Ugonet (Beta)

As you may know, if you have clicked on the link to Ugonet, I have got the video sharing community/social network up and running. While it is Beta , I am asking friends, and friends of friends, and all their friends to post! This experimental project in its infancy (2 days old) - an alternative to youtube/myspace for folks with a mission or a vision - so please post and send me your feedback. If you don't see a channel that fits your work, but you think your clips should be up on Ugonet, let me know so I can create new channels. But, please do post! This is a user generated community and you can create, change, play and connect with your portal in any way you like, send messages and make friend with others on the site. You can take material down as easily as you can post it, so play and have fun with your clips and profiles. Let's see what an alternative to youtube/myspace can be like. I will try and get the photo upload scripts working soon!

Kids With Cameras

A MEETING OF EYES: AFRICA – BRAZIL -– CARIBBEAN.
"A Meeting of Eyes" - is a project begun in July 2004 under the direction of Dirce Carrion, president of the non-profit Brazilian organization Imagem da Vida (Image of Life). "A Meeting of Eyes," establishes an exchange between children and communities that have similar cultural roots, but have been separated by the history of slavery. Filmmaker/photographer/writer Marcelo Fortaleza Flores who introduced the teaching of digital video to children in Dakar and Gorée Island in Senegal, and Senegalese filmmaker El-Hadji Samba Sarr, who taught the video workshops among the maroons of São Lourenço, in Northeastern Brazil, worked on the project. Marcelo is currently editing a film using photography and moving images produced by the children and their experiences of the project - in their own words. Marcelo described to me some of the challenges of working across cultural and digital divides. It is important, he points out, to "give the kids a strong sense of identity, because the world they live in is typically seen as a horrible world, by the media and the elite......one that they must get away from." Marcelo says of his work, "we try to give value and power to culture, to show the kids how powerful and valuable African and African American culture is, so they can have something they can identify with, and they are not torn between school and the West, and their mother's or family, and dejection, and they do not see themselves as the excluded "rest" as opposed to a longed for "West", a goal that is unattainable for them."




A commitment to go beyond simply putting cameras in the hands of disenfranchised kids is shown in a number of projects around the world. The Born Into Brothels team through their KWC organization is pioneering outreach that goes well beyond their film and workshop projects. This Sunday, February 11th, there will be a special event for The KWC School For Leadership Arts and Hope House (Asha Niwas), "a nurturing home where up to 150 children from Calcutta's red light district can come to live, learn, and grow. .............The model for Hope House will be unveiled at a special benefit dinner hosted by the restaurant Tabla in New York City on Sunday, February 11, 2007. The dinner will feature five of this country's most lauded Indian Chefs. The goal of the evening is to raise a portion of the money needed to purchase land, build the home, create a college fund, and provide programs that will develop the children's skills and enrich their lives. We are looking to raise $1 million dollars for the project; $200,000 has already been raised."

Recently, also here in NYC, the renowned film making family, pioneers of Direct Cinema, The Maysles - "Salesman," "Gimme Shelter," and "Grey Gardens" - began working with young filmmakers in Harlem, NY. In the Village Voice, Jan 9th, Ed Alter wrote a great feature on the project. He writes, "Albert moved his operations into a renovated Harlem brownstone last year, a close-knit Maysles team, spearheaded by his son Philip, created a program designed to teach documentary film making to disadvantaged youth—Maysles-style. The group partnered with the Incarcerated Mothers Program, part of Edwin Gould Services for Children and Families, an East Harlem–based organization that creates activity programs for children with parents in prison. Launched under the name "On Our Side," a pilot course with half a dozen youngsters aged eight to 12 ran successfully on a shoestring budget this past summer, and the organizations are now gearing up to continue and expand the program early this year." Downtown Community Television in Lower Manhattan has offered Pro-TV, a documentary production program for older teenagers, since 1978. But, Alter notes, "whereas DCTV focuses on community reportage and political engagement on the youth-media model (a recent production, for example, documents the impact of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans)," "On Our Side," gears itself toward the younger set, "showing kids the possibilities of using nonfiction filmmaking for more personal expression—how to suss out the "human element" of a moment."


There is so much more to say on this topic. I am putting together posts on projects all over the world, so please send me your updates. There is some fantastic work going on in Australia - see CAAMA, Us Mob, and Deadly Mob for a taste! Also, coming soon a post on the innovative work of Lotus Outreach.

Mobile phones in Africa

On his Social Edge blog, GlobalX gives the hyperbole: "Where telephones lead, development follows," a good hard look and some astute sideways glances. There is, he notes, Apple’s iPhone (for the wealthy part of the world) and the Motophone (for the rest of the world). GlobalX looks at more than the special features Motorola has designed into the MotoPhone to make it more affordable and suited to the conditions in emerging markets. He notes, "Motorola estimates that more than 80% of the world's population lives in an area covered by wireless networks." But, he points out, "fewer than 15% of Africans currently have mobile phones." GlobalX asks, "If we were to send millions of mobile devices to Africa, would that mean that the continent would catch up overnight with the rest of the world? Is it that simple?" As he wrote from the Skoll World Forum last year, “while many human beings in Africa live with $1 a day, the average European cow gets about $2 a day in farm subsidies and various other subventions, and the Japanese cow receives $7.” GlobalX suggests that trade agreements and agricultural incentives have a bigger impact on the developing world than any cool electronic gadget. Nevertheless, in yesterday's post, he did find something that impressed him: "that mobile phones were finally creating what several generations of African politicians have been avoiding: a free market." He reports, TradeNet, a mobile-phone service based in Ghana sends market information via SMS, including prices and relevant news, “to put more information into the hands of the producers and traders, making the market more transparent and efficient, and assisting stakeholders to make decisions about when to plant, what to grow, who to trade with, when to sell, and for how much.”
I agree with GlobalX that it will take a lot more than a cool electronic gadget to reduce the global digital and economic divides. GlobalX hopes that "African farmers in the developing world will use their shiny new MotoFone to remind the rest of the world that wealthy countries spend $300 billion in protective measures and only $50 billion in aid to the developing world." I hope so too. But, I know that these Motophones will be used in myriad innovative ways that we cannot imagine yet!

