This is a post that’s long overdue, since the time the film was released! I was spurred to write it this morning, as I’m quite excited to be on a panel discussion at the screening of Tactical Tech’s film called 10 Tactics – Turning Information into Action.

The screening is at the Conference Room of National College, Bandra today and is being hosted by Point of View.  I’m often asked what Info-Activism is, and this film is a must-see for all those who are curious about, interested in and work in the area. I’m also often asked whether I’m a rights activist or a digital activist – and I say no, I’m an ethnographer and researcher who is sometimes an accidental information activist. I’d also broaden the scope of the relevance of these 10 Tactics to those who are working in the social media area, and to those in the corporate world, who’s focus of work is in developing products, services and strategies in a world where customers, users, consumers are already exchanging information, having conversations, and learning often much faster than organizations are. Or simply, it’s for those who care and already use these tools – how can you get more involved in making a difference?

From the 10 Tactics website:

What is 10 Tactics?

10 tactics provides original and artful ways for rights advocates to capture attention and communicate a cause. It includes a 50-minute film documenting inspiring info-activism stories from around the world and a set of cards; with tools tips and advice, for you to work through as you plan your own info-activism

The film features 35 info-activism stories told from the point of view of advocates in 24 different countries including Lebanon, India, Tunisia, Egypt, Kenya, Indonesia, South Africa and the UK.

The film is shared at the website as 10 Tactics, along with Tactics cards that cover a case study, a video story, suggestions and tips, and a featured tool. The 10 Tactics are:

1. Mobilizing people
2. Witness and record
3. Visualize your message
4. Amplify personal stories
5. Just add humour
6. Manage your contacts
7. How to use complex data
8. Use collective intelligence
9. Let people ask the questions
10. Investigate and expose

(I’m featured in Tactic 8 – Use Collective Intelligence – here’s the gist of what I said – “We have communities that we have developed over time in several spaces on the web – on blogs, Facebook, Twitter. What these tools allow you to do is network with all of your online communities, to operate as hubs of connected people. So when something happens and you need to respond, it’s about the spontaneous mobilisation of a community that already exists online, through the multiple nodes and hubs that you have created as you leave your footprints on the web.”

Tactic 8 – Use collective intelligence from Tactical Technology Collective on Vimeo.)

The project came about at the Info-Activism camp held in February 2009, which I was very privileged to have attended.

We’ve also used collective intelligence and swarming way back in 2004 when the Tsunamis had devastated parts of Asia and then again in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina – each of these on a different scale, and using other technologies like blogs and wikis and Skype.

If you’re interested in this area, make sure you view the whole film, all 10 tactics! And there are screenings all over the world, so do go for them, and participate in the discussions.

Last week, I attended the Round Table on Assessing the Efficacy of Information and Communication Technologies for Public Initiatives, hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore, on 17 June 2009, in collaboration with the Liberty Institute, New Delhi.

The discussion was really interesting, and I do hope it is the start of many such events. It was a great opportunity to share and learn around projects, processes and outcomes! I got to know more about many really interesting projects and the people associated with them – Edwin from Open Space who was the facilitator, Barun Mitra of Liberty Institute that runs EmpoweringIndia, Muthatha Ramanathan, the JaagoRe guys from Janaagraha, Ravi Rangan of Comat, Siddharth Sharma of Intellecap, Nitai Mehta of Praja, Gokul of Mapunity, Gautam John of Pratham books, Meera from the Bangalore-based Citizen Matters, Sanjay Jain of Google, Gaurav Mishra of Vote Report India, a bunch of folks from CIS – Pranesh, Anja, Kiran, and many more!  The Tactical Technology Collective folks were there too, and Allan and David distributed some of their guides and toolkits which were a real hit in terms of content and production values!

Zainab has a really detailed report on the roundtable, the picture above is from her post. The discussion was also live-tweeted under the #cisia tag!

A few things that struck me when reflecting upon the event:

• that there is a need to combine efforts and share resources across the various projects, for instance, back-end integration with the government
• that there’s need to engage audiences in the projects by different ways of dissemination
• that ‘data’ needs to be presented and disseminated in ways that are relevant to people’s lives and in line with their own usage patterns, habits and behaviour
• and that there are opportunities within this diverse groups to help and collaborate.

On one of the breaks, Gautam John, who I enjoyed meeting F2F after following his tweets for a while, introduced me to Sachin Malhan and his team who are working on a really interesting set of projects under the umbrella, Inclusive Planet. I was quite impressed with what they’re trying to do – creating innovative crowd-sourced online services for the differently-abled with the vision of leveraging these services to building a community on the web. The common theme across their projects is ‘access’. Check out Readable, their beta platform that enables the blind to share and access books and materials relevant to their study or leisure in formats totally accessible to them.

Peter and I were also invited to be on a Panel Discussion hosted by  CIS, on Social Media and Mobilisation. It was a good conversation, although not always easy when the audience is so diverse – we had open source geeks nd technologists, online & offline activists, ngo’s, marketers, social media users & newbies. Zainab has a nice synopsis at her blog.

