This post is part of Global Wire Associates’ Recharge E-Waste Campaign.

We speak a lot here about the growing problem of e-waste.  Designer and engineer Dhairya Dand also spends a great deal of his time thinking about e-waste as well while backpacking through Cambodia.

…I was around suburban Phnom Penh and came across enormous land fills stretching miles and miles.  These were piled with eWaste dumped from the developed world. What was more appalling, was that kids who should be in school were working here in the landfills. Most families had migrated from villages leaving behind agriculture to these landfills for a rich pay of a dollar a day…

So he thought what if he found a way to not only produce a possible solution to this major environmental problem, but to also make education more accessible and fun for those kids in the landfills.   Here the idea of Thinker Toys was born.  Dand takes the used computer parts in the landfills and turn them into fun, interactive toys.  So far Dand has made four prototypes using Arduino, an open-source electronics prototyping platform.

We like the Keyano, which turns a keyboard into a piano, with the keys musically mapped to the notes.  The RandoMath also uses a keyboard with a small LED screen connected to it and kids can do math puzzles.  The iPod-like Storynory plays recorded fun stories in your local language.  You can either plug it into a speaker for a collaborative storytelling experience or a headphone just to hear the stories.  Finally TV++ allows kids to connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse together to create a mini computer.  Also in development is the Mousepedia, a mouse converted into an audio encyclopedia.

Dand has already been invited to exhibit his work at ICTD 2012 and TEDx Phnom Penh.  The next step for Dand is to create an online community called Open Toys, which will open up the discussion for future toy designs and possible new ideas to e-waste activists, toy designers and engineers around the world.

We recently stumbled upon this cool article in the Guardian, discussing a model for using mobile phones and e-commerce to better support “slum businesses” throughout the developing world.  There are many small businesses situated in extremely impoverished communities.  But as the article points out, most of these enterprises don’t have formal mailing addresses to send and receive products.

…Chris, a student who lives in Kibera in Kenya, the second largest urban slum in Africa, answers: “One million people live in Kibera, but we do not have addresses. So when I ordered a second-hand camera to use in my business as a journalist, I could not receive the package directly. I had to walk to the nearest postal office at a 3.5km distance. And not just once, I did not know when the package would arrive, so I had to walk back and forth regularly. And you know the people who live in Kibera have little money, so when a package arrives, we have to bribe the local authorities to ensure the package gets to the right recipient.”…

And there is also the problem of payment  for products.

…Electronic payments are crucial, as a local student explains: “India still very much has a cash payment culture. So if, let’s say, I want to make a deal with a customer in Italy via the Internet, how can I be certain I will be paid if I send him the goods? And how do I receive the money?”…

There are now corporations looking into ways to create smoother operations for slum businesses, and technology plays a key role in helping to mobilize these companies.  New technology can help these businesses rise above poverty and create an equal playing field.  A collaboration between TNT Express and Vodafone led to the design of phones that recognize a mobile phone number as an address location and enables secure payments via Vodafone’s M-paisa.

But there is more that can be done to support these companies.  Global Wire Associates is doing research on how technological innovation is helping underprivileged small businesses worldwide.  Are you a business or tech consultant who has experience working in the developing world?  Are you a small business owner in the developing world who has a problem that affects how you do business that could possibly be resolved through technology.  Please email your ideas to us at info[at]globalwireonline[dot]org that we can use for our research.  We will put together all the ideas and share them with you in the next few weeks in a more formal presentation.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – June 17-22 (part of our Rio+20 activities)

Bangalore, India – July 1 – 22

Kingston, Jamaica – August 3 -10

Istanbul, Turkey – August 13 – 20

A full listing of what we will be doing in the trainings can be found on our Upcoming Events page.  We still have some open time slots this summer for training/consultation opportunities, but it is first come, first serve.  If you are interested in scheduling time or our fees, please refer to our Services page.   We reserve the right to cancel or postpone in-person trainings or consultations based on travel warnings issued by the US Department of State.  Any questions? Email info[at]globalwireonline[dot]com.

