Government - Social Media Week New York (SMWNYC) - MAY 4

The Inaugural Diversity in Tech Awards Will Take Place During Social Media Week

Posted on February 9, 2016February 9, 2016 by Tyler Becker

Code/Interactive and New York’s tech community are joining forces with Social Media Week New York to celebrate the inaugural Diversity In Tech Awards the evening of Thursday, February 25th.

The DIV Awards will celebrate the individuals and organizations championing the nationwide movement to increase diversity in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education, and bring together leaders from tech, government, non-profits and education for the biggest celebration of its kind.

You can register, get involved, and purchase your ticket to the DIV Awards here, and all proceeds from the event go to Code/Interactive’s computer science education programs to teach low-income students in New York.

100% of ticket sales fund Code/Interactive’s expansion to ensure that even more New York students learn, build, and collaborate with technology.

The five award categories, include:

Student Ingenuity Award

Educator Dedication Award

Government Impact Award

Corporate Initiative Award

Community Champion

Follow @smwnyc (SMW New York) and @weareci (Code/Interactive) on Twitter for more updates, and watch the video below on how C/I is helping underserved students in NYC better connect with opportunities and access to technology.

About Code/Interactive (C/I)

C/I’s mission is to inspire and equip underserved students with the skills in computing, leadership, and professionalism needed to thrive in the Internet economy and beyond.

C/I’s year-round programs introduce students from underserved communities to the creative power of technology through the teaching of hard and soft skills. By providing hands-on training in today’s most relevant technology subject areas, C/I’s programs serve as the building blocks for long-term career paths in technology.

Learn more about C/I’s history and story here.

My Social Media Habits in Developing Countries

Posted on February 16, 2014July 11, 2014 by Vilma Sierra

When I first moved to the US, Facebook and Twitter were only available via the web. But once social media was available on our phones; I got used to uploading, checking in, tweeting or updating my status while I was living inside the United States.

But during my first trip back to my home city, San Pedro Sula, Honduras, in 2008, I experienced a different story. How I was going to try to utilize social while I was walking in the streets of one of the most dangerous city?

I had to battle my habit of updating and posting pictures from my city while I was walking in the streets — since updating your status or checking into places could reveal my location to kidnappers or thieves. I was only able to post pictures at my house or any other safe location. I took a lot of precaution while I was visiting my hometown, since I don’t put a lot of faith in social media privacy settings, particularly on Facebook.

Whenever I was visiting touristic sites, this was not a problem. However, once I was back in San Pedro Sula, my fear to expose my cellphone or share information on social networks started again.

My trip took place six years ago, and I still question various social media companies and smartphone manufactures if they are doing something about social media and digital usage in developing countries.

Perhaps, social media and smartphones have been able to established and fit everyone’s life in developed countries by being able to use social media safely.

But is still different story in some developing countries, as many kill each other for any smartphone. I must admit that it might not be social media and cellphones companies’ responsibility to combat this issue. Although, I believe they could contribute with plans or campaigns for these countries’ governments in order to educate people about safe usage of different social media networks and smartphones.

Building an East Coast Tech Center: What’s in Store for NYC’s Future?

Posted on March 10, 2013March 11, 2013 by Victoria Harman

Last week’s panel, “New York City’s Tech Future“, got everyone thinking about how far New York City has come and how much farther we need to go. There was a lot of discussion about how New York City differs from Silicon Valley. In New York the innovation is at smaller venues and companies, we haven’t quite gotten our big Google or Facebook yet. However, Jonathan Bowles, Executive Director of the Center for an Urban Future, noted, “we’re seeing that a lot of corporations are reaching out to these smaller companies for acquisition and services”. Alan Patricof, Managing Director of Greycroft Partners, also noted that the model of fundraising is different in NYC. He noted that few firms do B-Round ($5-$15MM) here and there is a lot of seed capital around, a lot of VCs have cashed out and become angels. Additionally, Patricof noted, “A-Round requires going to an organized firm like Greycroft and there aren’t a lot of firms like these in NYC.” Nevertheless, Bowles noted that 486 start-ups got VC or angel funding last year and of those, 15 had raised $50MM+.

