Aidnography

At least my tweet on the recent high-level World Bank Global Infrastructure Forum 2016 made it into the top 5 tweets for the hashtag #investininfra: Nothing says "inclusive #globaldev " clearer than a quasi- #allmalepanel @WorldBank on #InvestInInfra feat 11 suits pic.twitter.com/893qo9GQzC — Tobias Denskus (@aidnography) April 16, 2016 But #allmalepanel tweets (or quasi-#allmalepanels as Zeinab Badawi moderated the event) are about more than just pointing out the fact that 11 men dominated the stage at this particular event. #allmalepanels as communication challenges Let’s put it very bluntly: The more men are in a group shot, the worse it looks; if you are organizing an event or communicate about it make sure you actually avoid the group photo; break up panels, add a female moderator, make sure at least one men does not wear a dark suit and tie. This is window-dressing, absolutely, but at least you may be able to mitigate short-term social media comm

It is an interesting coincidence that just as I am finishing Dan Lyons’ book Disrupted-My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble ( review in the New York Times , my own to follow soon), the German tech blog t3n published a ‘day in the life of…’ portrait of ResearchGate founder Ijad Madisch . In case you do not read German: ‘ Bill Gates ’ golden boy ’ s ’ day consists of talking to investors, exercising, attending a few meetings, talking to journalists and playing sports-both live and in front of his PlayStation -before talking to investors again… As I said, I really enjoyed reading Dan Lyons book and I am sure that there is a bit of HubSpot in most digital economy companies and the portrait of Ijad Madisch is not exactly over-the-top crazy-founders can simply survive on very few hours of sleep and lots of exercise… But there is a particular reason why this story caught my attention: Madisch never mentions the people who work for him in the entire article. No, I do not mean his hip B

Hi all, Time for some fresh reading recommendations for the upcoming weekend! Development news on exploitative immer sive experiences; why you should be smarter than becoming a volountourist in Nepal; parachute research & public health emergencies; Urban education heroes, Teach for America’s top-down management & Habitat for Humanity’s gentrification venture in NYC-3 stories from the U.S. about ‘development’; safe & meaningful participation of girls at the decision-making table; more on expat pay; Our digital lives with new research on why filter bubbles may not matter; Academia with a reading list on critical algorithm studies for nerds; the ethics of using hacked data for your research. Enjoy! New from aidnography How great development discussions look like on facebook - Build Africa’s “Time Machine” video edition There is always space for more snark, memes, satire or ironic commentary on development-related topics, so it is worth documenting a great teachable mom

There is always space for more snark, memes, satire or ironic commentary on development-related topics, so it is worth documenting a great teachable moment that happened on facebook yesterday; it basically confirms that if you maintain a great network, great insights are only a few connections away. This example does not solve the issue of filter bubbles and is by no means a cure for everything that’s broken on the Internet right now, but it quickly became a great, positive example of learning and respectful sharing. " Time Machine ", posted in September 2015 by Build Africa has received just over 2,000 views on YouTube so far, but it sparked interes ting comments on women's empowerment projects by educational NGOs focusin g on formal schooling: It started with a simple question: Friend 1: Thoughts? Is it just me or does this video suggest that it is a girl's (sole) responsibility to get educated, not marry young, etc.; an undercurrent of victim blaming? T

Hi all, Many of us will be celebrating Easter and/or enjoy a long weekend of sorts so this is a good opportunity to catch up with some interesting readings! Development news travels with Barbie Savior; Norway’s fake refugee camps for children; the white savior complex industry is alive and well; Angola’s Wikipedia pirates; INGOs have a right to exist-says ActionAid; MSF & 3D printing; Ellen Page as an imperial LGBT voluntourist; displaced dissent; from fail fests to learning; evidence-based policy crisis. Our digital lives : Virtual reality is the next big thing in (humanitarian) storytelling. Academia : Twitter creates academic hierarchies and celebrities; do we really need more PhDs in Canada and the OECD world? Enjoy! New from aidnography Opportunities and challenges of the European refugee situation for Communication for Development My main argument of this short post is that development, especially communication for development, experts based in the global North can cont

There has been a constant flow of recent critical writing about traditional development and communication approaches* – often in the context of the current European refugee situation. As important as fresh debates about the ‘North’ and the ‘South’, ‘us’ and ‘them’ are – especially in the context of new communicative ecologies and mediatized development realities – I firmly believe that we Northern development and communication experts can, and should, play a bigger role in the debates ‘at home’. For the first time in recent history core ‘development’ issues have become part of domestic discussions and all of the sudden migration, refugee, humanitarian, poverty, peace & conflict and gender issues are no longer just taking place ‘there’. Among the very loud noise of politicians pretending to have ‘solutions’, shortsighted calls for ‘integration’ and a steady flow of equally shortsighted news broadcasts from the latest ‘front-‘ or ‘borderline’ the voice of development and communicati

Hi all, After the recent link review #175 anniversary, the blog passed another milestone: This is blog post #401 ! Development news with humanitarian issues in post-quake Japan; 10 ways for deskbound aid workers to feel ‘fieldish’; the limits of NGOs speaking ‘for’ people; UN's discourse of impotent language ; data-driven ICT4D resources; Geneva orgs paying interns; next UN SG-female and feminist? Complexity book review essay; re-negotiating informed photographic consent; the trouble with the Gates’ – plus a really, really terrible long read on G4S and the private security business. Our digital lives : New research: Twitter pushed racial justice in the US – but hashtags don’t help Darfur; inside Amazon UK’s power-reviewer community wars. Academia : The pressure when researching digital extremism; academics (including those at #ISA2016) need to engage publicly; has Twitter transformed the PhD experience (well…not really?); Elsevier, Sci-Hub & the Streisand effect. Enjoy! New