Stories from Quick Reads and Latin America
A Chilean Real-Time Video App Launches at the Boston Marathon
The application RhinoBirdTV, developed by the Chilean Felipe Heusser, who founded the NGO Ciudadano Inteligente, allows users to share video experiences in real time. The makers of RhinoBirdTV hope their product will help facilitate a more democratic world by breaking down boundaries and connecting people through simple-to-distribute live videos. RhinoBirdTV chose to launch its Android version on...
The Quest for the Mexican Miracle
Against the backdrop of elections scheduled for 7 June 2015 in Mexico, Fernando Vazquez blogging on Futuros Anticipados reflects on the quest for a miracle in development, growth and honesty, at times hindered by apathy and inaction of some. […] se firmó el TLC, se adelgazó al estado, se privatizó la industria pública....
‘Nappies in Adolescence': Alarming Number of Pregnant Teens in Venezuela
Desireé Lozano, blogging for Voces Visibles, urges attention be paid to the extremely high rate of teenage pregnancies in Venezuela, where 25% of the pregnancies are among young people, and the lack of an appropriate public policy to counter this phenomenon and its repercussions. Venezuelan statistics are the highest in South America...
Chilean Volcano Wakes Up After Four Decades of Inactivity With Violent, Spectacular Eruption
The Chilean government declared a state of emergency caused by the disaster in towns near the Calbuco volcano, in southern Chile and on the border with Argentina, after it erupted violently Wednesday. The people of Puerto Montt, Puerto Varas, Frutillar in Chile and Villa La Angostura, San Martin de los Andes...
Mexican Rescue Team Asks for Help to Go to Nepal
Urgen donativos para 25 rescatistas paypal:donativos@brigada-rescate-topos.org CLABE Santander:01418092000709294 tel.5554160417 #ToposANepal — Topos México (@topos) April 27, 2015 Donations are needed urgently for 25 rescuers paypal: donativos@brigada-rescate-topos.org CLABE Santander:01418092000709294 tel.5554160417 #ToposANepal (Topos to Nepal) The Rescue Brigade Topos México Tlatelolco has started a fundraising campaign to be able to join rescue efforts there after a 7.8...
Colombia's Festival on the Value of Data in Development
The Cartagena Data Festival has just wrapped up in Cartagena, Colombia. The festival is an international event committed to discussing data deployment for human development and related topics, like open data, data journalism, big data, and other analysis tools. The festival, which ran from April 20 to April 22 and took place in...
Are Blogs an Endangered Species?
This text is part of the 46th #LunesDeBlogsGV (#MondayBlogsOnGlobalVoices) on March 23, 2015. On #LunesDeBlogsGV (#MondayOfBlogsOnGlobalVoices), we work to preserve blogs as an “endangered species”, confronting the challenges that threaten their existence in today's digital jungle. In a similar effort, the blogger Iván Lasso compiles stories about the future of blogging and the problems bloggers face today, when their...
What Does Hacking Education Mean?
Pedro Muller reflects on the lapse of the school system, an institution he says meant for a different historical context. In this regard, he notes the importance of two similar, but at the same time different, concepts: “to study” and “to be educated”: El educar se va más allá de...
Protecting Personal Data in Argentina Is a Work in Progress
In an article for online magazine Digital Rights: Latin America & The Caribbean, No.21, Argentinean lawyer Valeria Milanés explains that even though the United States is a world leader in data processing, it does not have legislation for the protection of personal data. The US is also considered to have “an inadequate level of protection...
Mexican Women Are Being Called on to Help Transform Their Portrayal in Mexican Media
WACC, SocialTIC, WITNESS, La Sandía Digital, and Subversiones have called on women interested in telling the stories of strong women in their communities with the purpose of changing the way women are represented in the media. As one of the representatives of the project told Global Voices, in Mexican media there...
Caracas #SmartCityHack Proposes Solutions to People's Problems
The Venezuelan edition of the Hackathon Smart Cities took place in Caracas from 6 to 8 March, 2015. Don't you know what a hackathon is? If so, read this post! The #SmartCityHack event was simultaneously organized in 27 cities by Global Datafest. “@forummedia: 5historias de querer es poder detrás del...
Mexican Group Receives International Journalism Recognition Julio Anguita Parrado
Periodistas de a Pie (@periodistasdeapie), an active journalist organization that aims to raise the quality of journalism in Mexico, received the International Journalism Award Julio Anguita Parrado in Spain. Through training and exchanging investigation techniques, experiences, reporting strategies, narrative styles and ways of approaching a story with colleagues, the group aims...
He Stole, Was Caught, Asked for Forgiveness and Was Forgiven
He had probably thought it would be easy to steal some shampoo from the owner of a store in Peru, but things went bad for this thief. The man and his accomplice entered a store in the Peruvian city of Huancayo, saying they were buying some liquor, and when the owner was distracted, they...
Finally, a Mobile App for Geolocated News in Latin America
FACTICO is the first mobile media designed in Latin America to geolocate information. But, what is app all about? FACTICO es la aplicación de noticias e información más innovadora y atractiva de América Latina. Nuestras notas son compactas y fáciles de leer, y todos nuestros contenidos están georreferenciados. La información más importante del...
Mocking Ecuador’s President Can Cost You Online Anonymity
After sending a threatening gift of flowers and exposing the individuals behind Crudo Ecuador, however, the Internet satirists surrendered, using the hashtag #UstedGanó (#YouWon).
Ecuador's Creeping Criminalization of Abortion
Marita Seara, blogging for Voces Visibles, warns about the growing criminalization of abortion in Ecuador, one of the most difficult countries in Latin America for women to obtain an abortion, second only to Venezuela. Hay dos únicos casos en los cuales es permitido el aborto: cuando corre peligro la vida...
Boy’s T-Shirt Pokes Fun at Ecuadorian President
When Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa agreed to take a photo with a boy, he probably didn't imagine it would go viral — and he would end up being the butt of the joke. The boy was wearing a T-shirt printed with the phrase “I’m with stupid” and an arrow that...
Mexican Beauty Pageant Contestant’s Baffling ‘Chimpanzee’ Answer
It's well known that every aspiring beauty queen must answer a difficult question in the interview portion of the contest. Also well known are some of the answers that contestants have given, answers that earned them more publicity than their good looks ever did. The most recent of those answers was given...
Are Zuckerberg and Internet.org Genuinely Good for Panama?
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took advantage of his invitation to attend the Summit of the Americas in Panama City and met with his CEO counterparts in the region to promote Internet.org, a partnership he initiated between big business, non-profit organizations, and communities, the goal of which is to connect more...
Defending Internet Free Speech and Anonymity in Ecuador
Facing criticism from officials in the Ecuadorian government, several national and international organizations have signed the Manifesto for the Freedom of Expression, Anonymity, and Online Privacy in Ecuador.
Peruvian Web Users Take the #LanguageChallenge
International Mother Language Day was celebrated on February 21, as a commemoration of the right every nation has to keep its own language, a key element of cultural identification. In Peru, there are 47 native languages, spoken by about 4 million people. To mark the occasion, the Office of Indigenous...