Last week, I went to Jerusalem! But, I didn’t see the Dome of the Rock. Or the Western Wall. Or Golgotha. I spent my four days Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem in dimly lit hotel conference rooms, and it was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken.

I had the privilege of being a trainer for the US State Department’s women’s empowerment tech camps; one was held in Tel Aviv, and one was held in Ramallah. I spent four days with phenomenal women who are community leaders, founders of NGOs, technology geeks, human rights activists—a collection of people determined to change the world.

Women like Fida Ouri, (who just happened to be one of our panelists for Change Your World Cairo!), who is the deputy director of NISAA FM, an all-women’s radio station in the West Bank. Women like Ma’ayan Alexander,who works with NGOs at the intersection of social change and technology.

The format for both trainings was similar—they kicked off with a welcome from the local partner [Appleseeds Academy in Tel Aviv and Ellam Tam in Ramallah], and, happyhappyjoyjoy, a message from one of my favorite women, Secretary Hillary Clinton, whose tireless focus on both the empowerment of women and girls AND the potential of the Internet and technology as platforms for positive engagement are things of beauty. As is her most excellent response to this and, and, AND her fantastically over-it response to this.

I presented trainings about how to use Flickr to tell your story, facilitated group discussions about mentoring (those three years that I spent at Catalyst are the gift that keeps giving!), described myself in three words, and fulfilled a life-long dream of eating hummus at every single meal, including breakfast and elevenses.

For fantastic video from the events, see here and here.

Their descriptions tell the story best, but I came away with a few observations:
Technology is just a tool; I think Yahoo!’s 2009-10 Georgetown Fellow Evgeny Morozov’s work is properly realistic about the potential for technology to be used in ways that do not support human rights. But I continue to be inspired by people using ordinary tools and platforms to do extraordinary things. Check out Tech Camp participant Geocommons for examples of people using open source mapping to tell stories about everything from violence against journalists in Afghanistan to gender parity in African politics.

Storytelling is incredibly powerful, and technology is enabling people who don’t have access to traditional forms of media to tell their own stories.

See here , here and here for a few examples:

Finally, I was struck by how much energy there was, in Ramallah and in Tel Aviv, to connect, to create, to learn. Most of all, it was awe-inspiring to be surrounded by so many people so deeply passionate about creating a better world. I look forward to going back, insh’allah!

See videos of the event here.

Learn more about our Change Your World series here or follow us on Twitter @YahooBHRP #YahooCYW.

Yahoo! is pleased to offer our support to the most recent draft of the Global Online Freedom Act.  We are grateful for your tireless efforts in working with us, human rights groups, academics and others to craft a reasoned, meaningful effort that will push all online companies to responsible engagement in countries around the world.  In particular, the safe harbor in the bill for companies that join efforts like the Global Network Initiative (GNI) will go a long way to encouraging a wider group of companies to join us in efforts to develop responsible industry practices.  Yahoo! is a co-founding member GNI (www.globalnetworkinitiative.org), and has recently participated in the first ever third-party assessment of company implementation of GNI’s principles, which GNI will feature in its annual report in April of 2012.

Issues of online freedom, privacy and responsibility are not easy.  This past year has shown us the incredible power of the Internet to foster freedom, democracy and openness across the globe.  And the Arab Spring was just one example of citizens using online tools to communicate with each other, learn, and organize.  But with that great potential comes significant risks that cannot be ignored – risks, for instance, that governments will seek to turn the incredible positive power of the Internet against those same citizens.  Internet companies have seen these risks firsthand, and Yahoo! has worked hard to minimize risks to our users as we enter new markets or make decisions about our business operations.

Yahoo! cares deeply about these issues, and has spent the last five years building a robust program to integrate human rights decision-making into our business operations. Yahoo!’s Business & Human Rights Program (BHRP) implements its mission through a number of core initiatives, including:

·       Developing an accountability framework, designed to assess Yahoo!’s performance in meeting Yahoo!’s overall goals and operational steps relating to human rights issues;

·       Developing guiding principles and operational guidelines, as well as employee training, which translate Yahoo!’s support for freedom of expression and user privacy into practical steps to be followed by employees;

·       Conducting Human Rights Impact Assessments, which examine the human rights landscape in prospective markets, evaluate challenges to free expression and privacy that might result from the proposed offering of services, and offer strategic approaches to protect the rights of Yahoo!’s users;

