The European Congress of Culture that just ended in Wroclaw, Poland, has been one of the most important European events during this year’s Polish presidency in the EU. Run with impetus, packed with intellectual and artistic personalities, the congress made an attempt to highlight Europe's most important art initiatives. What about this cultural project could be interesting in the context of the NetSquared Community?

The deadline for the One World New Media for Social Change Competition submission has been extended to the 31st of December 2010. To read more about the competition go to the Fundacja TechSoup website or check out the previous blog post concerning the topic.

We have already received some excellent submissions, but hope for even more organizations and individuals to participate, showing what they are doing and explain how their work is helping to make the world a better place.

The deadline for the New Media for Social Change competition almost here: December 20, 2010. Interested groups and individuals should read the Rules and Regulations and fill out the online submission form as soon as possible. If you have any questions or concerns that might keep you from submitting something, please feel free to contact One World immediately by writing Scott Hudson scott.hudson@oneworld.cz.

Nominations are now open for the fifth annual awarding of the $10,000 Antonio Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest, an award aimed at software developers working with nonprofits to help forge innovative social change. The prize welcomes applications from — and nominations of — single individuals who have demonstrated leadership in the field of public interest software. 

Prize criteria:

(This post originally written by Mary Joyce for the Meta-Activism blog. You can see the original post here.)

The Global Digital Activism Data Set is the first attempt to quantitatively study digital activism as a global phenomenon.  It is an all-volunteer project to create an open case study database under a Creative Commons license that will be accessible to scholars and activists around the world.  It currently has 342 cases, with over 1,500 cases waiting to be entered… and that’s our challenge.

Good day social change makers! 

My name is Natalie Villalobos and I'm the founder of 300 Acres - a project that is attempting to raise $70,000 in 30 days to save 300 acres of ancestral land for the Shuar/Quichua people in Puyo, Ecuador.

We started the project this past Monday, March 5th and will give our biggest outreach push and donation raising through April 5th. We only have until April 5th to attain these funds or the land will be purchased by a development group that is interested in dividing the land - potentially cutting down the old growth trees, and starting a gold mining enterprise. This of course is explicitly against the wishes of the native people of this region.

Starting this Friday, the NetSquared team will be at the South By Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas. The SXSWi conference is an opportunity for online media experts to get together for in-person networking and learning. If you're going to be there, we'd love for you to get in touch. Here's what we'll be up to:

Over the next two days, key influencers from around Britain and around the world are at the National Digital Inclusion Conference organizing and planing for digital inclusion in the UK. You can take part by watching the live video stream and sharing your opinions on Twitter.

The Social Media for Social Good collection from NTEN and NetSquared calls for your case studies in leveraging social media tools in your program work.

Social Media for Social Good

Everywhere you turn, you’re hearing about social media. Especially when it comes to fundraising. But at NTEN and NetSquared, we know that social media is good for a lot more than raising money. We know that social media can be used to change the world. That’s why we’re launching the Social Media for Social Good case study collection!