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 December, 2010
Russia: Regional Minister Hired Through Internet
A new minister for information technologies of Russia's Ulyanovsk region has been found through Internet [RUS]. Elena Balashova, 35, was one of 2,563 people who submitted their online applications for the position. The candidates used Livejournal to share their professional plan and were interviewed via Skype.
Russia: Author of Wildfires Internet Meme is Prosecuted by Police
A blogget top-lap, an author of a famous blog post [ENG] demanding “rynda” from Vladimir Putin and criticizing the state's response to Russian wildfires closed his blog [ENG] and disappeared. In the last posts, he wrote [RUS] that Russian police conducted a search at his home, took his computer and...
U.S.A.: Liveblogging in the Middle of New York Storm
A Russian Livejournal blogger Etotam can't reach his home for two days due to snow storm in New York. He is liveblogging and posting pictures [RUS] from his car in the middle of a street (check out more than ten blog posts).
Russia: Is Internet Guilty of Organizing Nationalistic Riots?
Russian media and blogosphere ponder who is responsible for the nationalists’ riots in Moscow in mid-December. But the authorities found their own scapegoat – the Internet.
Russia: List of Regional Governors’ Online Tools
“Vedomosti” newspaper, published [RUS] a detailed list of online tools of Russian regional governors. The list includes links to personal websites, blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook profiles, and even YouTube channels.
Russia: A New Initiative to Release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Few days before the court will announce its verdict on the second trial of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a new online initiative suggests to promise president Medvedev electoral support in exchange of Khodorkovsky's release. Led by Mikhail Gurevich, executive director of Russian media corporation RBC Group, the project launched a Facebook group [RUS]...
Russia: President Medvedev Argues with a Fake Lawmaker's Twitter
President Medvedev had a Twitter clash with a fake Twitter account of Alexander Khinshtein, Russian lawmaker. The clash was about Medvedev's relations with the Belorussian president Alexander Lukashenko. Surprisingly, real Khinshtein apologized for the fake accounts’ critique. According to RT, “fake top official's accounts flood RuNet.”
Russia: More Photos of Nationalist Riot Near Kremlin
LiveJournal-user Zyalt [RUS] and DervishRV [RUS] published more photo reports of riots of soccer fans and nationalists that took place next to the Kremlin's wall in Moscow. After the protest has been dispersed the crowd started to attack everyone with non-Slavic look on the streets and in the metro.
