web 2.0 Ambassadors will collaborate through the Kabissa site and face to face to develop and promote homegrown strategies for employing Web 2.0 for social change.
• The Martus Project: Secure Information Management (United States): This is one of two "tools for nonprofits" (also see Yankana) that I let through. It is entirely unsexy — securing information — but absolutely critical for many NGOs in the field. A presentation and comments from Benetech at least year's NetSquared conference convinced me of the necessity and of Benetech's commitment to training nonprofits around the technology. The Martus Project — Greek for "witness" — is a free, open source software tool that helps non-technical users in the human rights field capture, backup and protect their most valuable asset: information.
• An Anti-Genocide Community: Building the Political Will to End Genocide (United States): I think our proposal embodies the spirit of NetSquared — online community-building and social networking for social change — and in particular the ideas of participatory media and network-centric advocacy. Encouraging people to see themselves as part of an explicit "anti-genocide community" is vital to building the political will to end genocide. Empowering anti-genocide activists with the tools for community-based education, user-generated content and strong shared connections, the anti-genocide community will pool the collective knowledge of a growing movement for change.

10 projects that didn't quite make it, but that I hope will be in the final 20 recipients:

• Farmer 2 Farmer Learning: This sounds like an excellent initiative and has some innovative uses of social networking. I just ran out of room on my Global North–based list.
• HELP International Telemedicine Humanitarian Emergency Mobile Medical Clinic Network: Similarly important project filling a critical need — I wish I could nominate 12!
• Maps 2.0 and HungerMaps: Although one of these is a specific "tool" and one is more centered on a particular issue, I think both of these projects make good cases. HungerMaps looks like a great, if small, mashup with hunger-related data. Maps 2.0 could become a vital tool in humanitarian relief work.
• iLoveMountains.org: Of the projects in the Global North focusing on marginalized communities, I think this is the one most well-developed, compelling and community-based. Strategic use of social networking (including the excellent ForwardTrack tool that the Genocide Intervention Network's project also uses) and extensive grounding in the needs of the community should put this project high in everyone's lists.
• Making Connections: Bringing Rural and Urban Students Together: Although this project really only uses blogging technology (with some social networking), I think the pedagogy grounding the project — and the potential to influence other education initiatives — makes it an extremely important use of community-based technology.
• YouthAssets: Connecting funders of HIV/AIDS initiatives to the communities who actually benefit from them — and amplifying the voices of those individuals and their needs. The technologies referenced seemed to indicate a strong campaign, though the supporting documentation seemed a little sparse.
• Prevent human trafficking using images and stories: Mobilizing support and empowering activists by documenting the stories of those victimized by human trafficking — an excellent and very powerful initiative.
• Fair Wage Guide: Giving workers in the informal economy "wage data and a mechanism to value their time" — thus allowing them to advocate for higher wages. Don't let the unfortunate lack of a vision statement deter you, this is a great project.
• Freecycle.org: Building online communities and real-world connections around a gift economy. A truly small-scale social revolution!

And if you still can't get enough, there were a few tools that I thought were pretty cool but chose not to allocate my votes for because of my desire to fund small-scale and community-based projects: Sparkloop, GiveWell, Grassroots.org Toolbox, MAPLight.org, ManorMeta.

And there were a few projects that I thought were pretty strong but just needed a little more thinking around how they fit into the NetSquared community — I hope they'll apply again next year: myBLOC, NiJeL, HIV Atlas, Global Women's Leadership Network, Not Just a Number, International Network of Victims of Terrorism and War, Globaloria.