ICT for Humanity
Information & Communication Technology for Human Rights, Humanitarian action, and social change
Conference in April 2011 at the University of California at Berkeley’s information school on technology and human rights. The mix of people involved the event is a microcosm of the intellectual areas and interests coming together to create communities of practice around ICT for humanity: information sciences, communication, law, human rights, humanitarian, and international development.
“Tuesday, April 26, 2011, 8:00 am – Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 4:00 pm, David Brower Center, Berkeley
Information technologies are gaining a significant role in advancing human rights research and advocacy. But technology alone will not make the difference; what will is the combination of human rights defenders with the tools specifically designed to support their work.
In May 2009 UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center hosted “Soul of the New Machine”, an international conference focused on exploring the intersection of human rights, technology, and new media. Over 250 leading thinkers, civil society members, activists, programmers, and entrepreneurs had the chance to assess the ‘lay of the land’ and discuss emerging technologies related to evidence gathering / documentation and advocacy and outreach. The conference was designed to be a meeting point between the tech-savvy world and the human rights community.
Two years later, much progress in the practice and implementation of human rights and technology projects call for a new opportunity to share experiences, best practices, and lessons learned from deploying technology in the field. Building on the success of the 2009 conference, Advancing the New Machine: Human Rights and Technology will convene human rights practitioners and technologists to discuss the progress, successes, and challenges that have emerged.
Sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation; Humanity United; the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law; the UC Berkeley School of Information; The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative; the Payson Center for International Development; the Berkeley Center for New Media; Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Human Rights Science; and the UC Berkeley School of Law.”
See website: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/HRCweb/events/TechConference2011/index.html
Tech Gets Enlisted In The War Against Human Trafficking
By SHEILA RILEY, FOR INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 12/03/2010 04:38 PM ET
The fight against human trafficking is using a few new weapons: texting, iPhone apps and smarter passports.
An estimated 12.3 million adults and children around the world are trafficked — compelled in a variety of ways to work against their will — the U.S. State Department says.
“It’s basically modern-day slavery,” said Mark Latonero, research director for the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center. “It’s a pernicious and widespread global problem.”
(Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher lent their celebrity clout to a November news conference at United Nations headquarters concerning the launch of the U.N. Trust Fund for Victims of Human Trafficking. AP)
The term “trafficking” covers a wide area.
“It’s not just forced prostitution, it’s also forced labor — people working in slaverylike conditions on farms, fishing boats, in nail salons, whatever,” Latonero said.
He’s working on a project to make it easier to get help for trafficking victims via cell phone.
The Technology and Trafficking in Persons Research Initiative will allow concerned citizens, potential trafficking victims and possibly victims themselves to text information to a hotline. The project is led by the Annenberg Center.
Texts will be sorted by a computer and sent to appropriate agencies that could help, Latonero says.
The initiative focuses on the Mekong region in Southeast Asia: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, southern China and Burma.
“This part of the world is a major source, transit and destination region for men, women and children forced into labor and prostitution,” Latonero said.
Cell Phones Aplenty
The program could be in place by mid-2011 in Thailand, with government funding and philanthropic grants expected to cover the $500,000-plus launch costs.
Though residents of the region are extremely poor — which makes them vulnerable to trafficking — most have cell phones, Latonero says.
“That,” he said, “is our opportunity.”
Phones are used on another front in the fight against trafficking. An iPhone application for consumers concerned about whether forced or child labor was used to create their purchase became available last month.
The app, Free2Work, is a joint project of Not For Sale, a San Francisco anti-slavery nonprofit, and the International Labor Rights Forum, a nonprofit advocacy organization for workers. Juniper Networks (JNPR) funded the development of the application, which is free.
With the app, shoppers can access information about the labor practices of some 60 companies, including Nike (NKE), Hasbro (HAS), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Apple (AAPL). It rates the companies’ labor practices. Not For Sale compiles information from company Web sites and public databases to create its corporate ratings.
“It’s when people are shopping that they really need that information,” said Dave Batsone, president of Not For Sale.
(See original Investor’s Business Daily Article here).
Fascinating conference put on by Oxfam Australia on integrated early warning systems and technologies to anticipate mass atrocities and human catastrophes. Lots of overlap here with, for example, the work InSTEDD is doing with early infectious disease detection.
I noticed two speakers, who will be familiar to those in the ICT for human rights & humanitarian action field: Patrick Meier, of Crisis Mappers and Ushahidi and Amb. Daniel Stauffacher of ICT4Peace Foundation.
