Nalaka Gunewardene has an interesting article on smart cities published on Scidev.net, in which he makes the our cities today are just too unhealthy and that the advent of smart cities will “enhance feedback loops within the complex systems” and if processed properly, result in a “the steady flow of data” that “can vastly improve the design of ‘hard’ physical ...
Mobile Technologies for Conflict Management: Online Dispute Resolution, Governance, Participation edited by Marta Poblet is now available online and soon in print. Contributing authors are some of the best writers and thinkers on Online Dispute Resolution (ODR), mobile technologies and dispute resolution and in
Twitter’s recent announcement that it had implemented a system which would let it withhold particular tweets from specific countries has caused a storm, with many decrying the move as one that aids repressive regimes more easily control information flows within the country. As the Guardian notes, The company has insisted that it will not use the gagging system in ...
My work with UAVs is largely conceptual, framed by growing up in a context of war, deeply informed by having to deal with the enduring legacy of violent conflict even post-war and anchored to the inalienable yet often callously erased rights of communities and individuals around safety, security and privacy. My interest in UAVs results from the potential they bring ...
Every single white dot in the satellite image above, taken in March 2009, is the temporary shelter for an internally displaced family in Sri Lanka. When viewed at full resolution on Google Earth, it is a mind-boggling concentration of people in conditions that were absolutely appalling. After working on it for a whole day, I published on Groundviews (The ...
Via Mashable this morning, came across this interesting infographic which flags two chief concerns of identity online. The infographic is a simplification of hotly contested debates that for a number of years have explored the merits of anonymity as a hindrance or enabler of progressive communications. Some articles I’ve posted on this topic are, Online identity: Real or fake for ...
Prezi presentation on ICCM 2011 by Geeks Without Borders Last week I delivered a keynote address at the 3rd International Conference of Crisis Mappers held in Geneva, an annual meeting of the practitioners, academics and some of the best minds in the world involved in shaping the future of humanitarian aid and post-disaster relief work. My involvement and enduring interest ...
My friend Jeevani Fernando, in an incredibly kind gesture, has transcribed my interview with Ashoka Foundation recently on civic and citizen media, accessible here. Direct link to original post here. ### Citizen Media Experts Interviews: Sanjana Hattotuwa ‘Citizen Media is Vital for the Global Population to Move Forward in the 21st Century’ The Ashoka Changemakers Citizen Media Competition (sponsored by ...
I was invited by Sri Lanka Unites to speak to a group of 25 students from 13 district at the Royal College auditorium today on the use of new and social media to strengthen social justice and democracy. I remain conflicted about SLU. On the one hand and prima facie, the failure of Beyond Borders in Sri Lanka to live ...
The Ashoka Foundation now features a Skype interview I did around a month or so ago with the inspiring Evagelia Emily Tavoulareas on how civic and citizen media can help bear witness to the erosion of democratic governance and violence. I talk about Sri Lanka, but the ideas and issues in our conversation can resonate in similar contexts of systemic ...
Based on my presentation on how digital photography is now inextricably entwined into popular revolt, Frugal Dad emailed me a link to this interesting infographic on the iPhone’s camera. Original post here. Filed under: ICT for Peacebuilding
When I read Where Humbert Humbert Might Whisper in Your Ear in the New York Times on a flight back to Colombo from the US, I immediately thought of doing something along the same lines in Sri Lanka to explore to what degree, post-war, we were still under invisible frameworks of control and censorship. Upon my return, I emailed the ...
Granularity of many vs. the vantage of the few: Photography and activism today was the title of a lecture I delivered recently at the American Centre, and in a slightly revised form, at the Fulbright Commission. The preparation for the lectures reminded me of my experience with photography. I first handled Thaththa’s Minolta when I was a small child, shooting ...
I delivered a presentation at “Enhancing Information and Communication: Issues for Policymakers, Ambassadors, and Commanders” organised by National Defence University, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC on 17 August 2011. I’ve not talked about SSTR and HADR issues for a while now, though the work I do with the ICT4Peace Foundation on the UN Crisis Information Management strategy and related ...
Originally written for an up-coming edition of Saama Vimarshi (Peace Monitor) a publication in Sinhala by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), where I am a Senior Researcher. ### Every single available indicator suggests that well within the next 5 years, the number of registered SIM cards will exceed the total population of Sri Lanka. There are already over 18 ...
I was invited to deliver a keynote address at the ISCRAM Asia Conference 2014 held in Sri Lanka from 20 – 21 June 2014. My session was held at the University of Colombo’s School of Computing and was titled ‘The more the technology, the more it stays the same?’. Had my keynote been a week earlier, I would have begun ...
One thing must be clear to everyone: BlackBerry devices are not responsible for the attacks. Weapons don’t kill people. People kill people! With or without BlackBerry devices. They don’t care if they use a Russian AK47, a German G36, an American M16 or the butcher’s knife from the friend next door. Mumbai Terrorists were equipped with BlackBerry smartphones, 2008 When ...
A brief interview with the Ashoka Foundation, conducted during the 2011 MIT-Knight Civic Media Conference in Boston. Filed under: ICT for Peacebuilding, Interesting content on ICT4Peace Tagged: Citizen journalism, civic media, Groundviews, ICT, Sri Lanka
Every single white dot in the satellite image above, taken in March 2009, is the temporary shelter for an internally displaced family in Sri Lanka. When viewed at full resolution on Google Earth, it is a mind-boggling concentration of people in conditions that were absolutely appalling. After working on it for a whole day, I published on Groundviews (The ...
Around a fortnight ago I was invited by two leading civil society organisations (Women and Media Collective and Young Asia Television) to conduct full day training programmes for civil society activists, mostly women and from outside the Western Province, introducing them to web based social and new media, new media advocacy strategies and Internet security. The lectures were delivered in ...
