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A Brief Guide to Activism on YouTube

Activism on YouTube
Most of the millennial generation might remember the splash that “Kony 2012” made on the Internet, a video about Joseph Kony forcing child soldiers to fight his wars for him in Uganda. Regardless of the resulting conduct of the filmmaker, the film was a digital phenomenon, shared from every social media platform known at the time. There’s no mistaking the amount of awareness that the video generated. Kony 2012 was one of the first and most viral examples of activism on YouTube.

While bingeing on Netflix or finding the latest funny videos on YouTube can waste the day away, platforms such as YouTube also provide a unique space for creativity, art and passion that can easily be tied to activism and global issues. Whether it is a specific person or an organization, a YouTube channel can be the means to a movement. Below are some channels to get started with bineging on activism on YouTube:

  • Jacksgap: While this channel isn’t currently active, all of Jack and Finn Harries’ previous videos remain online, detailing their work and travel to support different charities and issues. Their videos showcase a blend of art and activism that is very well done. Jack Harries is currently traveling in Somalia to study the effects of climate change on the impoverished country.
  • The Uncultured Project: Now a charity, this is a channel run by Shawn Ahmed, designed to raise awareness about global poverty, initially while traveling around Bangladesh. He focuses his videos on a problem as well as a solution. Ahmed sends pictures to donors so they can see the direct impact of their donations.
  • Vlogbrothers: Brothers Hank and John Green, the latter being a famous young adult author, achieved their YouTube success with the idea of Nerdfighteria, which fights the stigma of “the nerd.” However, they also created the Project for Awesome, a way for their subscribers to advocate for charities by making their own videos.
  • Engage by Uplift: This channel advocates against sexual violence in all of its different forms. It seeks to educate and raise awareness for the various aspects of the issue and calls its viewers to action in every video. In terms of activism on YouTube, this channel is upfront and consistent.
  • Tyler Oakley: Oakley focuses on LGBTQ activism by working with The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention. Besides its activism on YouTube, his channel includes plenty of fun and light videos as well as collaborations with other users to keep viewers entertained.

While this is certainly not a comprehensive list, this list provides a basic starting point for seeing what activism on YouTube has to offer. Social media is a major part of life in modern society, and these channels have used it to make a change.

– Ellie Ray

Photo: Flickr

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10 Facts About the Internet in Emerging Markets


One sign of growing wealth in merging markets of developing nations is the increase in use of the internet and digital devices. To provide a picture of the size and scope of this change, here are 10 facts about the internet in emerging markets.

  1. Between 2000 and 2017, internet use in Africa grew by 7,500 percent. In the Middle East, the increase was 4,200 percent, and in Latin America, 2,000 percent.
  2. By the end of last year, 47 percent of the world’s population had internet access; by the end of next year, 51 percent will be internet users, for a total of 3.82 billion people going online.
  3. The number of people going online through use of their mobile phone is increasing. More than 72 percent of internet users last year connected through a mobile phone, up 11.9 percent from 2015. Emerging markets in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America are driving the growth of smartphone internet usage.
  4. The countries experiencing the most rapid growth in smartphone ownership are Turkey (at 42 percent) and Malaysia (34 percent), followed by Chile and Brazil, both at 26 percent.
  5. At the end of 2015, 54 percent of adults in emerging economies were on the internet, an increase of nine percent from 2013. That same year, 21 percent accessed the web through a smartphone. That percentage rose to 37 by the end of 2015.
  6. Internet penetration is especially strong in large emerging countries. At least 72 percent of adults in Russia and Turkey are online. The percentage dips slightly to 68 percent in Malaysia, then again to 65 percent in China and 60 percent in Brazil.
  7. The growth rate for the internet in emerging markets is particularly rapid in these large developing countries. Internet use in Turkey increased by 31 percent between 2013 and 2015. In that same period, Jordan experienced a 20 percent bump. Malaysia followed with a 19 percent increase. Chile, Brazil and China all experienced growth of 10 to 12 percent.
  8. Once online, internet users in emerging markets are more likely to use social networks than internet users from the U.S. and Europe. In the Middle East, 86 percent of internet users visit social networks; in Latin America it is 82 percent. By contrast, 71 percent of Americans online use social networks. The percentage drops to 65 in Europe.
  9. Social networking in emerging countries is especially strong in Jordan (90 percent of adult internet users), Indonesia (89 percent), the Philippines (88 percent), Venezuela (88 percent) and Turkey (87 percent).
  10. The rise in social networking as the use of the internet in emerging markets grows has been particularly swift in China. There, 63 percent of internet users in 2015 reported being social networkers, up 15 percentage points from 48 percent just two years earlier.

