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Civil society in a divided society
Any concept that is currently being used across 34,000 websites[1] is in serious danger of being interpreted in a wide range of potentially conflicting ways. Civil society is clearly one such term. The temptation to …
Open source – technology for sustainable development
The debates about harnessing the benefits of information technology (IT) in the public interest have centred on issues such as Internet connectivity and computing hardware. To date minimal attention has been paid to the central …
Demand-oriented philanthropy to match ideas and investments
Kanwal Rekhi of the TIE Foundation in California’s Silicon Valley sees India as ‘a first-rate nation with third-rate systems’. Rekhi and other non-resident Indians have been focusing on social venture philanthropy as a way of …
In Brief
ICTs for development There is a strong social, economic and political case for investing social venture capital in ICTs (information and communication technologies) for poor rural areas. This is the principal thesis of a newly …
‘Virtual vertical’ – the Internet and higher order civic organizing
Life operates at many levels of association and action – from local to global. However, an abiding problem for multiple tiers of organizing is how to finance them. Compared to government and business, civil society …
Development management training – learning to depend on trade not aid
Professional training for development managers in the developing world could be characterized as sluggish, supply-driven, ‘projectized’ and subsidized. There are no widely, let alone universally, recognized qualifications available. What is worse, there is no potential …
E-philanthropy – click to give or click to know?
The Internet is generally agreed to be the world’s most powerful communication tool. Yet most NGOs see it as little more than a mechanism for reaching the widest possible audience and persuading them to give …
Why online communities may not always be ‘a good thing’
Is the Internet creating a vibrant civil space? Is it promoting democracy? Can the architecture of the Internet be changed so that it fosters diversity and a real exchange of views? These were the questions …
IT creates new power disparities in Mexican human rights network
Information technology (IT) has had a profound effect on the human rights movement in Mexico. For decades, daily human rights violations went largely undetected by the international community. Today, information about abuses is transmitted almost …
Learning from new business models
In the world of business, two companies stand out as representatives of the 20th and 21st centuries. Ford was one of the early innovators, creating the ideas behind mass manufacture and distribution. Cisco, the maker …