There are also several issues related to the recruitment of talent in NYC. Bowles pointed out – liveability and quality of life are key issues. He suggested that, in order to attract more talent in engineering and entrepreneurship, the next mayor will have to focus on creating more middle-income affordable housing, as most tech/start-up employees aren’t making six figures.

Students are another big issue. A few of the panelists suggested that there is a tendency for recent grads to start their companies near where they went to school, especially because of the focus on intellectual property on campuses, how students can and will take risks, and the advantageous recruiting opportunities that proximity presents. This focused the conversation on the new Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island. Anne Li, the Managing Director, EVP at NYCEDC, argued the case for NYC to focus on tech. Li said, “NYC is underweight in the number of engineers we produce…there are not that many industries we can diversify ourselves into but tech is one”. She also noted that similar projects in other countries have been funded by the government. However, our city’s government doesn’t have those kinds of funds to give. So, the focus has really been on the universities. That’s where the partnership with Israel’s Technion came to play on this campus proposal. Israel has demonstrated itself as a country that has a strong grasp on how to commercialize research. Additionally, several other city universities have started to further develop their tech programs. NYU has started a Center for Urban Science & Progress in Brooklyn and Columbia University is expanding its engineering school. Li estimates that the three projects combined will double the number of engineers (PhDs) in 20 years. She also suggested that work is being done at the high school level as well. Li says, “great coders learn how to code in high school not college”, so there’s a computer science high school in the works.

The discussion of what students want to do after they graduate also came into play. Patricof suggested that most students in NYC want to start their own company when perhaps instead they should be “looking to join a big company to bring entrepreneurial spirit or join an existing start-up”. He noted that there are a lot of companies that are imitating one another these days: “You should start a company if you have a passion and you’ve learned a lot about it and you have a plan, not hunt for ideas or copy what someone else has done and say ‘I’m gonna do it better'”. Scott Anderson, Partner & Chief Strategy Officer at Control Group, backed him up by saying that his company looks for more skilled workers and sees great value in new recruits who have failed before. Patricof furthered the argument of the value of having worked at a failed start-up: “They don’t assign people different roles so you learn everything…you watch and learn from an unsophisticated leader and then you’re ready to do a start-up because you’ve seen the pitfalls and not spent your own money.”

So, the overall feeling was that New York City can become a more attractive destination for engineers and entrepreneurs by building more academic resources for students and by making the city a better and more affordable place to live for experienced talent. Recent graduates will need to start shifting the attention toward joining existing start-ups rather than creating imitative start-ups of their own. There will also need to be the economic support and incentive to allow them to do this – through improved fundraising avenues for start-ups, affordable housing options, etc.

Victoria Harman (@vc1harman) is a social media content & strategy specialist and entrepreneur based in New York City.

A Student’s Perspective: The Guardian Interviews Alec Ross

Posted on March 19, 2012November 8, 2012 by smwnyc

Mehrunnisa Wani is a student at Columbia’s School of Journalism. She is one of ten students providing on the ground coverage of SMWNYC- all from the student’s perspective. She is providing her report from The Guardian Interviews Alec Ross.

“What does the Internet have to with foreign policy and diplomacy? In this day and age, if you care about human rights you have to care about the Internet,” said Alec Ross, senior advisor for innovation, Office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

As evident from the Arab (Internet) Spring, social media was an effective vent for the outrage and the wave of the frustration that swept through Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and, most recently, Syria.

Tweeples, Facebookers, and YouTubers worldwide were all proponents of this change. With their succinct slogans, videos, and blog entries they encapsulated the depth of the oppression. The revolution was filled with narratives of twitter handles and even fact-checking was a collaborative effort, or what veterans would call a crowdsourcing activity.

Some dubbed it as the greatest tools of this age and others went as far as crediting it for fermenting the chaos and subsequently, toppling regimes. Despite the divergent views on the platform, it catapulted social justice campaigns worldwide, abetting and enabling leaderless protests.