Last week President Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan during which he signed a long-term security agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that allows for the United States to potentially keep military forces in the country in a support role until 2024.  All U.S. combat troops are expected to leave Afghanistan by 2014.  Many analysts have wondered if Afghanistan will fall back into the Taliban’s hands and any progress made in the country will be reversed once the U.S. leaves.  However, there seem to be many efforts to use the media as a catalyst for good governance in Afghanistan for years to come.

Afghan radio network Salam Watandar (“Hello Countrymen”) was officially inaugurated April 8 as an independent, non-governmental Afghan organization.  It was originally established in 2003 by media advocacy group Internews and funded by United States Agency for International Development’s Office of Transition Initiatives.

From Internews:

…Beginning as a small radio production service that provided content to a handful of independent provincial radio stations established by Internews, the network has grown to 47 radio stations that broadcast in 29 Afghan provinces with the capacity to reach over 10 million listeners. Through these partner stations, Salam Watandar broadcasts high-quality programs on current affairs, culture, social issues and sport, and has served as a strategic hub for mentoring and training its partner radio stations…

One of the key elements of Salam Watandar’s success is its ability to communicate with listeners not only through traditional phone calls, but also through text messaging.  There is a strong interest in using tech innovation to advance Afghan civil society.

…Nationwide, radio has the highest penetration among Afghans, with 73% reporting they own a radio.  Access differs dramatically between provinces, between rural and urban areas, and between men and women. In Herat, for example, 86% of Afghans own a television, while only 22% own radios. Internet access, however, remains low nationwide, with only 1% reporting access to Internet in their homes.

There is a push to give technical training to all Afghan citizens, but especially for women. Afghan women used the opportunity of International Women’s Day recently to participate in women-only technology training courses.  Participants learned how to use both new and traditional media tools to express themselves and enhance their advocacy efforts against gender discrimination.

“New media is not just for journalists,” said a participant named Parwana from Women Activities & Social Services Association (WASSA). She continued, passionately exclaiming, “As an Afghan woman who works directly in society and in close contact with different people, this [new media] will allow us to transfer our voices and pain.”

There are also efforts to reach out to Afghanistan’s tech start up community.   Internews and the Afghan Ministry for Communications and IT hosted the Kabul Innovation Lab last February to look at ways to use technology for improving the country.

“There was no functional infrastructure after 2002 unfortunately, and we had to basically start from scratch,” said Javed Hamdard, an Afghan ICT coordinator who served as a project judge, speaking to the BBC about the event. “As we are speaking, there are more than 17.96 million mobile subscribers. If we measure it from that short period of ten years then the growth and achievements and progress in the ICT sector in general, and the telecommunications in particular, it has been tremendous.”

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles Riots, which resulted in 54 deaths, thousands of injuries,  nearly a US$1 billion in property damages and a renewed discussion on American race relations.  This was all sparked by a private citizen named George Holliday, who videotaped Rodney King’s encounter with the Los Angeles police on his Sony Handycam.  The blurry video turned what would have otherwise been a little known scuffle into a worldwide media sensation.

Particularly, the case highlighted the allegations of racial profiling and police brutality within African-American communities.  As a matter of fact, Holliday said he tried to reach the Los Angeles Police Department to find out what had happened to King. When he was unable to get answers, he contacted his local TV news station, KTLA, and sold his video to them for US$500.

During the riots, there were also other citizen journalists, like Timothy Goldman, a then unemployed former Air Force officer, who videotaped the violence, including the beating of white truck driver Reginald Denny.

The videos were revolutionary at the time because this happened long before YouTube, Twitter and the Internet in general came into existence.  Without these videos, history would have reflected differently today.

A few days ago King reflected on the significance of the videotape and the Trayvon Martin case.

