Ministry for Foreign Affairs brings in digital curators to international Internet conference
On 18–19 April, Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt is hosting the Stockholm Internet Forum on Internet Freedom for Global Development.
The two-day event will bring together 350 knowledgeable and committed individuals in Stockholm: decision-makers, activists and representatives for civil society, the business sector and the tech community to discuss different aspects of Internet freedom. What conditions are necessary to enable the Internet to contribute to global development? What are the most important issues for freedom and development, in light of advances in technology, such as the increased mobility offered by mobile Internet and cloud services.
Prominent participants include Frank La Rue, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression; Alec J Ross, Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Rebecca MacKinnon, one of the founders of Global Voices Online; Nicklas Lundblad, policy geek at Google; Suneet Singh, CEO of DataWind, which has launched the budget tablet Aakash; and Måns Adler, founder of the company and Internet service Bambuser for live broadcast of mobile phone videos.
Digital curators for online participation
Seven sessions on different aspects of Internet freedom for global development form the main structure of the Stockholm Internet Forum programme. All sessions will be broadcast live on the Forum website stockholminternetforum.se.
Interest in the lead-up to Stockholm Internet Forum has been substantial. To broaden discussions at the conference and create engagement and interaction between the physical conference and online participation, four digital curators have been brought in: Marcin de Kaminski, Jasmine Elnadeem, Joakim Jardenberg and Pernilla Näsfors.
In simple terms, the curators will be digital cohorts to the conference’s traditional moderators. Before and during the conference, they will:
- scan the Internet and involve their digital social networks, and identify and select relevant questions and comments on the forum’s issues and topics (tweets, blog posts, videos, etc.);
- gather questions and comments via the Internet and make them accessible in a flow on the Forum website
- help create interaction between the Internet and the physical Forum on site at the sessions.
This is the first time the Government Offices of Sweden will try working with external digital curators to more widely share participant-generated content on an open website. The organisers hope this will help to encourage engagement in the conference – and for online freedom.
The underlying technology
The live broadcasts will go through Swedish companies Bambuser and Falkevik & Danehav, and the digital curators will use Storify. In addition, the conference will use Swedish Shootitlive to quickly publish photos on the Forum website, and on Twitter to share questions and comments. The website was built in Wordpress by the .SE foundation.
Organisers of Stockholm Internet Forum
Ministry for Foreign Affairs, .SE foundation and Sida.
Contact:
Teo Zetterman
Stockholm Internet Forum on Internet Freedom for Global Development
Ministry for Foreign Affairs Press Service
Mobile: +46 708 10 73 47
Email teo.zetterman@foreign.ministry.se
http://www.stockholminternetforum.se
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