Tag Archive for ‘social change’ at Amy Sample Ward’s Version of NPTech

Tag Archive for 'social change'

Follow along with Millennials Changing America!

Published

Amy Sample Ward

on October 21, 2008

in issues

. 0 Comments

Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

The tour is underway, and you can follow along!

Millennials Changing America is a research tour that seeks to paint a portrait of millennial activism as it exists today by traveling throughout the United States talking with millennials of all backgrounds, ideals, upbringing, and political persuasions.

Check it out!

What is a ‘Millennial Activist’

Here’s how Alex Steed, the Millennial behind this project, describes it:

To put it simply, a millennial activist is someone who is:

a) an activist

b) a member of the millennial generation (Generation Y; those born between 1980 and 1992), defined by their digital connectivity

and thus:

c) integrates computer savvy into their service, civic participation, and activism.

Or in the words of someone who has been focusing on this topic for longer than I have, social entrepreneur and writer Allison Fine, “Young people, ages 15-29, who practice a nascent model of civic participation that combines immersion in social causes, idealism, digital fluency.”

A great example of a Millennial Activist is Alex Steed, who is developing and carrying out the MCA tour. A freelance journalist and activist, he has worked with The Point, Change.org and even NetSquared. Learn more about Alex here.

How to follow the MCA tour

Throughout October, November and December, Alex will be traveling around the country posting audio, video, observations of, and interviews with millennial activists.

With the content collected and created along the way, Millennials Changing America aims to:

Inspire young, budding global citizens with the stories, techniques, and testimonials of millennial activists far and wide.

Share with as large an audience as possible the empowering potential of interactive communication technologies.

Highlight new and existing ways that young people are using the Internet to come together both on and offline.

Shift reportage of activity within the millennial realm away from non-millennials.

Observe what Internet activism and civic participation looks like beyond the well-covered campaigns of Rep. Ron Paul and Sen. Barack Obama.

Pump some constructive and positive stories into the info-sphere.

Dispel disproportionately reported stories about the dangers of Internet usage (without undermining efforts to ensure intelligent and cautionary usage).

Because the goal of the MCA tour is to ignite conversation and open dialogue, all of the media produced throughout the tour is posted and distributed in many different locations. You can check out the MCA website and see an archive of all information, videos, and updates here.

Are you or do you know changemakers of the Millennial generation? Let Alex know!

Millennium Development Goals in Action!

Published

Amy Sample Ward

on October 14, 2008

in socialmedia

. 0 Comments

Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.

The World Summit Youth Award is a global contest to create inspirational online content promoting the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations to create a humane, just and liveable world.

“The World Summit Youth Award showcases you as young developers and serves as a platform for people from all UN member states to work together on the efforts of reaching the Millennium Development Goals!”

Award Guidelines

The World Summit Youth Award (WSYA) is the global contest for online or mobile initiatives to raise awareness and help resolve the most pressing global issues.

If you rely on the web for creating culture, overcoming gender inequality, lack of education and access to clean water or to address hunger, poverty, disease and environmental degradation, then you should take part!

There are five categories for online content development, including:

To be eligible for the contest, platforms/projects must be led by youth under the age of 30, be fully functional, and accessible online.

The reward in the WSYA contest is primarily global recognition through the UN, invitation to the winners event in Mexico, and networking contacts on a worldwide scale. The last WSYA contest was in 2005; you can read about the three winners on the WSYA site.

Award Timeline

Sept. 2008 - WSYA website relaunch, online application form open for submissions at
http://competition.youthaward.org/reg/reg.asp

Dec. 31, 2008 - Deadline for online submissions (midnight, GMT) at http://competition.youthaward.org/reg/reg.asp

Jan. 15, 2009 - First round of judging to select finalists

Feb. 15, 2009 - Second round of judging to select winners

March 1, 2009 - WSYA winners and finalists announced to the public and media

March –June, 2009 - Winners and finalists showcase projects and get honoured at the WSYA Winners Events and Gala

To learn more about the Youth Award, visit http://youthaward.org

Social Actions & Social Actions Labs - Lot’s about to come your way!

Published

Amy Sample Ward

on July 15, 2008

in socialchange and webtools

. 4 Comments

Social Actions “connects individuals with actionable opportunities. By helping people to take action, our work is increasing the scope and impact of the citizen sector,” while the Social Actions Labs builds web applications that draw on the Social Actions API.

Great, but why am I interested?

What Social Actions is really doing is combining the ‘what-you-can-do’ stuff of the social change web into one place that you can search, link to, rely on, and even (with a widget from the Social Actions Labs) integrate into your web site or blog! How great is that?!

Social Actions helps individuals and organizations use social media to plan, implement, and support peer-to-peer social change campaigns so that grassroots solutions to local and global problems can flourish.

Toward this end, Social Actions:

Provides a search engine of peer-to-peer social change campaigns;

Aggregates peer-to-peer social change campaigns from 14 unique social action platforms;

Publishes materials for individuals on planning and implementing peer-to-peer social change campaigns;

Distributes materials for nonprofits and foundations on engaging constituents;

Connects technology consultants and thought leaders with nonprofits and foundations;

Encourages collaboration among social action platforms.

I may be biased (full disclosure: part of the project mentor group), but think I’m understandably excited.

That IS awesome! What can I do?

Do you want to take action now?

Maybe you want to help identify the 3 -5 initial applications for the Social Actions Labs!

Try out the new (beta) search interface to find social actions you are interested in!

Or, you can sign up to stay abreast of more developments!

Wanna hear more?

Social Actions founder, Peter Deitz, has a great interview with Corey Pudhorodsky on the 501c3Cast from July 14th. You can listen to it here! If you don’t already, you should also add Corey’s awesome 501c3Cast podcast to your itunes or RSS library!

If you were able to integrate actions for volunteers, supporters, and interested citizens to take part in, where would you put it? On your organization’s home page, blog, action center page? Would you want it on your personal site or other social networking pages? What about the social networking spaces for your organization?