As the year comes to a close, the Digital Democracy team feels great joy for all we've accomplished in the past 12 months. As you reflect on your own year and look forward to the next, we wanted to share some of our favorite moments & memories from 2013.
January: Dd wins an award from the Knight News Challenge to launch a new program called Remote Access. Executive DirectorEmily Jacobi travels to Yangon, Myanmar to give the opening address at BarCamp Yangon.
February: Gregor MacLennan joins the Dd team to lead Dd's new programs. Dd hosts the first Hackathon in Haiti as a final coda to our three year program with Haitian women. (Check out coverage from TechPresident and Guernica.)
March: Planning for Remote Access & the year ahead. Following the hand-off of the Haiti Program, the #572 Call Center receives record calls on International Women's Day.
April-May: Emily & Gregor travel to the Peruvian Amazon to launch Remote Access in partnership with indigenous federations monitoring oil contamination in the upper Amazon.
June-July: The Dd team digs in with map-making, tool building, tech prototyping & future program planning. Shahla Fatemi joins our team to help with communications and development. Check out Shahla's blog post on a summer planning workshop we did with the Design Gym.
August: Gregor travels to Indonesia for a global conference on indigenous mapping, and to India to give a keynote address at the Melton Foundation's Springboard conference for young global leaders. Watch his talk "Whose progress? Who benefits? Who pays?" on Technology and Tradition in the Amazon.
September-October: Digital Democracy & partner KOFAVIV honored onstage at Clinton Global Initiative by Secretary Hillary Clinton. Gregor travels to Guyana to begin Dd's work supporting the forest monitoring efforts of the Wapichana people. Emily represents Dd's work at PopTech as a 2013 Social Innovation Fellow.Emily Jacobi & Emilie Reiser participate in the Global Conference on Indigenous Women in Lima, Peru.
November-December: Dd celebrates its 5th anniversary. We focus on tool building for Remote Access - read more in TechPresident - and cementing partnerships & programs for the year ahead. Gregor returns to Guyana for workshops with our local partners.
It's been a banner year for Digital Democracy, and we're grateful to each and every one of you for helping to make it possible. Most of all, we're excited to build on this foundation as we continue to collaborate for a better world.
Donate to Digital Democracy's efforts in 2014 - help us make the most of the year ahead.
In gratitude, solidarity & best wishes for the new year,
The Digital Democracy Team