“I’m hoping he [Trayvon] gets justice for his family, ’cause he’s no longer here, so for his family,” he said, adding, “Luckily, I got [my attack] seen on tape.”

When King said this, it made us think about the initial reaction to Martin’s murder.  When the Martin case first gained mainstream media attention, we were actually looking for a video, a photo or some kind of strong documentation online that showed the altercation between Martin and shooter George Zimmerman.

In this age of everything being caught on video and distributed throughout social media, we automatically expected that there was a video of Martin’s shooting somewhere on YouTube.  This isn’t because we have a creepy desire to see someone’s gruesome death, but we could have used a video to see evidence of what really happened that night, which would have help bring justice to the case.  The only circumstantial evidence is the 911 call, which has also come into question for its credibility.

So this is why Holliday plays such an important role in this case and its impact in mobilizing citizen journalism.

According to Holliday, he met face to face with King several years after the beating. They ran into each other at a gas station one night. As Holliday describes it, “He says, ‘Yeah, you don’t recognize me.’ And I said, ‘No,’ and he says, ‘Yeah, you saved my life.’ And so then I knew who he was.”

This post is part of Global Wire Associates’ Recharge E-Waste Campaign.

Global Wire Associates Founder Talia Whyte originally wrote this post on Global Wire’s companion blog.

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about how to be “more green” in our everyday lives, and in particular how to improve the global economy. In the last year, I have looked at the ways my company Global Wire Associates and my freelance journalism workoperate and how I can create a smaller carbon footprint.

As a new media consulting firm, Global Wire Associates is in the business of using technology. However, with the growing problem of e-waste, we felt that it was our responsibility to use electronics with more mindfulness. According to the United Nations Environmental Programme, it is estimated that 20-50 million tons of discarded electronics are dumped into landfills around the world, mostly in developing countries, every year. Electronics include old mobiles, televisions, microwaves, computers and more. However, most of the time it’s not because these gadgets are broken; they’re being dumped in favor of newer versions.

Landfills with e-waste create serious problems in the long run. Toxic chemicals in electronics can leach into the land over time or are released into the atmosphere, creating severe health and environmental hazards in nearby communities.

Even if you take your old electronics to recycling sites, there is no guarantee they will be recycled properly. This is partly because it is expensive and labor-intensive to properly recycle e-waste in many developed countries, as most environmental laws in these countries require e-recyclers to use environmentally friendly processes.

So, for the last year, my company decided that when it is time to purchase any new equipment – cameras, computers, mobiles – we made sure that old or broken equipment was repairable first. We also donate old electronics that are not deemed useful for our purposes to other needy individuals or organizations. Before we consider making new purchases, we try to buy older but usable models whenever possible. If the electronics are beyond repairable, we properly recycle them.

Not only are we doing our little part to save the health of the planet and its people, but it has also made us feel really good about ourselves and wanting to extend our enthusiasm with others. So this year we launched our Recharge E-Waste campaign to make others aware of the global tech waste problem. We not only plan to use our website to have discussions about proper recycling, donating and/or selling of used electronics, and turning electronics into art and design models, but we are also seriously thinking about launching an e-waste management initiative later this year.

Our green awareness has also extended to other areas in our operations, like doing more web conferencing with clients instead of traveling, cloud computing and using green office supplies. Of course, I also use recycled cameras for my freelance video journalistic gigs. Sometimes it’s the smallest things that can make a big difference in our world.

Improving broadband access throughout the Western Hemisphere was a hot topic at the Sixth Summit of the Americas this past weekend.  President Obama announced the creation of the Broadband Partnership of the Americas, a program set to improve Internet access across Latin America and the Caribbean.

From USAID:

…While approximately 80 percent of the Latin America and Caribbean population has access to mobile phones, only 40 percent has Internet access, with levels in Central America and the Caribbean at approximately 30 percent. Broadband penetration is estimated to be 29 percent, falling just below the global average.