·       Fostering internal and external stakeholder engagement with users, employees, civil society groups, government and shareholders to address the complex issues at the intersection of human rights and ICT;

·       Creating a website and an e-mail alias to inform internal and external stakeholders about Yahoo!’s human rights initiatives and to elicit their feedback (http://humanrights.yahoo.com/ and bhrp@yahoo-inc.com);

·       Launching and hosting the Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Summit (http://ycorpblog.com/2009/05/07/a-summit-for-human-rights), a stakeholder shared-learning forum about technology and free expression.  (http://www.yhumanrightsblog.com/blog/our-initiatives/business-human-rights-summit/);

·       Joining the Clinton Global Initiative and developing a commitment aligned with promoting and supporting free expression;

·       Launching the Change Your World series in Cairo, an event created to shine the light on extraordinary women who are creating positive change in the world and identify areas where companies can use their technology and platforms to amplify women’s voices. Yahoo! will host a Change Your World event in Washington DC on May 18, 2012, as well as an event in Brazil in November of 2012.

Our sincere hope is that other companies join us in these efforts, as we have found that good business and responsible behavior are not mutually exclusive at all.  Indeed, we believe that dialogue between companies and civil society organizations can help us better understand how to do our jobs the right
way – for us, and for our users.

We very much look forward to continuing to work with you on this important effort, and we again thank you for the thoughtful and balanced approach in this legislation.

See here for Liz Ngonzi’s most excellent Storify covering SXSW’s Africa, Tech and Women Panel.

We participated in two great panels on Monday. First, An Unusual Arsenal: Tech Tools to Topple a Tyrant. Yahoo!’s Sonja Gittens-Ottley was joined with Aasil Ahmad, Votifi; David Gorodyansky, AnchorFree; Jamal Dajani, Internews Network and Neal Ungerleider, Fast Company. The panelists discussed the intersection of technology and global geopolitical uprisings. Sonja noted, “When you cut-off online platforms and digital services, you force people into the streets. This is what happened in Cairo and elsewhere.” To join or follow the converstation, #sxsw #overthrow.

Next, Africa, Tech & Women: The New Faces of Development. This panel included Ebele Okobi, Yahoo!; Deborah Ensor, Internews; Isis Nyong’o, InMobi Africa; Liz Ngonzi, New York University Heyman Center for Philanthropy & Fundraising; and TMS Ruge, Project Diaspora. The panelists discussed how African women are applying technology to advance Africa’s development. During the discussion, Ebele commented that, “women in Africa are using technology as a platform for their voices.” To join or follow the converstation, #sxsw #faces.

A day before Yahoo! “Change Your World” summit, I landed at Cairo airport with so much enthusiasm to the big day, the inspirational journey started from the airport and never ended till this moment, my first inspiration was the Egyptian people, women and men, who believed in their power, carried out an unarmed revolution with high determination to change their present and build their own future!  … the second one was Fida, one of the speakers that I met when I reached the hotel, she lives in Ramallah-Palestine, her secret ingredients to her success are social media and the mind power, she is now a social media expert and the only woman webmaster in Palestine, she told me that her life is like a nonstop mission full of challenges, but that never stopped her to build her own world and to help in making a positive difference in people’s lives… and the journey continued!

In the day of the summit, many courageous digital leaders and powerful women were onboard, from around the world and specially Middle East and North Africa who played role in their countries’ revolutions and others who let their voice been heard with simple use of technology and through social media, more amazing women were their too from journalism, entrepreneurship, politics, human rights and security to participate in the panels and to be part of the audience.  Ebele Okobi, Ahmed Nassef and Mona El Tahawy had powerfully expressed their believes in the power of change and empowering women through technology and freedom of expression… “Women are power of change” Ahmed stated in his opening speech… and that was enough to have great start of the summit.

The sessions were away from theories and were full of inspiring and powerful real women’s’ stories and challenges. Manal Al Sherif, a Saudi blogger and women’s rights activist, was jailed for 9 days for breaking the rules and defying the ban on woman driving in KSA, couldn’t hold my tears from falling when she started telling the audience with strong emotions about the story behind Aisha, another Saudi woman that she was inspired by. Manal said “We drove and posted videos of ourselves driving to break the wall of fear”. Another powerful stories were told by Danya Bashir a 20-years old Libyan blogger, “the next president of Libya” as she says on her twitter profile, she courageously advocates for her country and the people, she said “Women shape 57% of the Libyan population” and proudly mentioned that “Women played a very important role in the Libyan revolution”, Danya believes that “Once we empower ourselves we can empower the world”.

