Category: Organizations

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Online-first event planning: Leave the bagels, keep the connectivity

Article cross-posted on the TechChange Blog

Best practices conferences are critical to the growth of any community. The sharing of ideas and capturing of collective lessons-learned allows for those both in attendance, and those reading any after-action report, to proceed with their respective related projects having gained new insight, or having made new partnerships with other like-minded individuals and organizations. However, just as websites are now building responsive design as “mobile first” and desktop second, it’s time to start thinking about these events differently. No longer should we think only about planning offline events that “we webcast,” but rather about global conversations facilitated by online engagement that have an in-person conversation or presentation at its core.
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TC105: Thoughts on Mobile Money for Development

TC105: Thoughts on Mobile Money for Development.

Great recap of TC105 by Chrissy Martin

“A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of supporting the TechChange Mobiles for Development (TC105) course as a moderator. I was interviewed for the course by co-founder Nick Martin, which stimulated a interesting conversation with many of the highly experienced and knowledgeable course participants. Excerpts from that interviews are below.”

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Lessons Learned from TechWeek@DU


Originally Posted on the TechChange Blogroll

Anyone who has planned a conference knows that they’re a lot of work. Lining up speakers. Coordinating room schedules. Coming up with discussion topics. Promoting the event so that people show up. And, oh yeah… learning stuff! That’s important too.

The event we’re talking about here is TechWeek@DU, which ran from April 16th – 19th at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies in Denver, Colorado, and was brought together by the school’s Global Health Affairs Program, Humanitarian Assistance Program, and the Center for Sustainable Development and International Peace. Five events in four days involving experts from Denver, Washington DC, and the greater Boston area, and discussing some of the most pressing issues in and around ICT4D. From crisis mapping to mHealth – for a week the Korbel School had tech on its mind.
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Congress to Vote on Repeal of USIP’s Charter

News broke today that Congressman Chip Cravaack (R-MN) has filed an amendment to the FY 2012 defense authorization bill to repeal the charter of the U.S. Institute of Peace. This proposal comes after what has already been months of battle to keep the organization alive. The vote is set to hit the House floor very soon – possibly even today. This being said, the vote would have to pass on the Senate side for such a change to take affect. Passing of this vote would eliminate USIP entirely. Time is now  to start making phone calls to our representatives.

I wrote a short op-ed and call to action earlier this year that outlined some basic talking points, and examined some of the issues surrounding the work of the institute and its effectiveness relative to the amount of money costing US taxpayers. More to come as things develop.

Click here for an Op-Ed from Rep Mike Honda (D-CA) defending USIP.