Category: Freedom

Information Communication Technology for Social Justice

The Association for Progressive Communications has an article / interview on how communication technologies can be used for development. It’s a neat read to remind us that the internet and other new technology can be used for more than just LOLcats (I love LOLcats!).

I rather feel that WSIS showed two things, if only by default. First, that it is important to develop a common understanding of the potential of ICTs in development between the development community and the ICT community. This requires that both listen to one another’s priorities and issues. Second, that it is important to develop a much better evidence base concerning experience with ICTs in development. WSIS did neither of these, but it demonstrated their importance. Effective use of ICD is unlikely to occur without them being addressed much more effectively.

Rent it Online

How much stuff do you have sitting at home right now that you don’t use….but don’t want to get rid of it cause you might need it? Why not rent it out online? The Ebay for renting is finally here with RentMineOnline.com (still in Alpha testing). When you need a thing for 1 day out of 365 rent instead of buying and save a buck and the planet.

A good example of how this can work is landmovers. Why should everyone has their own mower if they will only use it a couple of hours a week and there is a perfectly good mover a house away? I would love to see streets organize themselves and collectively buy one mover for all residents. So I emplore those of you with needs for landmovers, drills, boats, whatever it maybe to check to rent it before you buy. The more we rent instead of buy, the less environmental impact we have.

Renting your home could save you money, especially if you take advantage of this rental rebate.

Get a Perfect Career

I have good news for you: you don’t have to work at a job you don’t like! Yahoo Finance has an op-ed about finding the job you love.

Some selected excerpts from the article:

3. Stop saying financial issues hold you back.

Don’t use your financial constraints as a way to get out of making adult decisions. You can change your job or your career no matter where you are in life.

Look, this is all good news. You’re in control of your life, and you decide where you’ll work and how optimistic you’re going to be.

You can choose to complain and be angry that other people have more than you, or you can choose to consciously go after what you want every day of your life.

Via LifeHack

Less Corruption in Developing Nations

More often than not, rich countries state that they’ll only give aid to countries with ‘good governance,’ whatever that means. To me it seems like a vague term, nonetheless this vague term is now more vaguely applied – and that’s a good thing!

The World Bank, which itself suffers from not-so-good governance, has released a report saying that good governance is on the rise and corruption is on its way out in developing nations. This means that more nations are qualified to receive more aid if they want to.

Reflecting on the report’s findings, Kaufmann added: “The good news is that some countries, including the poorest ones in Africa, are showing to the world that it is possible to make substantial inroads to improve governance.”

From the It’s-About-Time-Department

Good things happen every day a zillion times a day, sometimes people get to experience those good things before others. Today I found out about two such things:

1. Women’s rights in Sierra Leone have improved thanks to new laws that protect women. Other countries already have such laws in place and it’s great to see yet another country support equality.

2. Taiwan is going to replace their streetlights with LEDs in a US $7 million initiative to cut power consumption of the lights by 85%. LED streetlights are nothing new, but I have no idea if this is the first time that there has been a LED replacement program that is this big.