Dalia Ziada, award winning blogger and women rights activist from Egypt, she is one of the most powerful women and a role model for many women in her country and the region, she sees that women still can’t speak out and up freely, she strongly encourages women in Egypt to be organized and well communicated and also to have more participation in the parliament, as she said that “Women shape up only 1% of the Egyptian parliament now”… Lamees Dhaif, a speaker who surprised us with strong thoughts and statements once she started speaking! She is a media figure and social media activist from Bahrain, she was proud to compare that the most powerful newspaper in her country which publish around 12,000 copies daily, to her number of her followers on twitter that is almost three times higher. She encourages all women to use the power of social media because “social media is a tool to voice your voice” as she said.

And the inspiring stories have never ended throughout the sessions from truly exceptional leaders …

I had the privilege to participate in the last panel as one of the speakers, it was titled “What’s Next?”,  in it we continued the conversations and tied together the themes of all panels to share our thoughts around what’s really next?, and how technology can better help and serve our societies, I believe that technology is becoming an essential part of our life, so we should not limit its usage only to access information, moreover it should be a tool to communicate and innovate, and that will happen with more relevant platforms that allow online users to build their own world and to express their identity freely. I shared some success storied from Y! Maktoob forums specially from Al-Frasha and Majdah forums for women who believe that technology and social platforms helped them to build relationships, to grow their knowledge, improve their skills and better communicate their thoughts while many of them live in societies where women don’t have much space to express and be active members.

We need to make the web more human with our presence and participation, and to increase the existing 2% of Arabic content on the web to reach more people in the Arab world.

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For more information about the summit, panels and panelist please check out the agenda.

Speaker Ethan Zuckerman in his lecture “Cute Cats and the Arab Spring: When Social Media Meet Social Change” asked the question ‘if 2011 ends up being the year of revolution, is it possible that social media had something to do with it?’

He questioned the theory that social media had nothing to do with protests and activism in 2011 and the opposing theory that the Internet changes everything – that as soon as you have access to information and to the internet, people will mobilize.

The reality, he stated, is not black and white: social media is not irrelevant, nor is social media responsible for how (or why) people get together and protest; instead social media falls within a complex grey area.

Citing Mohamed Bouazizi and his act of self-immolation as a launch-pad or ‘patient zero’ in the movements that have swept through the Arab world, he noted that social media platforms make it possible for people to create and disseminate information at a low cost.  More importantly, they allow people to contribute to the wider media ecosystem (including traditional media), which can sometimes result in citizens mobilizing beyond a small protest movement to removing a dictatorship from power.

He argued that while the development of encrypted and specialized tools for activists is important, just as effective are the tools that are simple enough for anyone to use. The tools that allow persons to easily share their own content and interests to a wide audience, as in the case of the internet user sharing her pictures of cute cats, becomes an even more potent tool for the person who accidentally stumbles upon activism. That user may be already using the tools, and can now use them to share their concerns and express themselves. These platforms are often difficult for governments to censor.

Ethan challenged the audience to become empowered citizens and netizens of the online world and to call on governments to respect the idea of a networked public sphere where content and information can be shared but also to call on companies to run the private spaces in a manner consistent with freedom of expression and privacy.

Yahoo! recognizes that the Internet is a powerful space for free expression and for this reason is a founding member of the Global Network Initiative, a multi-stakeholder initiative comprised of ICT companies, human rights organizations, academics, investors and others. The GNI is a positive and collective step by these stakeholders to work together to challenge censorship and threats to privacy. The group has worked together to establish a code of conduct to guide technology companies in protecting and advancing freedom of expression and privacy across the globe when they encounter laws and policies that interfere with these fundamental human rights.

Over the next year, the Yahoo! Business & Human Rights Program will continue to explore how people, and more specifically women, are using social and digital media to support positive change in their communities and around the world. Our Change your World summits start in Cairo on January 18 2012, where, together with Yahoo! Maktoob and in partnership with Vital Voices we will focus on how women across the Middle East and North Africa are using technology, the Internet and various social and digital media platforms to create positive change in the world through four areas: leadership in governance and politics, human rights and social justice, journalism and entrepreneurship.  Join us for Change your World: Cairo 2012. Click here for more information.