Increasing wealth in developing countries, especially large developing countries such as Russia, China and Turkey, is making it possible for more and more of their people to be connected. Continued growth will result in continuing communication and internet use around the world.

– Robert Cornet

Photo: Flickr

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Internet in Africa: More Than One-Quarter Now Connected

Africa computer
More than one-quarter of Africa’s population, in excess of 341 million people, had access to the internet in 2016. This amazing advancement highlights and outlines the support for Africa’s industrialization, including improving its economy, education and attempt to decrease poverty.

A report released by the Internet Society (ISOC) during the Africa Regional Internet and Development Dialogue stated that African nations have been given the privilege to connect their people to incredibly useful resources, such as educational opportunities and healthcare.

ISOC is dedicated to ensuring development, evolution and use of the internet. It collaborates with other global community chapters and members to help promote technologies and keep the internet safe and secure.

The report entitled “The Internet for Education in Africa — Helping Policymakers to Meet the Global Education Goals” explains the significance of this improvement and how policymakers should consider the advancement in their educational systems.

“This represents a significant opportunity to use the Internet to provide education and learning opportunities,” the report said. The internet in Africa has begun to grow, and this report shows no signs of it slowing down.

On average, 49.6 percent of the world is connected to the internet. Now, 27.7 percent of Africa is on the internet, showing that the continent is taking the right steps to help connect with the rest of the world.

What helped this increase? Besides the international interest in Africa, mobile broadband and developments of submarine cables have allowed connectivity to expand and provide educational opportunities for thousands of children living in impoverished nations.

This advancement would not only advance education in Africa but also allow for a more competitive edge in Africa’s global economy.

“A skilled workforce that can use Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) effectively to solve Africa’s problems will also determine Africa’s competitiveness in the global economy,” explains Dawit Bekele, Africa Regional Bureau Director for the Internet Society. “And policymakers have a critical role to play in creating the necessary ecosystem for integrating ICT in education.”

The report gives a framework of the advantages of the internet in Africa, such as getting rid of certain economic and social barriers to education (geography, race, gender and disabilities) and reaching a broader audience to educate students. This report highlights the possibilities that the internet in Africa can have on the continent and the world.

– Mary Waller

Photo: Flickr

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How Global Internet Access Can Alleviate Poverty

How Global Internet Access Can Alleviate Poverty
In 2015, Mark Zuckerberg proposed that global internet access could be the answer to eradicating extreme poverty. From there he pledged to work with the U.N. in acquiring internet access for refugee camps and has continued to launch campaigns and work alongside organizations such as ONE in gaining further global support.

On November 19, Zuckerberg proposed policy recommendations at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Peru where he addressed numerous world leaders and politicians. The summit concluded with unanimous support in implementing “accessible, open, interoperable, reliable and secure” global internet access.

Statistics have shown the dire need for internet access in developing countries and have compared accessibility to those in wealthier countries of which 81% of the population have internet access compared to a mere 15 percent in poorer countries. As much as 75% of Africa is disconnected and as a result, the issue has devolved to sexism in which women and adolescent girls are being further discriminated against with internet access. In fact, women in developing countries are “a third less likely” to receive internet access than males and the difference continues to increase.

ONE has recognized the separation in internet access that has been deepened by sexism and has created the Connectivity Declaration,which will gather support for equal, global internet access. Thus far, 76% of ONE’s goal for backer support has been reached— that’s 75,839 names pledged out of 100,000.

By creating a way for global internet access, lives can be enriched and the effects of poverty lessened. At stake for individuals in poor countries with no internet access is a lack of education, limited health information and weakened job opportunities. In wealthy countries such as the U.S., the benefits that come alongside internet usage are taken for granted. In Africa, for example, a pregnant woman could benefit from having internet access in order to receive pregnancy advice and farmers could utilize the internet to predict weather forecasts in order to optimally maintain their crops and income.

Zuckerberg has been a long-standing advocate for widening internet access and has joined the U.N. initiative in eradicating poverty by 2030. The Facebook CEO supports the need for global internet access by claiming that the Internet gives “a voice to the voiceless and power to the powerless.”

– Amy Williams

Photo: Flickr

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How Small Farmers Connect Without the Internet

Small Farmers WeFarm InternetNowadays, it seems everything can go viral on the Internet in seconds, from a social justice movement to a funny cat video. But what do people in developing countries do to share ideas, ask questions and communicate with their peers who live in remote areas without the Internet as a permanent fixture in their lives?

For small-scale farmers in developing countries, the slightest challenges can quickly become insurmountable. Issues like climate change, access to profitable markets and below-average growing seasons hit small farmers much harder than their larger counterparts.