Thanks Sunil, Nishant and Zainab of the Centre of Internet and Society for inviting me to these events, and to Zainab for being such a great host!

If you do too, don’t hesitate to click the button below, this December.

Tactical Tech and Aspiration are organizing a week-long event in Bangalore, India in February 2009 – The Info-Activism Camp. Deadline for applications has been extended to Nov 8th.

The Info Activism camp (http://www.informationactivism.org), to be held in Bangalore, India from February 19th to 25th, helps advocates to make the best use of information, communication and digital technologies to achieve their objectives. The first-ever international camp on Info-Activism will feature 120 participants, picked through a competitive selection process, and who will not only learn but also share skills and techniques to aid in the process of advocacy. Workshops, group discussions, interactive sessions and live demos, which to a large extent will evolve from participants’ proposals, are all part of the one-week programme.
If you want to learn more about the camp, please write to infoactivism@tacticaltech.org

The organizers were involved in the AsiaSource camps – I can guarantee you lotsa fun and learning! Here’s a pic from Asia Source 2 as a sampling:

November seems to be full of online activism days and weeks! Today’s the Buy Nothing Day, here’s another one – to end Violence Against Women:

Cheekay Cinco of APC Women writes to inform me of this campaign to end violence against women. This is a collaborative campaign by ICT users, advocates, collectives and organisations that take issue with the prevalence of Violence Against Women in our diverse realities.

Go over to the take back the tech website to get ideas on how you could participate, localize it, start it in your own community, suggest actions, and join the blogathon.

Join in and spread the word if you care.

TAKE BACK THE TECH: 6 DAYS OF RECLAIMING TECHNOLOGY IN ACTIVISM TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

//In Uganda, a SMS campaign called Speak out! Stand Out! is organised by WOUGNET to collect messages against VAW//

//In Quebec, feminists and communication rights activists are creating short video clips and comic postcards on VAW.//

//In Malaysia, Burmese refugees are creating audiocasts on issues related to VAW and women’s rights together with Centre for Independent Journalism.//

From 25 November to 10 December, get ready to pull out the mouse, flex your SMS fingers and engage full energy in activism to end violence against women (VAW). APC Women’s Programme (APC WNSP) calls on users of the radio, television, internet, emails, mobile phones and all kinds of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to Take Back The Tech!

Technorati tags: takebackthetech, harmfulcontent

Aparna Ray, in a post at Global Voices Online links to several blogs that are trying to garner aid and resources to help victims of Cyclone Sidr. [Image on right courtesy BBC News]. Towards the end of the post, she shares this simple yet cool use of SMS to get people to donate:

Bangla blogging platform Somewherein, in association with Save the Children, has launched an innovative SMS based campaign “Jagoron” (which literally means ‘the awakening’) to enable those living in Bangladesh to do their bit in aid of Sidr victims. The campaign works as follows:

A mobile phone user types SAVE and sends SMS to a given number. Each SMS costs Bangladeshi Taka (BDT)2. Then Somewherein and other sponsors add a certain monetary figure, currently standing at 15BDT (this is a dynamic figure which will go up as more corporate sponsors join the campaign) for every BDT2 generated through the SMS and the total amount is deposited in the Save the Children Cyclone Relief fund.

For those living outside Bangladesh, Somewherein requests them to send their donations directly to the Save the Children Cyclone Relief fund as this SMS facility is available for local residents only.

Am wondering whether an application like Twitter can enable donations like this on a larger global scale!

In a chat with her, Aparna also pointed me to the right panel at the blog, which has another cool use of SMS. Only this time, it’s SMS-Blog! It’s in Bangla, so I had to ask her to interpret it for me. It was set up to gather breaking news and all comments sent in are posted in the right panel. More on how it works, and how it’s being used, in Aparna’s words:

well its very simple…the blog gives directions @bba . eg., @bba curfew relaxed from 8am to 10pm. send to 5455. and it gets posted on the blog, that’s it. and the right hand bar of the blog reflects the comments. since its sms generally comments are short. but people are now using it even to wish happy birthday or send general messages . its useful and fun! and taps the Asian’s love for texting

Very cool!  Also check out Mobile Active for more on mobile phones and civic action.

A commenter who calls himself/herself ‘takeaction’ left this information at my earlier post where I expressed my horror at the blatant role of the Modi Government and its allies in the Gujarat 2002 riots:

“I think people of India and Indian diaspora can do something beyond just discussing this in egroups and blogs. The Tehelka tapes confirm the crimes of the Gujarat RSS/BJP/VHP leadership. They should not get away with this. The RSS/BJP/VHP leadership is not directly tainted by this. Nor are the other parties of the NDA coalition, some of which still support them. So consider the possibility of thousands or millions of people sending letters, faxes (and in the worst case emails as they are often ignored) saying to Advani/Vajpayee/Jaitley/etc. (the BJP national leadership) that you better denounce the tainted leaders of your party in Gujarat or be ready to show your real face to rest of India. Yes, Mr. Modi led his party to victory in Gujarat after the 2002 incident. But one should not forget that the NDA lost after that. So if the rest of the country and the good Gujuratis tell Mr. Advani/Vajpayee/Jaitley/etc. in no uncertain terms that this is a second chance to them. In 2002 they wiggled out but now the Tehelka tapes show the truth and if they (Mr. Advani/Vajpayee/Jaitley/) do not want to be clubbed together with Mr. mass murderer Modi then they should immediately suspend all the tainted leaders of Gujarat from their party.
Here are some links: emails of bjp and nda bigwigs:advanilk@sansad.nic.in, ashourie@sansad.nic.in, bjpco@bjp.org, bjpco@del3.vsnl.net.in, bpapte@vsnl.com, chandan.mitra@sansad.nic.in, covdnhrc@nic.in, gandhim@sansad.nic.in, george@sansad.nic.in, iisatwal@hotmail.com, jaswant@sansad.nic.in, jualoram@sansad.nic.in, kjana@sansad.nic.in, mnaqvi@sansad.nic.in, mprasad@nic.in, msgill@sansad.nic.in, murli@sansad.nic.in, mvnaidu@sansad.nic.in, najmah@sansad.nic.in, rajnath@sansad.nic.in, spokesman_rss@yahoo.com, swaraj@sansad.nic.in, vajpayee@sansad.nic.in, ysinha@sansad.nic.inSome Addresses:
Vajapayee: http://www.bjp.org/leader/atalji.htm
Address A-302, Laplaz, Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) Tel. (0522) 220909
Present Address 6-A, Krishna Menon Marg, New Delhi-110011
Advani: http://www.bjp.org/leader/lka-profile.htm
Address : 30 Prithvi Raj Road, New Delhi – 110 003 INDIA
Phone No. : 011-23794124, 011-23794125
Fax No. : 011-23017419
E-mail : advanilk@sansad.nic.in
Rajnath Singh: http://www.bjp.org/leader/jan_0206_p.htm
BJP members of Lok Sabha:
http://www.bjp.org/paip.htm
http://164.100.24.208/ls/lsmember/partydetail.asp?cname=Bharatiya%20Janata%20Party
BJP Members of Rajya Sabha:
http://www.bjp.org/today/Rajya_Sabha_Members.htm
Let us spread the word in Internet sphere (blogs, emails, yahoo groups etc. etc.). Let millions of people write and fax to Vajpayee and Advani and lets see if they come to their senses and throw these killers out of their party and coalition. If one sends an email, for more impact, one may cc to the news paper editors. Here is a list. That way the news paper editors can maintain a count of how many people are writing to Vajpayee and Advani and the reaction of Mr. Vajpayee and Mr. Advani will tell all of India whether they are party to the killing (by condoning it) or they are real statesman which they project themselves to be.
Emails of editors of some Indian media:
admin@dailypratap.com, ankur@jaintv.com, arindam.sengupta@timesgroup.com, dr.jain@jaintv.com, editet@timesgroup.com, editor@deccanmail.com, editor@the-week.com, feedback@tehelka.com, karanthapar@itvindia.net, letters@deccanherald.co.in, letters@tribuneindia.com, lngoel@zeenetwork.com, npnawani@indiatimes.com, nsuri@milap.com, pjoshi@hindustantimes.com, prabhu@intoday.com, punit.jain@timesgroup.com, punjabidigest@hotmail.com, pvohra@hindustantimes.com, rajc@intoday.com, ratnam@intoday.com, shishir.joshi@aajtak.com, thehindu@vsnl.com, toieditorial@timesgroup.com, vmehta@outlookindia.com, vsanghvi@hindustantimes.com, shishirb@rediff.co.in

Citizens for Peace, has issued a press statement and written several letters to senior members of different political parties. There are tons of blog posts popping up too where bloggers are expressing strong sentiments against the Gujarat government.  I’m also a little shocked at the strange quiet around this on the English News channels with the exception of Headlines Today and CNN-IBN.

My request to everyone who is blogging this, or writing letters online, or even putting up content around this on Flickr or Youtube or Social Networks, or any other place that permits tagging, is to please use common tags:

Technorati tags: gujaratriots2002, prosecutetheguilty, narendramodigovernment, manmohansingh, lkadvani, humanrights, takeaction
Del.icio.us tags: gujaratriots2002 narendramodigovernment prosecutetheguilty humanrights

These tags will ensure that our collective voice rises up and is heard strongly. Smart mobbing, but we need to keep it going on a sustained basis.

For those millions of Indians who are not on the internet, but are mobile (and we know 248 mn Indians already are mobile) we should consider doing something along the lines of the Hello Garci campaign that rocked the Philippines a while ago, “where a mobile phone ringtone featuring the words “Hello Garci” taken from a recording at the centre of allegations Arroyo tried to fix the result of last year’s election has been downloaded by thousands”.

Blogged with Flock

Tags: smartmobs, citizensforpeace, gujaratriots2002, narendramodigovernment, prosecutetheguilty, humanrights