Enhancing access to broadband improves development outcomes, fosters economic development and increases competitiveness. The Inter-American Development Bank reports that a 10 percent increase in the region’s broadband subscriptions would boost GDP growth by 3.19 percent and increase productivity by 2.6 percent…

The new partnership will be managed by USAID’s Global Broadband and Innovations Program, which will provide financial and technical support for improving broadband strategies.  The initiative also comes on the heels of the Obama administration’s other announcements – Small Business Network of the Americas and Women’s Entrepreneurship in the Americas – which will promote trade among small businesses throughout the Hemisphere.  There is a special interest in supporting “diaspora entrepreneurs” through the Latino American Idea Partnership (La IdEA) and the Caribbean Idea Marketplace (CIM) business competition platforms.

Of course, there are many critics of the new free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama and the “convenient timing” of all of these new initiatives from the White House. However, having better Internet access for budding entrepreneurs in Latin America and the Caribbean is a very important issue that needs to be addressed better, and the new partnership attempts to deal with the digital gap.

Global Wire Associates has done work in the past with activists and entrepreneurs in the region, like with Mariam Cotton, a Trinidadian who runs her own catering business outside of Port of Spain.  She is developing her own line of exotic fruit preserves.  When Cotton came to one of our trainings last February, she told us that she is dependent on her mobile phone for contacting clients and online banking.  However, because she doesn’t have regular Internet access, her ability to expand her business and stay current with her competition is limited.

According to the International Telecommunications Union, only 39.5 percent of citizens of Trinidad and Tobago have Internet access.  If there was a better broadband strategy in her community, she would be able to build a company website, do online research on how to improve her business and better market her services to potential clients.  We spoke to Cotton again yesterday about the prospects of better broadband access and the hopes that the Obama administration will stay true to their promises.

“I think it is a blessing for me to get online,” Cotton told GWA in a telephone interview.  “I want to be able to connect with more customers and open a restaurant and sell my preserves in Miami one day.  Having the Internet will help me feel more connected with the world.”

The Trayvon Martin case has put the problem of racial profiling into the spotlight again.  Black males are generally portrayed in Western media as criminal, due largely to clothing perceived to be associated with “urban culture” like hoodies.  Just like black males, Arab (and some South Asian) males with beards and turbans are also judged negatively as having associations with terrorism, especially since the September 11 attacks.

Iraqi photojournalist Tamara Abdul Hadi has taken on the challenge to break this terrorist stereotype.  She created Picture an Arab Man, a photo slide show that really takes a look at the unexplored viewpoints of stereotypes in general.

The slide show uses Emphas.is, an online platform that allows photojournalists to submit projects for crowdfunding by viewers.  Crowdfunding is the hot thing to do in the business world these days, especially among tech entrepreneurs who are looking at nontraditional ways to fund their projects.  President Barack Obama recently signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act into law, which makes it easier for start-ups to raise money.  There are a growing number of crowdfunding platforms for creative professionals, including Emphas.is, which is the first such platform designed for photojournalists.

Abdul Hadi started her project in 2009 to collect photos of Arab men for an upcoming book.  She turned to Emphas.is for crowdfunding when she was ready to publish her work.  In an interview with IJNet, She said that there was not a more important time than now to get her work out.

Arab men have been stereotyped in Western media for a very long time through films, literature, theater etc.  They are branded as hyper-masculine, violent and dangerous. The word “terrorist” is used a lot, especially in Western media…  Arab women are definitely also misrepresented in Western media, but in a very different way than Arab men. While men are seen as oppressive and violent, women are seen as oppressed and powerless. There is a big disconnect when it comes to media representation. I decided to tackle the subject of Arab men first.

The men in her photos are from many countries throughout the Arab world.  She said her subjects are shot semi nude “because my portraits focus mainly on the face and having no distinguishing clothing/jewelry and accessories helps keep the focus on that.”  Much of the online buzz for this project is really promising, and it looks like Abdul Hadi is both on her way to raising her money, as well as raising awareness.