According to the Huffington Post, there are currently about 500 million smallholder farmers around the globe. On average, these agriculturists live on less than $1 a day.

In order to survive year after year, many small farmers have developed low-cost, effective solutions to the everyday problems they face. Until recently, these solutions could travel no farther than word-of-mouth could take them.

In 2014, WeFarm was founded with the mission of becoming “the internet for people without the internet.” The organization offers peer-to-peer communication amongst farmers in developing countries. Users can ask and answer questions using SMS or text messaging. The service is offered to smallholder farmers free of charge.

The service translates queries and advice so that small farmers from around the world can communicate and share the valuable information they have accumulated through their personal experiences. So far, over 100,000 answers have been provided to the 43,000 farmers registered to the program.

The founders of WeFarm thought strategically about how to make information available to all the small farmers who live without the Internet. Six billion of the world’s seven billion citizens have access to a mobile phone but only 25 percent of the global population has an Internet connection. SMS is a far more trafficked channel of communication for the world’s poor, compared to email or Internet messaging.

WeFarm has big plans for the data collected by the service. The organization sees the questions farmers are asking and answering as an opportunity to address some of the major issues inhibiting food production around the world.

The data gathered by WeFarm’s service is sold to major food producers to give them a sense of the daily struggles faced by small-scale farmers. The buyer companies can use this information to better analyze the issues and develop long-term strategies to address them.

According to Zoë Fairlamb, a spokesperson for WeFarm, “Small scale farmers produce 70 percent of the world’s food globally. Global brands rely on what small scale farmers are producing, yet they have next to no visibility on what is going on at the bottom of the supply chain. A lot of food is wasted in this way through very preventable diseases.”

Though WeFarm has already taken significant strides toward a more sustainable farming system, this is only the beginning for the organization. According to the Huffington Post, WeFarm is currently seeking investments in order to expand and reach one million farmers by the end of 2016.

As a connector of major players in the food industry and small farmers across the globe, WeFarm is in a unique position to change the way the world grows food and transfers information.

As Fairlamb put it, “WeFarm wants to be about changing [the] conversation and giving [farmers] a voice, showing their knowledge is valuable and giving them a way to share that information.”

– Jennifer Diamond

Sources: Huffington Post, WeFarm, Global Citizen, Space Innovation Congress
Photo: National Geographic

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Remote Learning as Key to Expanding Global Education

Remote-Learning
Remote learning, or the process of acquiring knowledge and skills through a program accessible through mobile or computer technologies, has the ability to expand access to education throughout the developing world.

Provided in the form of online lectures, quizzes and projects, online course material may allow large numbers of students worldwide to gain access to a world-class education that would otherwise be unavailable to them.

The number of students not enrolled in school has been rising in recent years, often due to poverty, conflict or financial issues. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 124 million children between the ages of six and 15 were not enrolled in school as of 2013, up from 122 million in 2011. One out of every 11 primary-school-age children continues to be denied the right to education across the globe.

According to the Gates Foundation’s 2015 annual letter, remote learning will revolutionize education for people around the world by 2030 by giving citizens in impoverished areas educational opportunities that were previously inaccessible.

“Before a child even starts primary school, she will be able to use her mom’s smartphone to learn her numbers and letters, giving her a big head start,” Bill Gates said in the letter. “She will collaborate with teachers and other students in a much richer way. If she is learning a new language, she’ll be able to speak out loud and the software will give her feedback on her pronunciation.”

Educational access has always been a significant issue in developing and poverty-stricken areas. Students are limited when it comes to the classes and materials offered at the schools in their own communities. Digital education gives students within these developing or conflict-marred regions the ability to access educational materials.

In areas without significant funding for building heavy infrastructure, children would still be able to access education without traveling hours to schools in nearby communities. A shift to digital materials for use in learning courses also saves a significant amount of money for communities that may be struggling to provide educational materials such as textbooks.

Due to the lowering cost of mobile phones and tablets with online connectivity, technology is connecting students with teachers like never before. While many areas still lack service, Internet access and communications technologies have rapidly been emerging and expanding in developing nations over the last several years. Google Inc. is currently planning to spend more than $1 billion to bring service to these communities and expand Internet access to unwired regions of the globe via small, high-capacity satellites orbiting the earth, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The challenge of keeping children in school after primary school is tremendous, as the costs associated with secondary schooling are much higher, which is often difficult for families with lower income levels to afford. Also, secondary schooling facilities are often located farther away from rural communities, making transportation a challenge. Though online classes will never be able to replace a teacher, the technology may give children the ability to continue their education after primary school, while also pursuing other commitments.