The role of technology is, of course, integral –and now becoming closely intertwined with diplomacy. With governments realizing this, some are constricting expression and others such as the United States are allowing its ambassadors, some 195 have twitter accounts and 170 have Facebook accounts, according to Ross.

Ross, however, doesn’t credit technology—wholly—for the toppling of dictatorship-based regimes, but he is finding solutions to the gravest health, economic, social problems in developing nations through social media applications. It’s a new wave – the social networking-diplomacy era, where fostering ties between nations is done through programs like Apps4Africa, bringing fifteen nations and discussing solutions which, in the end, will yield innovative methods in tackling economic development issues and paving ways for sustainable long-term projects.

The consensus is that it is a tool for civic engagement, where information is readily available and movements are accelerated, but what happens when people achieve their goal, when governments are overthrown? Who helps with picking up the crumbs? Are plan of actions created?

“Though social media has proven to be a tool for dissent, it has not yet proven to be a successful tool for governance,” said Ross. With tools set forth by the State Department, Ross hopes that governance connects with the governing and social media takes out the implicit elitism in governing. Two things for sure, social media is equalizing the world and creating a forum of communication between the governing bodies and the people. Social media has become the weapon of the first world, but what about the third world?

Mehrunnisa Wani hails from Kashmir, India. She is currently a masters candidate at the Columbia School of Journalism learning to report stories in various mediums, all the while familiarizing herself with the digital media boom so she can utilize those skills to connect the world one story at a time. In the future she hopes to cover conflict zones, learn to code and change the world – simultaneously. She resides in Queens, New York. Follow her on @mehrwani.

Interview with Luciano Quarta, Administrative Law Expert in Italy

Posted on March 19, 2012November 9, 2012 by Lisa Chau

Luciano Quarta is one of the biggest experts of administrative law in Italy. On 9 January 2012, he was featured in the Italian newspaper, Italia Oggi, as the week’s “Avvocati Oggi” (Lawyers Today). Luciano focuses on governmental topics like public contracts, public network utilities, town and country planning law and especially energy law. He works with private companies and public administration authorities, either as an advisor or a litigator in the Italian Administrative Courts: Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale (TAR), Consiglio di Stato and public Arbitration Courts.

Luciano is a regular contributor to Italy’s specialized reviews on administrative law issues and has spoken at numerous international conferences on public contracts, public network utilities and town planning law. He is also an officer of the Italian Army Reserve. Every year, he dedicates time and expertise towards the NATO Corps and serves as a LEGAD (Legal Advisor). Today, we’re learning more about him.

Luciano, tell me about media when you were a child.

I was not even 10 years old when I learned about the death of Judge Vittorio Occorsio in 1976. I found out through traditional media at that time: TV and newspapers. At that time, any given Western European country had only 2 or 3 national TV channels. Everything was completely different back then — Spain was still led by Dictator Francisco Franco; Germany was split in two and the internet could not even be imagined by common people.

Today, children have plenty of new methods to get information about the world around them, including the internet and social media. I think that having more information sources is always an improvement. However, parents need to take responsibility of guiding their children through the many media options: TV, internet — anything.

Having a very international perspective has always been one of your main goals. In this context, does social media help tremendously in broadening your horizons?

Absolutely, yes. Before social media was commonly diffused and accessible, the only way to widen one’s view of the world was by travelling. Beautiful. Enjoyable. But complicated and expensive. Now, it is much easier and cheaper to embrace international perspectives by sharing someone else’s experience through the web via text, photos and video.

On the job, social networks and discussion forums allow for the exchange of professional ideas with colleagues beyond Italy. Additionally, I am able to find new ways to provide my professional services globally.

What do you see as the main difference in social media use in Italy compared to the United States?

Social media communication in Italy is an important field of expression for political organizations. Italians have tired of seeing the same faces as Ministers, Presidents and members of the Parliament for the past 40 years. They are sick of making heavy sacrifices so that government officials enjoy unlawful and enormous privileges.

