Civic media, citizen journalism and role of information in democracy

A brief interview with the Ashoka Foundation, conducted during the 2011 MIT-Knight Civic Media Conference in Boston. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbKqfXVBTik

Pushing “big media” in Sri Lanka?

Though I missed it, Nalaka Gunawardene's presentation at the Sri Lanka launch of Asia Media Report 2009 has found it's way to his blog. Nalaka's is Sri Lanka's most insightful writers on the media. His presentation at this event squares with my own keynote presentation delivered at the Sri Lankan chapter of the South Asia …

IGP now wants to “suspend licenses” of porn websites in Sri Lanka

An order by the Inspector General of Police in Sri Lanka, the same chowderhead who once said women could record themselves getting raped through mobile phones, now wants to the Director General of Telecommunication Regulatory Commission to suspend the licenses of 12 websites which were exhibiting nude photographs. Firstly, none of the websites the IGP …

Post-war ICT and media

My last column in the Sunday Leader enumerated some ideas post-war government and the ICT Agency could champion to strengthen media freedom and e-governance respectively. One blueprint worth emulating in post-war Sri Lanka for more open, accountable government comes from Vivek Kundra, the new federal chief information officer in the US under the Obama administration. …

ICT: Peace 2.0

The Chairman of the ICT4Peace Foundation has a great interview with the International Relations and Security Network on the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in peacebuilding. The podcast is available here.

Cutting through crowdsourcing

Paul Currion has a very interesting post that cuts through a whole lot of codswallop on the potential of crowsourcing in disasters. His pointed post refers to two by Patrick Meier, entitled Internews, Ushahidi and communication in crisis and Ushahidi: From Croudsourcing to Crowdfeeding I consider both to be significant thought-leaders in the domains of humanitarian …

ICTA’s E-Sri Lanka music video and the Year of English

Never mind that the Chief Operating Officer of ICTA Reshan Dewapura and our President don't see eye to eye when it comes to IT literacy rates in Sri Lanka. For the President, our IT literacy rate is 23%, whereas for Reshan it's 16%. IT literacy as some have pointed out is a politically dependent variable. …

Obama, the web, the Internet and mobiles

One of the many ways that the election of Barack Obama as president has echoed that of John F. Kennedy is his use of a new medium that will forever change politics. For Mr. Kennedy, it was television. For Mr. Obama, it is the Internet. How Obama’s Internet Campaign Changed Politics, Claire Cain Miller, NY …

Video interview with Rohan Samarajiva on telecoms in Sri Lanka

A video interview with Rohan Samarajiva, Executive Director of Lirneasia and former Director General of Sri Lanka Telecom on telecoms regulations, disaster mitigation, preparedness and early warning, mobile phone usage at the B.O.P and a number of other technology related issues pertinent to Sri Lanka.

Video Games and Gender

As video games perpetuate the status quo, they also reinforce and extend gender-based inequalities. This element of video games should be taken seriously precisely because these technologies are toys. Children learn ideas about gender through video games - and, many children at that! These ideas about gender are harmful and are intimately connected with the …