Supporting data-driven decision making in Myanmar through Advanced Tableau training

May 26, 2017

From April 24th through 26th, 25 professionals from several government and non-profit organizations in Myanmar convened to participate in an Advanced Tableau training and discuss how data can best be collected, analyzed, and used for decision making. As part of TASCHA’s Data for Democracy (D4D) project, the event was made possible thanks to financial support…

TASCHA at Global Election Technology Summit

May 17, 2017

TASCHA’s Chris Rothschild will be presenting Thursday, May 18th at the Global Election Technology Summit. Along with James Long and Nic Weber, University of Washington faculty members collaborating on the Data for Democracy project, the presentation, “‘Push, Pull, Spill’: Election Data and Citizen Engagement in a Global Context,” will focus on the election processes and data in…

The role of public libraries in the Brave New World of Truth

February 2, 2017

Libraries are … essential to the functioning of a democratic society … libraries are the great symbols of the freedom of the mind. — Franklin D. Roosevelt When you think of your community’s public library, do you picture a political nexus that holds the power to influence the future of our country? If not, we don’t blame…

Data for Democracy project supports Myanmar’s emerging data environment

January 3, 2017

The spread of information and communication technologies (ICTs) alone does not necessarily lead to a well-informed society. As TASCHA’s Data for Democracy (D4D) project substantiated during its first year in Myanmar, implementation of new technologies and technical skills to support the use of data for better decision making is only as effective as the data…

Myanmar information symposium paves the way for change

September 27, 2016

Myanmar is undergoing unprecedented changes — politically, culturally, digitally — all while moving from a highly-censored information environment to embracing openness and freedom of information. The country’s digital revolution includes leaping over numerous “digital divides” propelled by the widespread use of smartphones and growing pervasiveness of the internet. TASCHA co-sponsored a Myanmar information symposium just…

TASCHA student Norah Abokhodair reflects on AoIR 13 conference

November 9, 2012

Along with fellow TASCHA student Luis Fernando Baron, I had the opportunity to attend the 13th Association of Internet Research conference (AoIR 13). At the beginning of the conference, we were welcomed to the University of Salford by the Internet Research President Alex Halavais. He made a special point of welcoming first-time attendees, and as one, I felt personally greeted. Then the first session started with the “ignite” talks, where each speakers gets 5 minutes—but must have 20 slides and each slide must automatically progress forward in 15 seconds.

TASCHA students present on Youth, ICTs, and Democracy in Egypt at AoIR 13

TASCHA students Norah Abokhodair and Luis Fernando Baron participated in the 13th conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) at University of Salford in Manchester between 18 and 21 of October 2012. The conference focused on the theme of technologies, considering the impact of the Internet in a context where life is entangled with technologies of all kinds.

From a Facebook Group to a Social Movement: The Trajectory of the April 6th Youth Movement and the Revolution in Egypt

July 10, 2012

Over the past few months, the research team behind the Youth, ICTs, and Democracy in Egypt project has collected and coded a series of Facebook posts, blogs, newspapers, and interviews with key actors to tease out the different roles social media played in the trajectory of the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt (A6YM). This is the first of a series of blog posts which will share the emerging findings as the analysis of the data collected through this diversity of sources progresses. The multiplicity of narratives in the sources represented in the data will help us portray a more nuanced landscape not only on the varieties and variability of uses and roles of social media, but also on the complexity of the socio-technological interactions/assemblages among different institutions, organizations, and individuals that are part of the contemporary political processes of social change.