I was born in Moscow, lived most of my life in Jerusalem, spent 3 years in Washington DC (where I did MA at GW). But now I live in London and my major role is doctoral student at PhD program in New media, Innovation and Literacy at the London School of Economics media department. The topic of my research is development of online political institutions and ICT based models of governance in crisis situations.
I also worked as a consultant on information technology, new media, and social media projects for The World Bank, American Councils for International Education, and Internews, and was a research assistant at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Previously I worked as a journalist for major Russian daily newspapers Kommersant and Novaya Gazeta, and served as news editor and analyst for Israeli TV.
Alexey Sidorenko and I were founders of Help Map, the crowdsourcing platform, which was used to coordinate assistance to victims of wildfires in Russia in 2010 and won a Russian National Internet Award for best project in the “State and Society” category.
My Russian blog (since 2002): http://pustovek.livejournal.com/
You can reach me through Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/asmolov
Latest posts by Gregory Asmolov from August, 2010
Russia: Online Cooperation as an Alternative for Government?
Gregory Asmolov analyzes causes of the highly successful cooperation within the Russian online community during the recent wildfires crisis and examines whether online collaboration can provide a sustainable alternative for the government in the future.
Russia: Bloggers Expose Death Rate Increase
Until the emergence of Web 2.0, the Russian government had enjoyed a monopoly on death rate information and could manipulate it. Gregory Asmolov investigates how the Russian bloggers have changed the situation.
Russia: Do Authorities Conceal Rate of Death Caused by Smog?
Blogger molitva-i-post writes [RUS] that Moscow medical services failed to evacuate the body of her grandfather who died of heat and smog. Hospitals and morgues are filled with the dead, blogger reported. Despite numerous similar cases, the Ministry of Health denied [RUS] the increase in death rate caused by high temperatures.
Russia: Wildfire News Website Suspected to Be Attacked
LJ-user irka-knopkina writes [RUS] about a Vyksa city website [RUS] that is allegedly DDoS'ed for posting information about wildfires. Administration of a local factory prohibited access to the website to its employees, blogger added. Vyksa and surrounding areas were hit by severe wildfires recently.
Russia: a Blogger That Wrote to Putin about Wildfires Regrets Writing
Alexander Pochkov (aka LJ user top-lap), shares [RUS] his regrets about writing to Russian Prime Minister [EN] Vladimir Putin. He claims he may lose his job and Putin's response made him a joke in the blogosphere. It would be better, he says, if he avoided writing and went to fight the...
Russia: Crowdsourcing assistance for victims of wildfires
Severe wildfires in Russia have continued to spread since last week, displacing thousands of citizens. A new website using Ushahidi software, Russian-fires.Ru, is mapping not the fires themselves, but citizens who need help and those who wish to offer help.