To listen to the 2011 Vancouver Human Rights Lecture podcast, please click here or view the lecture video here

Cute Cats and the Arab Spring: When Social Media Meet Social Change”

Activists around the world are turning to social media tools usually used for more pedestrian purposes: the sharing of family videos and videos of cats flushing toilets. But these tools can be extremely powerful in the hands of activists, as they are pervasive, easy to use and difficult for governments to censor. Ethan Zuckerman will look at “the cute cat theory” of internet activism, as it helps explain the Arab Spring protests, aggressive internet censorship in countries like China and Vietnam, and the challenges for the corporate owners of social media platforms in an era of online speech.

Séverine Arsène received her Ph.D in political science from Sciences Po Paris. Prior to the Yahoo! fellowship, she was an Assistant lecturer at the University of Lille 3, France in the Department of Information and Communication where she taught courses on information technologies. Arsène  was previously a researcher at Orange Labs (France Telecom R&D) in Paris and curator of the annual seminar of the social sciences department in Beijing.

She also co-organized the first Barcamp Beijing during her tenure with Orange Labs. Her most recent book, to be published in 2011, Internet et politique en Chine (Internet and politics in China) elaborates on the Chinese Internet users’ aspirations for a more “modern” way of life and on how this affects the way they speak out online. Dr. Arsène will continue to develop her research interests of Internet and politics in China and, more generally, media and politics in authoritarian contexts during her fellowship

As Arsène arrives, we bid farewell to Han-Teng Liao, of Taiwan, and thank him for his work exploring the ways that non-English language users in India and China will be represented in the future Internet worlds and providing new insight into the many ways that the fellowship can respond to the challenge of values and free expression in the Internet era. He also produced a case study, draft material for serveral potentional articles, and organized an afternoon seminar to showcase his worl. Han-Teng also brought to Georgetown the Chinese Internet Research Conference, a two-day academic conference that drew 80-100 full time participants.

The fellowship program at Georgetown University was established in 2007, and it supports the education and research activities of an annual Yahoo! Fellow in Residence and tow Junior Yahoo! Fellows. The Yahoo! Fellows come from around the world, from diverse sectors (including corporations, government, academia, and civil society), and are responsible for multi-disciplinary research that explores how diverse international values apply to the development and use of new communications technologies with a focus on Brazil, Russia, India and China. The fellowship is supported by the Yahoo! International Values, Communications, Technology, and Global Internet Fellowship Fund. It supports research on how international values apply to the development and use of new communications technologies.

There’s constant debate over whether young people today care less about privacy. Certainly, they live more public lives, thanks to growing up on the Internet where starting a Facebook account is the equivalent of hitting digital puberty. Being out in the world in new ways increases the types of privacy violations that can occur for these “digital natives.” Last week, I mentioned briefly a poll from MTV and the Associated Press that found that a third of young people aged 14-24 reported that someone had logged into their Facebook, Twitter, or email account to impersonate them or spy on them. That may be shocking in and of itself, but what’s more surprising to me is that a good number of them said this didn’t upset them…

The poll, conducted in August, included 1,355 young’uns, three quarter of whom say they log onto the Internet several times a day. (Shockingly, three percent of those polled said they “never” use the Internet.) Approximately 285 of the kiddies said that they had been spied on by someone who logged into their email, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or “other” account.

The pollsters then asked how upset this made them. Approximately 43 of them said they “weren’t upset at all.” Another 100 said it made them “a little upset.” Less than half of these surveilled social networkers said they were very upset or extremely upset over someone logging into their account without their permission to spy on them. That seems like more proof for people like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg who say that “young people today don’t care about privacy.” Well, at least half of young people.

Most of those who reported that their accounts had been hacked knew the person who did it very well, or casually, while 16% reported not knowing who the spy was.

I’m friends with a few whippersnappers on Facebook through family circles and a stint as a mentor in an urban journalism program for high school students. I realize I’m getting old when I’m shocked by what they post regarding their “extracurricular” activities. C’mon, kids, Facebook is like your permanent record! But according to the poll, despite extensive media coverage and parent haranguing, lots of young folks simply aren’t thinking about the repercussions of social networking.