I am attracted to conferences such as these with an action orientated agenda – Oxfam AUS’s 2009 conference on the subject produced this outcome document.
“The program brings together both technology and early-warning specialists, and members of the international development and humanitarian communities concerned with the protection of vulnerable populations and the prevention of mass atrocity crimes. These will include specialists from the UN and regional organisations, non-government organisations, scholars, government representatives and affected communities. Read more about our conference speakers. The conference falls within the context of the international community’s Responsibility to Protect, which is the new international norm developed to protect vulnerable populations from genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing.”
Crystal Ballroom, Phnom Penh Hotel, 53 Monivong Boulevard, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 3-4 November, 2010
http://www.oxfam.org.au/act/events/early-warning-for-protection/
The Center on Communication Leadership & Policy’s research team of Mark Latonero and Erin Kamler have returned from a fruitful exploratory trip for the Technology and Trafficking in Person project the Center is launching in Southeast Asia. According to a report prepared by the research team, an information sharing platform could provide significant assistance to
agencies and organizations working to combat human trafficking in the Region. The full report of their findings can be downloaded here.
Latonero and Kamler are working with Senior Fellow Jeremy Curtin to move the project forward after a promising start.
From August 8 to August 15, the team met with numerous NGOs and government organizations in Bangkok, Thailand and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
According to Latonero, “we focused on the Mekong Sub-Region (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Yunnan China and Burma), an area of critical needs in combating Trafficking and one in which possible technological solutions are just beginning to emerge. Our team centered the initial research trip on Thailand and Cambodia, listed as Tier 2 Watch List and Tier 2, respectively, in the Department of State’s 2010 TIP report. Both countries are source, transit and destination countries for men, women and children forced into labor and prostitution.”
The team conducted a needs and assets assessment of organizations working against human trafficking. CCLP proposes to focus on two interrelated immediate needs where technological solutions could have a significant impact: A regional cross-border SMS and voicemail enabled hotline; and a standardized victim identification and case management system to serve as an information sharing platform.
The TIP project was conceived out of a working group held in Washington, D.C. on June 3 in coordination with Alec Ross, Secretary Clinton’s Senior Advisor for Innovation. Participants included Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, head of the Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, other U.S. Government representatives, leaders in the technology field, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and academics active on TIP issues. Latonero and Kamler’s trip was originally announced on the CCLP blog on August 2, 2010.
Michael Bak at USAID leads the innovative MTV EXIT initiative in SE and South Asia. With the reach of MTV and the rising popularity of global music culture in Asia generally, this campaign is a powerful tool for awareness raising.
“The MTV EXIT campaign in Asia and the Pacific is produced in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development….The MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) campaign is an award-winning multimedia initiative to raise awareness and increase prevention of human trafficking and exploitation. MTV EXIT was launched in Europe in 2004, in partnership with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida, and expanded across Asia with USAID in 2007. MTV EXIT has produced many MTV documentaries and other programming on trafficking, including Traffic: An MTV EXIT Special, presented by Lucy Liu; Inhuman Traffic, presented by Angelina Jolie; over a dozen localized language versions presented by Asian celebrities; short films; public service announcements; and animation. MTV EXIT and Radiohead collaborated on an anti-exploitation video for their song All I Need, which premiered across MTV’s global network in 2008. MTV EXIT has also established partnerships with over 100 non-governmental organizations, distributed hundreds of thousands of anti-trafficking brochures in over 25 languages, and reached out to millions of young people through anti-trafficking messages at concerts and music festivals featuring R.E.M., Radiohead, The White Stripes, The Hives, Thievery Corporation, Placebo and hundreds of other international & local artists. For more information see www.mtvexit.org.”
InSTEDD integrates social and technological processes and applications for humanitarian relief, crisis, disaster response, and disease detection. “InSTEDD’s mission is to harness the power of technology to improve collaboration for global health and humanitarian action.” After listening to InSTEDD chief engineer Eduardo Jezierski‘s keynote at The Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) conference in May 2010, I later met Luke Beckman who runs the response operations in Washington D.C.
These experts are part of an innovative team developing open source solutions to respond to complex humanitarian issues. InSTEDD runs their iLab in Cambodia that both develops technologies and educates users in the Mekong Delta and South East Asian region. There could be a preparedness strategy here - educate communities on technological practices and usage before a crisis such that afterwards the response processes are already in place. See an overview of InSTEDD’s tools and technologies.