Online education also has the ability to impart literacy skills and market-worthy training to adults who missed out on formal schooling opportunities when they were younger. It allows these individuals to pursue their education in their spare time by fitting in learning after they work a day job, provide for their families or while they are in between jobs or unemployed.

One organization, Lynda.com, an online education site providing e-learning platforms to more than two million subscribers worldwide, currently provides access to over 80,000 instructional videos relating to job skills in areas such as retail, construction and graphic design.

Many concerns remain about the challenges mobile education may pose. The cost of electricity in developing areas, the cost of network use, and the constant risk of theft or damage to the devices the children use are all threats to the sustainability of remote learning. Though these challenges in the current implementation of online education in these communities persist, technological advancement in the field continues to progress.

– Lauren Lewis

Sources: Business Insider, CNBC, CNN, Gates Notes, The Verge, The Wall Street Journal, UNESCO 1, UNESCO 2
Photo: Google Images

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Smartphones for Education Globally

smartphones_for_EducationEveryone knows that education plays a critical role in unlocking a successful future, but that education does not need to be earned in a schoolhouse. Especially if the closest schoolhouse is several miles away and lacking pencils and paper. Online classes are not particularly new; online degrees became available in the United States in the mid-’90s however as technology began to flourish so did the popularity of distant learning programs.

Online courses have become appealing to international students, and especially those in developing countries because they are available anywhere in the world that where there is internet access and they are affordable. The Khan Academy — one of the most successful online schools — claims that 30 percent of their students are non-American.

The argument has been made that online courses are not as revolutionary to developing countries as they have been predicted to be. Opponents contend that because the necessary technology, a tablet or smartphone, and the bandwidth or Internet access, is not currently available in economically struggling countries, it makes more sense to direct aid towards building schools or encourage the governments of developing countries to focus their agendas on improving their countries educational institutions.

But what if instead of focusing on the traditional avenues to increasing education, philanthropists and governments got on board with investing in smartphones for education?

While online classes have the potential to bridge the education gap between wealthy and poor countries, the missing piece is access to the necessary online learning tools, namely a tablet or phone and bandwidth. edX is a non-profit organization that offers free courses for students.

The courses range from high school to university level and beyond. While the courses are free, they provide options to receive certifications for a small fee, which all goes towards creating a financially sustainable organization. Professors from across the U.S. including several who from Harvard, Berkeley and MIT teach the classes.

Anant Agarwal is the leader of this massively open online courses (MOOC) organization. He predicts that once governments realize that high-quality online learning content is available through organizations such as edX, that they will begin investing in the infrastructure necessary for their citizens to access this wealth of information.

It is more economical for governments or NGOs to provide students with the technology for online classes than to build the roads or buildings to make attending a physical school accessible. Even in the developing world, the majority of people already own a cell phone and some even a smartphone. 62 percent of Nigerians surveyed by Global Attitudes said they owned a cellphone and 27 percent of them reported owning a smartphone. While this is nowhere near the 64 percent of Americans who own smartphones, it is a start.

Governments and NGOs should consider investing in providing the necessary technology for students to participate in online classes as a means of gaining their education. Students will be able to access a higher level and standard of education and lift themselves out of poverty by fulfilling the requirements for a successful career and future through online courses.

– Brittney Dimond

Sources: The Verge, College Classes, CE
Photo: Baltic Grid

Babajob Connecting Millions to Employers in India

Babajob Employing Millions in India
India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and with that comes one of the newest and largest middle-class populations. Middle-class families in India have a want for maids, housekeepers, nannies and cooks. Most wealthy families fill these positions through word of mouth or by recommendations from friends. However, a disconnect exists between those seeking workers and those who could take on the job. Babajob is an employment website that connects millions with employers in India.

Steve Blagsvedt, who had previously worked for Microsoft in India, founded the company in 2007. He noticed that many potential employers had no way of connecting with the millions of potential employees available and vice versa. The idea was simple at first: attract employers to create an online profile, have workers do the same and then match them. Blagsvedt quickly realized, however, that while the employers had access to the site, the workers (many of whom came from India’s slums) did not. The company set up an office in Bangalore and invited potential workers. Babajob employees then filled out profiles for them, a service still being offered today. While many who live in poverty in India don’t have Internet access, nowadays, most have mobile phones. Babajob used SMS to notify applicants of interviews or if they were hired.

One issue was fixed and the service began to run smoothly, but Babajob encountered another roadblock. Much of India’s low-income population has low literacy proficiency, thus, SMS messages were ultimately ineffective. It was then that Babajob set up call centers, which are operational to this day. Applicants call in and hang up (to save money) and are then called back by Babajob staff members who provide them all the details associated with their account.