Consequently, Italian blogs and other social media have become tools of political aggregation. One of these movements is “5 Stelle,” founded by Beppe Grillo. He started a political campaign based on environmental issues and fought against global market control by financial lobbies worldwide (entities like Goldman Sachs or the rating companies: Standard & Poors, Moody’s, Fitch, etc.). The campaign talked to the people about “conspiracy theory.” However you want to consider it, today, “5 Stelle” is a true political organization present on the board of many local governments, and it gives a voice to underrepresented opinions on “official” public information channels, like major TV stations and newspapers.

Another interesting project was started by Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the CEO of Ferrari. He is also a key player in the FIAT group and within the Italian economy. His foundation is “Italia Futura,” focused on pushing innovation and the replacement of the entire old-school political guard — In Italy, commonly considered dinosaurs. Using social media as a platform, his website attempts to aggregate the youngest and most brilliant minds in any intellectual field to push out outdated politicians. I like this project greatly. I think it has very good vision and intent.

In 2007, you joined Grispini & Partners, Law Firm in Rome, as a partner and chief of the Administrative Law Department. Due to high levels of discretion and confidentiality, not much is known about the firm other than that it was involved in some of the most important real estate operations of the last years: the Enel (the Italian National Energy Company) spin–off, the re-organization of the real estate patrimony of Ferrovie dello Stato (the Italian State Railway company), and the constitution of the Real Estate investment fund of the Autonomic Region of Sicily. Where does social media fit in under such circumstances?

Strict confidentiality makes the situation difficult. It’s quite interesting to observe how big real estate and financial groups manage their public communication. Very often, these companies don’t consider social media communication at all. In my opinion, it’s not wise for them to undervalue this topic as a part of their public information policies.

As a professor, you have taught at the University of Dusseldorf; the University of Malta; and the Scuola Superiore dell’Economia e delle Finanze (the internal Superior School of the Economy Ministry). Do you cover legal issues in the context of social media in any of your courses?

I have covered legal issues in some of my courses, especially those which involve students who are military personnel. An inappropriate use of social media can compromise the image of a whole nation or cause a strategic action to fail.

Is social media and law becoming a growing trend in the discussion of law?

Yes, absolutely. There are plenty of discussions about issues related to intellectual property, the protection of the privacy, national defense issues related to military secrets, etc. The list is very long.

Please share your thoughts on freedom of speech on the internet as it pertains to individual rights and professional limitations.

I don’t agree with any limitation to the freedom of speech. However, it’s equally important to balance professional limitations, by which we mean those limitations on the freedom of speech related to occupational roles and duties. Non-disclosure agreements typical for lawyers, advisors and military personnel can be reasonable. Anyone who accepts a commitment, an appointment or a role, ought to be aware of the associated boundaries.

You are interested in freedom versus reputation. Please explain.

It’s quite simple. Anyone’s freedom is limited where another’s freedom begins. Everyone should be free to say whatever they want, but when they use this freedom, they must take responsibility for their actions. Thus, it is important that we be able to authenticate the identity of anyone who publishes information on the web that can affect someone else’s life and reputation. An exception, however, would be for the identity of dissidents in dictatorship countries since anonymity is vital for personal safety and the development of democracy there.

Should companies have the right to control their employee’s online activities regarding personal opinions?

Absolutely not. The only acceptable exception should be military personnel for the reasons we discussed above, and only within the limit of what is strictly necessary. Whenever there isn’t any risk to national security, freedom must be respected, regardless of military status.

What is the best way to distinguish personal versus professional online identity?

If it’s not clear by context, one can declare his/her identity and affiliation. For example, I now state that I am sharing my personal opinions as an individual, unrelated to my law firm or the Army.

Lisa Chau has been involved with Web 2.0 since graduate school at Dartmouth College, where she completed an independent study on blogging. She was subsequently highlighted as a woman blogger in Wellesley Magazine, published by her alma mater. Since 2009, Lisa has worked as an Assistant Director at the Tuck School of Business. In 2012, she launched GothamGreen212 to pursue social media strategy projects. You can follow her on twitter.

