The ripple effect of Changents

ICTs in general 1 Minute

Changents

I came across an interesting idea that brings to the screen what social change agents really do in our societies. A new web based initiative to support social change agents, Changents, has an interesting visualisation of the manner in which your support to one or many of them, as well as other actions on the Changents website such as inviting others to join, strengthens and affects the larger network and the work of the individuals concerned.

The site is heavy on Flash ad video and is designed for broadband, which is not surprising since many of those listed on it to date seem to be located in the US. My interest in the site is less about the people therein and more about how innovative ways of visualising the support given to these individuals can actually promote their work and generate support for it. So much of social change is intangible and long term that the challenge always is, for those who support the work of these folks, to see how their contribution meaningfully strengthened the work it was intended for. The 3D visualisation on Changents gives a better understanding of how one’s actions can create ripple effects of their own to raise awareness on vital issues and support individuals actively working in these areas.

It’s also social engineering. By making one’s support visual and into a sort of social game where the more interaction on and support you give  to the site enhances one’s own ripple, you actually encourage people to do more, or at the very least, visit the site more often to see just how much one’s ripple can influenced others to act.

Published by Sanjana

An Ashoka, Rotary World Peace and TED Fellow, I have since 2002 used, studied and advocated Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to strengthen peace, human rights & democratic governance. I founded in 2006 and till June 2020 edited the award-winning Groundviews, Sri Lanka's first civic media website. From 2002-2020 I was a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives. I pioneered both the use of social media for activism and online citizen journalism/civic media in Sri Lanka, including setting up South Asia's first Twitter and Facebook accounts for civic media, in 2007. Having started digital security training for human rights activists in 2010, I continue to advise civil society on digital hygiene, mass and personal surveillance, privacy and secure communications to date. I also curate a comprehensive digital archive of material linked to peace and conflict in Sri Lanka, since 2002. I specialise in, advise and train on social media communications strategy, countering-violence extremism online, web-based activism, online advocacy and grounded, context-based, platform-specific social media research. My work experience over two-decades spans five continents. Through the ICT4Peace Foundation and since 2006, I help strengthen information management during crises and work on countering violent extremism online. For over a decade, this included leading the Foundation's work on these lines with the United Nations and other multi-lateral organisations involved in peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and humanitarian affairs. Since 2008, I have worked in South Asia, South East Asia, North Africa, Europe and the Balkans to capture, disseminate and archive inconvenient truths in austere, violent contexts. I completed doctoral studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand, looking at the symbiotic relationship between offline unrest and online instigation of hate and harm in Sri Lanka and, in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre in 2019, facilitated by leading research based on New Zealand's first ever Data for Good grant by Twitter.

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