Here are my running notes of the Lift conference in Geneva. This is The Revolution is Most Definitely Mobilized – Mobiles in Democratic Participation. Debunking Hype and Assessing Reality (Katrin Verclas), part of the Online Communities session. May contain errors, omissions, things that aren’t quite right, etc. I do my best but I’m just a human live-blogging machine.
Found other good posts about this session? Link to them in the comments.
She’s an activist. Not really techy. 5 billion mobile subscribers in 2010. Wants to debunk some myths about how people participate. Only 1.8 billion people online. *steph-note: not sure about that figure, might have misunderstood.*
The hype cycle, with the trough of disillusionment. How mobiles are being used in political participation. *steph-note: political? I think I’m tired. Examples are about HIV information.*
*steph-note: OK, that was a series of examples of mobile use for health stuff, and now we’re back to politics.*
Protests in Thailand. “Sousveillance” (citizens recording and denouncing abuses like police brutality). Myth of twittering during iranian demonstrations: the mobile network was cut off!!
Election monitoring is a long-standing practice.
Citizen reporting, unlike election monitoring: stuff people submit via web, Twitter, etc. Source of reports seem to show that Mexican NGOs prefer reporting through web/Twitter rather than SMS.
Budget monitoring. Budget tracking tool you can query by SMS.
Obama campaign: I’m voting because… I don’t want zombies to take over the world!
*steph-note: sorry, the live-blogging machine has clearly broken down here :-(*
Hello Stephe,
Thanks for recording ALL the sessions at Lift ’10. It’s impressive!!
I know it’s a lot of work but please rest assured that many people will benefit from your blog posts.
I’ve enjoyed a speech by Katrin, and wish to thank you again for leaving some photos. These were most important for me, as with them, I finally got a real feel on the way sms works to generate citizens’ reports and a large variety of other information from streets and fields.
A link below is my 2 cents contribution to your great Lift records –>
http://en.geneva-kurisaki.net/2010/05/08/power-of-search-engines-lift-10/
Great to have met you again at Lift!