Social Media and the Presidential Campaigns

Posted on March 14, 2012November 8, 2012 by Nicky Yates

As the primaries heat up, the importance of social and digital campaigns is becoming more evident. It’s crucial to fundraising and educating- and influencing- voters. Something that Team Obama discussed this past February.

HowToMBA.com is taking a look at what the candidates are doing. They’ve pulled together an infographic that examines both the general influence of social media and notable social media events during this time. Compare the remaining big four Republican candidates with social campaign veteran President Obama, and tell us who you think is doing it right, is on the right track and needs an intervention.

Brought to you by HowToMBA.com with Online MBA info

Interview with Stephen Duncombe, SMWNYC Panelist for Literature Unbound

Posted on February 8, 2012February 8, 2012 by Lisa Chau

Stephen Duncombe is an Associate Professor at the Gallatin School and the Department of Media, Culture and Communications of New York University where he teaches the history and politics of media. He is the author of Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy and Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Underground Culture; co-author of The Bobbed Haired Bandit: Crime and Celebrity in 1920s New York; editor of the Cultural Resistance Reader and co-editor of White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics of Race. He writes on the intersection of culture and politics for a range of scholarly and popular publications, from the cerebral The Nation, to the prurient Playboy.

Stephen will speak at Literature Unbound: Radical Strategies for Social Literature at NYU during Social Media Week. I interviewed Stephen to learn more about his work and experiences.

What are the best ways for political activists to harness social media’s value?

There’s the obvious ways: using social media as a way to communicate better than we’ve been able todo before, reaching more people, with more information, faster, easier and cheaper. But what excites me most about the power of social media in activism is less how it is being used as a instrumental tool and more how it is had been integrated into on-the ground activist practice as a sort of social protocol. The organization of social media — distributed, participatory, individualized within the context of a collectivity — is being mirrored on the streets in the very social forms of the protests that are taking place: the largely leader-less, horizontally-organized, mass occupations of public space that are sweeping the world. Back in the 1960s the great critic Lionel Trilling called the demonstrations that were happening “Modernism in the Streets.” I think we could call what is happening around the world today “Internet in the Streets.”

Can you explain the ramifications that recent political uprisings aided by social media channels have had on the social media landscape as a whole, and particularly where restrictive governments reign?

I think the simplest answer to this is that restrictive governments have a hard time reigning-in Twitter and Facebook. They can try, and sometimes they succeed. Some governments, like China, are very good at these restrictions, but repressive governments are caught in a fundamental bind. The very tools of communications and networking that are essential for economic innovations and the wealth of the nation, can be — and are — also used for political innovations as well.

What is social literature?

This is what we’ll find out on February 14! Literature has always been social, that is: it’s a communication between an author and a reader. The development of print greatly expanded the range of this relationship — a writer in India could reach a reader in Canada, but it also restricted the sociality into a one-way communications: the author writes and the reader reads. With the digital revolution all this has changed. Since every digital device is both a receiver and a transmitter, the flow of communications can go both ways and, because these devices are networked, this conversation can be opened up to many others.

You created the Open Utopia, an open-access, open-source, web-based edition of Thomas More’s Utopia. What inspired this project?

A few years back I had the privilege of teaching a Fulbright seminar at Moscow State University on the topic of “political imagination.” In preparation for doing this, I re-read Thomas More’s 16th century classic Utopia. But when I did this I read a completely different book that what I had remembered reading in High School. This time I realized that what More was creating was less a authoritative plan of an alternative society and more an “imaginal machine” — a technology for stimulating the imagination of his readers. How he does this would take a long time to explain, but simply put, by creating an alternative world that he then names No-Place (which is what Utopia means in Greek), more pushes his readers to imagine what an alternative some-place might look like for themselves.

But More was stuck with the technology of his day: the printed page, and so his readers had to do all their imaginative work in their heads and as individuals. By creating an open-access, open-source, web-based edition of Thomas More’s Utopia, I’ve tried to “Open” up the book to the reader’s active participation. In my digital edition of Utopia readers become writers and editors and collaborators. One of the ways they can do this is WikiTopia–a mediawiki on which people can draft their own ideal society, or collaborate with others in creating a collectively authored Utopia. And with a platform designed by the folks at the Institute for the Future of the Book called “Social Book,” visitors to Open Utopia can annotate and comment upon what More – or I – have written, and then share their comments with others. The idea here is to help people to imagine their own Utopias and share them with others, and not be content with an “authorized” Utopia, be it More’s or anyone else’s.