“I strive to do what I can to redefine the image of the Arab man for an audience so accustomed to one-dimensional stereotypes,” Abdul Hadi said.  “Most importantly, I hope to properly represent my subjects as diverse and candid men whose only thing in common is their rich Middle Eastern heritage.”

Pinterest, a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows members to “pin” images, videos and other objects, has become all the rage on the Internet.  As a matter of fact, Pinterest is currently the fastest growing social network.  According to the Christian Science Monitor, it is “currently netting 11 million visitors per month (68 percent of whom are reported to be female)…  Just a month after opening the site to the public, the founders were shocked to have a waiting list they say is in the tens of thousands.”

Pinterest is best known for its many pins of wedding dresses and interior decorating, but we have been playing around with it and have found a few ways to use it for digital activism.  Since there is a larger number of women using the platform, many women’s rights activists has used Pinterest to organize around their causes.  Most recently, when Susan G. Komen for the Cure was accused of undermining women’s reproductive health, pro-choice activists created the Komen Can Kiss My Mammagram pinboard, where supporters posted various images and videos acknowledging their grievances with Komen.

Pinterest member Jennifer Stauss Windrum used the platform to create another movement.  Her mother was diagnosed with lung cancer, although she never smoked a cigarette in her life.  Windrum create the WTF? (Where’s the Funding) for Lung Cancer pinboard to show that anyone can get lung cancer, and that it should be as well-funded as other types of cancer.  Windrum discussed how Pinterest has helped her on the Daily Dot.

To enable others to become great advocates for a cause, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to access and share content. With the boards, I can curate a lot of content from my blog and other resources and neatly place it in one spot. Pinterest has not only helped advance our advocacy efforts, but also has introduced us to a new set of advocates as well.

The Flaming Vegan, a blog dedicated to the vegan lifestyle, recently discussed using Pinterest for promoting veganism and animal rights.  The author states that photos can speak larger than words to change perceptions.

…Many people have a distorted image of what a vegan eats and getting your carnivore friends excited about Tempah or tofu is a fantastic way to promote vegan meals. As mentioned, I pin photos from all my blog posts and once visitors arrive at my blog they can find out more information on veganism and why I’m a vegan…  You’ll also notice that cute photos of dogs and cats are very popular on Pinterest. So I regularly post videos and images of lambs, cows, and pigs playing in an open environment. The people who view the videos have no idea that I’m trying to promote compassion and understanding but these images begin to undo previous misconceptions. My goal is that they remember the video of the cow playing with a ball in a field instead of being in a pen standing in their own manure the next time they are looking at a menu…

The Trayvon Martin case has largely been a social media-driven campaign.  Liberal blog Think Progress created the Hoodies for Trayvon pinboard, where users can find photos of celebrities and journalists wearing hoodies, demonstrating the harmlessness of the clothing.  Doing a search for “trayvon” on Pinterest will bring up hundreds of similar pins, giving an overview of this online movement.

Pinterest has only been around for a few short months, but it has already made an impact in many lives.

Global Wire Associates is finally ready to take requests for trainings and consultations for late May, June, July, August and early September 2012!

Check out our updated Services page to see how we can best serve you.  Based on the requests and ideas we have been receiving lately, a good number of you are interested in us focusing more on mobile activism, basic social media training and especially innovative entrepreneurship.  We are available to do both in-person meetings and web conferences conducted in English with non-English translation when possible.

All we need you to do is send us an email at info (at) globalwireonline (dot) org with training/consultation summer requests and fee schedules by April 30, 2012.  Any training/consultation requests received after that date will be looked at on a first come, first serve basis based on time availability and other logistical concerns.

(Please Note: We reserve the right to cancel or postpone in-person trainings or consultations based on travel warnings issued by the US Department of State.)