I'm an activist, blogger and geek, living in Western Massachusetts and working as director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, and a principal research scientist at the MIT Media Lab. I previously worked as a research fellow at the Berkman Center. As co-founder of Global Voices, I'm interested in ways that citizen's media can address longstanding biases in the news media. Before working at the Berkman, I helped found Geekcorps, a non-profit organization that shipped geeks to the developing world to run Internet technology trainings. Prior to that, I was part of the team that founded Tripod, one of the early online community companies. When not blogging, researching or making trouble, I help out with Worldchanging, Open Society Institute's Information Program and other fun technology and development projects. My personal blog is “My Heart's in Accra…”
Latest posts by Ethan Zuckerman
Sudan’s democratic spring is turning into a long and ugly summer
"The worse outcome is the prospect of systemic military violence like Darfur, without intervention by the international community. The same folks are in charge, and we are already looking away."
As a Drone Captures Global Voices at 10, a Few Thoughts from Cebu
I was blogging and tweeting frenetically, trying to capture the conversations in panels and halls, soaking up as much news and perspective as I could from friends around the world.
An American Bluegrass Band Woos Nigerian Audiences With Their Rendition of P-Square's Chop My Money
How did a Chicago bluegrass band that plays bars and festivals in the U.S. find itself performing in the living room of the US deputy consul in Abuja, Nigeria?
“The Zone 9 Bloggers Are Writing From the Outer Ring of the Prison, the Nation Itself”
The charges against the bloggers give a sense of what the Ethiopian government is fighting: dissent, not terror.
Global Voices Announces Investment from Omidyar Network
I'm thrilled to announce that the Omidyar Network has made a $1.2 million investment in Global Voices's work. Omidyar is a philanthropic foundation created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam to improve people's lives through “harnessing the power of markets”. Omidyar has supported some of the organizations...
Harvard Forum – Faith and focus
Ethan's final live-blog post from the Harvard Forum about internet and communications technology ICT for development with concluding thoughts from several participants.
Harvard Forum – What do we need to know?
Today's conversation starts with discussions of “knowledge gaps”, open questions we need to answer through research so we can understand what's succeeding and failing in our field.
Harvard Forum: ICT4D and, and, and
Ethan brings the live-blog from day one to a close after questions and lively discussion with conclusion from Mike Best who suggests there's no way to summarize these discussions… with anything but an observation that the field is filled with “ands”.
Harvard Forum: Are we satisfied with what we've got?
The live-blogging continues, as Michael Spence helps identify questions that are top research priorities for the ICT for development field with input from Yochai Benkler, Rohan Samarajiva, Hernan Galperin, Alison Gillwald, and Bill Melody.
Harvard Forum: the complex world of ICT and gender
The live-blog continues with panel presentations on ICT for development by Clotilde Fonseca, Sabri Saidam, Ineke Buskens, Nancy Spence, and Ethan Zuckerman.
Harvard Forum: Markets, Mobiles and the ability to make culture
The live-blog continues with panel presentations on ICT for development by Ronaldo Lemos, Anita Gurumurthy, Ophelia Mascarenhas, and Lawrence Liang.
Update from the Harvard Forum on ICT4D
Ethan Zuckerman and Jen Brea from Global Voices are live-blogging a conversation today and tomorrow at Harvard on the future of information and communication technology and development (ICT4D) hosted by Canada's International Development Research Center and Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
Ghana: Waiting for a President
On December 7, Ghanaians came to the polls to elect a President, but a runoff was necessary. While waiting for the results of that second round that took place yesterday, Ethan Zuckerman reviews what is being said on Twitter and in the blogosphere.
Global Voices introduces Executive Director, Ivan Sigal
We're thrilled to announce that Ivan Sigal has joined Global Voices as Executive Director. Ivan comes to us from the US Institute of Peace, where he's been researching citizen media in conflict-prone parts of the globe. Prior to his time at USIP, Ivan spent several years with Internews, an international media development organization. With Internews, Ivan worked on projects in the former Soviet Union, was Regional Director for Central Asia and Afghanistan, Regional Director for Asia, and worked on development for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Hiring: Global Voices seeks an Executive Director
The new board of directors of Global Voices met this week and decided it was time for an exciting step: hiring an executive director for Global Voices. Believe it or not, Global Voices has operated for almost three years with no one formally at the helm of the organization, and...
Global Voices is seeking an Outreach Director
Global Voices is seeking a full-time Outreach Director. The outreach director will coordinate Global Voices's efforts in promoting blogging, podcasting, videocasting, photoblogging and other forms of citizen media throughout the world. This will include responsibility for managing a grants program that will support innovative outreach efforts with microgrants, compilation of...
Global Voices is hiring an advocacy director
Global Voices (globalvoicesonline.org) is seeking a part-time Advocacy Director. The advocacy director will coordinate Global Voices's efforts in supporting online freedom of expression. This will include responsibility for building online relationships between national anti-censorship and anti-net filtering movements, interacting with international press freedom organizations, producing educational guides to anti-censorship tools...
GV Summit Delhi ‘06 Session Three: Language and Translation
David Sasaki has put together a remarkable session on translation at the Global Voices conference. It begins with a conversation led by John “Feng 37″ Kennedy in Chinese between the half dozen Chinese speakers in the room, then a five-person conversation in Swahili, led by Ndesanjo Macha, then a lively...
24-hour demonstration against Internet censorship
Our friends at Reporters without Borders (often called “RSF” – Reporters sans Frontières) are organizing an online demonstration against Internet censorship, beginning tomorrow at 11am (Paris time) and continuing until 11am on Wednesday, November 8th. The goal of the demonstration is to draw attention to online censorship in the thirteen...
Petition Hu Jintao for Global Voices editor Hao Wu's release
Many Global Voices readers have asked what they can do to hasten our friend and colleage Hao Wu's release from detention in Beijing. Hundreds of you have put badges on your blogs and webpages to call attention to Hao Wu's detention, and this support has helped generate media interest in...
Announcing Our Alliance with Reuters
We're thrilled to announce an alliance between Global Voices and global media company, Reuters. Reuters has been supporting Global Voices efforts since late last year, when they hosted our annual conference at their global headquarters at Canary Wharf in London. Yesterday Reuters announced a major contribution to the Berkman Center...