GlobalX keeps a wireless mobile photo blog . Also, thank you, Camilla for sending this photo of cell phones made by children in a Darfur camp after they saw aid workers' phones. There will be more soon on Camilla's video on everyday life in a Darfur camp - to be distributed by Witness.

A shout out to two friends in Northern Nigeria!

Thank you Muhammad Aasim Qamar (19) and Ahmad I. Mukoshy (15), Sokoto, Nigeria for your e-mail and update on your website GreatIndia - a fantastic, eclectic mix of Indian history, culture, links to online cricket games and Bollywood news. I really look forward to hearing more about your projects.

What is an online video sharing community? What is an internet reality show? What is Web 2.0?

I have received several e-mails in the last few days asking these questions. First, what is the difference been Web 1.0 and Web 2.0? As my friend in Australia wrote, "my position in the antipodes, where sometimes a land-based phone line is a challenge, means that I've only barely come in contact with Web 2.0 as a concept." Well there are many things I could say on the Web 2.0 topic. But, lets start out with Time Magazine's definition. "Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together as away for scientists to share research. It is not even the overhyped dotcom of the late 1990s. The new web is a very different thing. It is a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0 as if it were a new version of software. But, it's really a revolution." Click on the Time link to catch up on the December "Person of the Year Issue," that covers "the user-powered revolution." And, if you need an antidote from big media spin afterwords, I suggest a quick visit to Trend Spotting from the Daly Show on YouTube. When you've finished having a good laugh at youth culture and social networking (hey, the baby boomers are just jealous!), come back here to see how a social network from Buzznet, who posted their interests as activism will be putting together a piece on New Orleans for Ugonet - featuring lots of quirky video clips and "not emo" music.

So, what is Ugonet? Ugonet will be a video sharing community (when I get the scripts working on the ugonet.org domain!). Yes, ugonet is like a MySpace YouTube combo for social entrepreneurship and off grid folks around the world. Individuals and organzations worldwide - agents of change -- will be able to upload video clips and photos (for free), describe their projects, and manage the presentation (easily). You will be able to link your project into a bustling node on the digital nervous system without worrying about how another organization or blogger is (mis)representing your work! The site will allow you to set up groups, invite members, create networks of friends, and a lot more!


Next question, What is an internet reality show? How will this work? There are already several examples of the genre. The world's first internet reality says Technology News was launched by StudyAbroad in 2004. Combining television shows like MTV's The Real World and CBS's Amazing Race with blogging, StudyAbroad has created BlogAbroad, a website where three college students studying abroad during the spring semester keep an interactive journal of their adventures. They are given different tasks to complete during the semester and post comments, stories, pictures and videos available 24 hours a day. For more internet reality adventures, see Yahoo's proposed online reality series which follows two families as they refurbish their homes with $10,000 in electronics. I personally like better the idea of spending money on WiFi in an "off grid" community. Also, check out TyMeLyNe's online Hip Hop reality show. Several people have e-mailed me asking me for more details on the ugotrade reality show. How do you play? Well as soon as we have a bunch of folks up and running on ugonet's networking and clip sharing community, the online community can work out some of these questions together! Members will be able vote on a variety of different game plans and show formats, and if the show should go ahead. Well, I hope some of these links and brief explanations help. The main point is that ugonet will be a user generated video community, and the director of the show, in many ways, will be you!

What is Social Entrepreneurship?

There will be more about this, of course, in future posts! But, for now, The Skoll foundation has a page giving a brief history. And, for an insiders view, see The Kiva Chronicles, a blog "by social entrepreneurs for social entrepreneurs." Go to YouTube for a clip from Rooy Media's Social Entrepreneurship series and to Ashoka for news of projects around the world.

AfricaWrites crosses the Makona

This photo just in from AfricaWrites shows Managing Editor Patrick (with camera) and Robert Millamono – AfricaWrites Field Coordinator and Assist. Editor - on a trip across the Makona river into Sierra Leone in October of 2005. Patrick describes their experiences:
“We were to meet with several community leaders and Chiefs. But unfortunately we were detained by the secret police and were delayed a bit. However, while in custody we made some great friends and the government agreed to offer their full assistance in working with us within the region. That particular crossing was the site where many rebels died a few years ago while attempting to flee back across the Guinean border. They perished in the cold and (very) rapid waters of the Makona. The primary means of crossing that river is by using the Kissi traditional canoes. While crossing, they constantly fill with water so children are always helping to empty the water with small tin cans.”