In what [other] ways does the internet honor the primary precept of Utopia — that is, that all property is common property?

I’ve always thought that it was ironic that a book about the abolition of private property was locked up in copyright. So in my mission to open up Utopia, I’ve created the only complete Creative Commons licenced English language edition of Utopia. Most of the text I’ve taken from old translations that have passed into the public domain, but some of the letters I had newly translated from the original Latin into English specifically so I could enter them into the public domain.

Do you have any plans of giving another book the same treatment?

I don’t think so. One of the great luxuries of my job as a tenured professor is I get to study and experiment…and then move on to study and experiment something else. But I do think some of the features of the Open Utopia — the rich media, the ability for readers to become writers, the shared annotations, the lack of a restrictive copyright — are going to be part of any and all books that we all “write” and “read” in this coming century.

With funding from the Open Societies Foundations, you co-created the School for Creative Activism in 2011, and you are presently Co-Director of the Center for Artistic Activism. What are some of the projects you’ve been working on?

When I’m not mired deep in a historical text about Utopia, I’m trying to figure out ways in the present to create an alternative society for the future. The work we do at the Center for Artistic Activism and the School for Creative Activism is very much a part of this. We think activism is, or rather its should be, an art: it should be creative and it should be inspirational. So we work with grass-roots organizers to bring an artistic eye and a creative hand to their tactics, their strategies and their goal setting. We think you need to do this to be an effective activist in the 21st century. The first rule of guerrilla warfare is to know your terrain and use it to your advantage. Today’s political topography includes signs and symbols, stories ans spectacle, and an activist needs the creative weapons to fight on this terrain. But creativity in activism is also important for another reason: we have to be able to imagine a better world if we want to have any hope of changing this one.

Hub Spotlight: People & Society at The Paley Center for Media

Posted on December 14, 2010December 14, 2010 by

Last week we announced the locations of four Content Hubs, each of which will focus on a specific theme. Over the course of this week, we are going to focus on highlighting each Hub and some of the specific topics that will be featured, as well as how you or your organization can contribute to the programming.

The confirmed partnerships include: Science and Technology Hub, hosted by Google; Business, Media, and Communications Hub, hosted by global advertising agency JWT; People & Society Hub, hosted by The Paley Center for Media; and Music, Gaming & Sports, hosted by Red Bull Space. As we mentioned in our announcement, we are also launching a fifth Hub which will cover Arts & Culture, the location of which we will share in the coming week or so.

GET INVOLVED IN PEOPLE & SOCIETY

Today’s spotlight is on the People & Society Hub at The Paley Center for Media. The theme itself is clearly fairly broad, so we have decided to focus on the following topic areas in terms of how they are impacted by developments in social and mobile media:

Education
Health & technology
Philanthropy
CSR
Government & Civil Society
Environment

If you or your organization is interested in curating a session and helping to shape the programming at the People & Society Hub, we would love to hear from you. Sessions are typically two hours in length and can either be a series of talks, a panel, a workshop or seminar. We encourage our guest curators to think creatively about their sessions and consider designing an experience that moves beyond traditional conference formats.

To submit a session idea, please visit the event registration page and reference which Hub you are interested in, in your application.

If you are interested in sponsorship opportunities at the People & Society Hub, we have some really exciting ways for brands to participate in the experience and contribute to the programming. For more information please contact toby@socialmediaweek.org

The People & Society Hub is brought to you by Social Media Week & The Paley Center for Media with additional curation from ThinkSocial & GOOD.

About the Paley Center

The Paley Center for Media, with locations in New York and Los Angeles, leads the discussion about the cultural, creative, and social significance of television, radio, and emerging platforms for the professional community and media-interested public.