The service is revolutionary because it enables so many people, who would have never had the opportunity for work, to better their own economic situations. “It’s an amazing service for anyone in India using any phone to connect to better jobs for free, and it does so without requiring literacy in any language or an Internet connection,” Blagsvedt said.

The site currently has more than 3.9 million registered job seekers and receives thousands of new applications each month. Babajob has also expanded from solely focusing on the domestic job market to also including jobs in the nursing, banking, data science, education and engineering sectors.

– Joe Kitaj

Sources: Take Part, Babajob, BBC
Photo: The Asian Entrepreneur

Passports with Purpose Raises Money to Assist Communities

Passports with Purpose Raises Money to Build Libraries in Asia and Africa
Passports with Purpose was created by travel bloggers Debbie Dubrow, Pam Mandal, Beth Whitman and Michelle Duffy in 2008 with the goal of using blogging to fundraise and give back to the communities they wrote about. During its first year of operation, it raised $7,400 for Heifer International, an organization dedicated to ending world hunger and poverty.

Passports with Purpose reaches its yearly goals by working with beneficiaries and bloggers to network and fundraise. It recruits bloggers through social media and promotes sponsors’ products or businesses in exchange for a donation. Bloggers and companies can promote prizes bought or created by Passports with Purpose in order to encourage donations. All money raised is donated to that year’s charity of the organization’s choice.

In 2009, Passports with Purpose came up with the goal of raising $14,000 to build a school in Cambodia. It succeeded in raising more than double its goal, raising a little over $30,000. With this money and a partnership with American Assistance for Cambodia, the school was successfully built.

Its next project was to raise $50,000 through its online travel blogging community to build a new village in India. Passports with Purpose encourages travel bloggers to join this community, which enables the blogger to place an official badge on his or her blog page and fundraise for various projects. That year, the community raised $64,128, exceeding its goal by 25 percent.

Passports with Purpose then partnered with Room to Read, a nonprofit working to increase literacy in the world, in 2011 to build and fill two libraries in Zambia. The two organizations raised over $90,000 for this project. The libraries contain titles ranging from children’s books to reference books.

For its fifth project, Passports with Purpose raised money to support water.org, a nonprofit whose goal is to provide clean water worldwide for people living in poverty. From Nov. 28 to Dec. 11, 2012, the Passports with Purpose’s blogging community, along with individual donors, was able to raise $110,000, their largest fundraising success ever. The money was used to provide clean, drinkable water to communities around the globe

In 2013, the organization built a school and created two adult literacy programs in Mali. For this project, it raised over $84,000 to help increase literacy levels in rural Mali.

Its most recent project is working to raise money to support five families through Sustainable Harvest International, which is dedicated to helping impoverished farmers and their families farm sustainably and, in turn, make a living from their work.

– Julia Hettiger

Sources: Passports With Purpose, A Dangerous Business, Wanderlust and Lipstick, Giving Tuesday
Photo: Life Hacker

Are Memes the Future of Social Change?

Are Memes the Future of Social Change?
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few years, you know that memes are simple and often hilarious images with text superimposed on the picture. This text can be witty, sarcastic, crass or even rude. Regardless of the meaning behind memes, there is no doubt that they are found almost everywhere on the Internet.

Currently, there are several databases that exist to hold the plethora of memes, all different and diverse in nature. Sites where you can create your own meme are in the dozens, giving the creator complete freedom to do what they want with the medium.

While the freedom of the medium is liberating, it has also been put to use in several egregious ways. Racism, misogyny and homophobia, for example, are a few harmful ideas that memes have been used to perpetuate.

However, where there is darkness, there is light. There are many positive and supportive memes to counteract the bad. Memes that convey happiness, hilarity and positivity all exist and are spread over the Internet.

While the freedom that memes permit can lead to negative messages or outcomes, it is important to realize that the same freedom allows for creativity and expression. This expression, paired with the flexibility and easy accessibility of the Internet, allows a popular meme to become viral in a matter of hours.

Memes usually are used as a mechanism of social commentary, and recently there has been an outcropping of them that have been purely political in nature. These memes can still be designated as satire, but never before has a medium of satire been so widely spread and altered to comment on the political and social standing of the world around us.

If this trend continues, the possibilities for potential positive social change are endless. It can all happen with the creation of a simple image and text.

– Alysha Biemolt

Sources: Smithsonian, Huffington Post, Know Your Meme, About, Political Memes
Photo: Nieman Journalism Lab