And here comes Global Voices in Italian! · Global Voices
Portnoy Zheng

Many of our dearest supporters have already heard the big news released on the second day of Global Voices Citizen Media Summit in Budapest, Hungary. We officially re-launched three Global Voices Lingua sites: Hindi, Macedonian, and Albanian, and introduced a brand new language to our global readers: “Global Voices in Italian“!
During a Summit session about Lingua and the multi-lingual web, Eleonora Pantò represented the Italian team and gave a speech that was quite short due to limits on time. Therefore, I would like to introduce Global Voices in Italian's three co-managers and welcome them on board.
Bernardo Parrella, the initiator of Global Voices in Italian, is a freelance journalist, translator and activist living in the United States, covering digital culture issues (mostly) for several Italian media outlets, and is involved in a variety of grassroots projects. Among his many translations are books by Turkle, Norman, Lessig, Stallman, and Jenkins.
Eleonora Pantò works in Torino as Knowledge Community Manager in a Research Organization called CSP, dealing since 1992 with projects related to ICT and education. She also published books and essays on the overall impact of ICT on education and working environments. Actively involved in promoting Open Education Resources, she also enthusiastically supports the Global Voices initiative in Italy as a tool to revitalize the (often too biased) local media system.
Lucie Marie Dorion Mengozzi is a Canadian freelance translator now living in Tuscany where she teaches English and French. She makes full use of today's e-learning tools with her students, teens and adults, starting with streaming audio and video podcasts to instant messaging and blogs. She also firmly believes in the integration of web-based material in the learning process as it offers access to a variety of content, both academic and general, but often a bit less mainstream and non conventional.
While attending the recent Berkman@10 at Harvard, Bernardo had the chance to talk with several people about the importance of spreading the Global Voices citizen media model and news, even in Italy. At that point Global Voices had Lingua translation groups in 14 different languages, but none in Italian. Bernardo contacted me and proposed himself as coordinator for that project, discovering that Lucie (already involved in French Lingua) was also looking for people to start an Italian Lingua group.
The Italian Lingua team ‘informally’ launched about a month ago, attracting media coverage and interest. They now have about 12 translators and publish at least two new posts every day.
The Italian team has great ambition to build upon Global Voices’ standing to develop a dynamic, motivated community (also aiming at the many Italians spread throughout the world), and to foster a productive relationship with everybody involved in Lingua and at Global Voices.
Let's welcome Global Voices in Italian and say ‘Ciao’ to Italian readers!
You can read more about the 15 current Lingua translation projects,here. We're always looking for new volunteers. Join us!