Cloud to Street is now six months old, so it’s time to share some of the lessons the experiment has taught us.
First, some context. Our team has just returned from its third visit to Cairo, where democracy activists inspired us to launch Cloud to Street through their historic achievement in overthrowing the Mubarak regime. [...]
A guest blog by Vivek Srinavasan of the Liberation Technology Program at Stanford University (read his blog at viveks.info):
This is a response to a critique of wathiqah.com (a platform to discuss the future of Egypt’s constitution) in Meta-Activism Project. The article entitled “the revolution is not a branding opportunity” points out that the [...]
Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia are revamping their constitutions. Lend a hand!
Register at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1912447181
Several online platforms already exist for constitutional debate in the Arab world, like reforme.ma for Morocco or wathiqah.com and dostormisr.com for Egypt. We’d like to make that movement international. What are the common issues that the [...]
With help from the Cloud to Street community, a prominent group of Egyptian human rights defenders is preparing a crowdsourcing exercise in anticipation of the coming constitutional negotiations.
Three weeks ago, after word about our Hackathon for Egypt went out on the Facebook page “We Are All Khaled Said,” we were asked if we could [...]
Hack for Egypt 2 participants responded to our call for open collaboration for Cloud to Street. At the Hackathon Nishant Jacob led a discussion of how we can mobilize our community, and Tanja Aitamurto generated a draft crowdfunding strategy to line up the resources we need.
We invite you to watch the video of Nishant [...]
Our first Hackathon generated a lot of ideas on how to help Egyptian activists bring about a democratic transition. With the political timetable rushing along in Cairo, now’s the time to turn some of those ideas into reality.
With a good push this weekend, we should have workable prototypes ready for two projects that our [...]
Thank you to all that came out to the Hackathon for Egypt, or who contributed ideas from afar. We had over 75 people turn up to explore how we could help the democratic transition and start developing apps on the spot. But in our opinion the most significant outcome was that we began to form [...]
I participated in the unconference that ran in parallel to the Cloud to Street Hackathon for Egypt on May 14. In the afternoon, we met as a group to answer: Which applications are already out there?
Our motto: don’t rediscover the wheel!
This is an inventory-list of applications and helpful websites we discussed:
COMMUNICATION PROJECTS
[...]
Egypt will be making its constitution in the next few months, and that is a monumental task. The idea of our project is twofold. First, the constitutions of the world are dense and long, so it is difficult to look at what other countries have done. To this end, our project will let people tag [...]
I was a participant at the May 14 Hackathon for Egypt. One of the critical software needs that the Egyptian activists shared with us was free, secure communication. There are a variety of methods, from sharing encryption keys and sending encrypted files to masking the whole route of a message through virtual private networks or [...]
If Egypt’s digitally-empowered activists have pioneered a new form of democracy movement, we need to create a new form of democracy promotion to support them. In two upcoming webcasts Ben Rowswell will explain how Cloud to Street is doing just that.
Thank you for being at Hack for Egypt at the Stanford d. school on 14 May 2011. We’d like to keep the momentum going. How would you like to stay connected to the projects coming out of the event? Please fill in the simple form below and we’ll reach out to those interested in staying [...]
In preparation, we’ve posted descriptions of the five projects that Egyptian activists shared with the Cloud to Street team during our visit to Cairo in March/April. Each of these projects:
a) would be led by Egyptian activists
b) would apply technology for political action
c) could make a tangible contribution to a democratic [...]
Join with us as we Hack For Egypt!
Earlier this year, Egyptians combined technology and political activism to revolutionary effect (see wikipedia article). After overthrowing a thirty-year dictatorship, they face new challenges to establishing democracy. Can technology help them through the divisive times ahead?
The Unconference and Hackathon for Egypt is an opportunity to [...]
Phase I of the Cloud to Street project is now complete, and we can now confirm what we had suspected going in. Egypt has emerged as global centre for innovation on the use of technology for political activism.
The democratic transition may face its share of challenges, but the activists behind the January 25 revolution [...]
A founding member of the Revolutionary Youth Union, Abdallah Helmy discusses the role and impact of technology during the Egyptian Revolution. This video was shot on the outskirts of Tahrir Square during protests held on the 1st of April, 2011.
Egyptian activists made history in February 2011 when they overturned a thirty-year dictatorship, in part thanks to their mastery of social media.
On April 4, Cloud to Street in cooperation with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University held a Digital Townhall connecting activists who were leading the protest [...]
It’s not just the youth activists that have embraced Facebook. Egypt’s interim authorities are governing more and more through the internet.
Every major government office now has its own Facebook and Twitter feed. Some new laws are now promulgated on Facebook, before they are printed in the nation’s lawbooks. The government is also looking [...]
Cloud to Street condemns any use of violence to achieve political aims. Credible media reports describe military actions in the early hours of April 9 taking the lives of two protesters. The protests may annoy Egypt’s new leadership, and the soldiers that defied orders and joined in the protests that day may have been a [...]
Egyptians thronged Tahrir Square again today for the “Friday of Purging and Atonement.”
Two months since Mubarak stepped down, protests continue to be the dominant tool of democracy activists. These are boisterous events, full of enthusiasm and an excitement at the newness of it all. Protesters with signs ask you to stop and read, [...]
Egyptian activists made history in February 2011 when they overturned a thirty-year dictatorship, in part thanks to their mastery of social media.
On April 4, Cloud to Street in cooperation with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University will be holding a Digital Townhall to [...]
A deputy editor at Al Ahram, Sabah Hamamou initially joined the protests on January 25 in Tahrir Square as a reporter. But when the protesters came under attack on the first evening of the revolution, she posted the videos she had taken of police brutality, and instantly had 90,000 hits. If any technology made [...]
We’ve blogged about how the online community organized itself to lay the ground for the protests that eventually toppled President Mubarak. Today we learned how the that community hit the streets.
Bear in mind what they were up against. The protesters had chosen National Police Day, because they wanted to protest police violence. They knew [...]
Egypt’s revolution may be as much a social one as political! Of all the democracy activists the Cloud to Street team has met so far, all but one have been women. It’s far too small a sample to be representative, of course, but it really makes you wonder.
And what impressive women. Yesterday we talked [...]
Imagine for a moment, walking into a room, in a highly secretive government building, a place where none of your family or friends would ever dream of being, or would ever want to set foot. Walking through room after room, you tread on giant messes of shredded paper, and on the shelves around you are [...]
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