The
opportunities for youth to be agents of change are increasing in number
dramatically, with the spreading use of mobile technology and pace of its
innovative applications. Twelve youth across nine countries – Canada, the US,
Brazil, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Italy, Belgium, and the UK – were convened by TakingITGlobal
on September 4th, 2012 to discuss some vibrant examples of recent mobile web
technologies that are facilitating social change, many of which are being
created or used by these same participants.
The youth climate movement was well-represented at this
Cisco-enabled teleconference, as these young leaders build upon the momentum of
Rio+20 and look ahead to the COP 18 Meeting in Doha.
This teleconference was an
enriching discussion about how youth climate groups are using mobile
technologies and creatively engaging politicians as well as the public, and
many examples were shared from which other groups of young and aspiring change
makers can find inspiration.
The newly
released Commit2Act Mobile App launched by TakingITGlobal was featured and
highlighted as a key example of how systemic and collective change can be
catalyzed through individual daily actions to reduce our carbon footprint on
the planet. This effort was made
possible through a partnership with Active Philanthropy and support from an
anonymous donor who believes in the power of youth-led action in the climate
movement. On a personal note, as I’m
working to foster the Innovate4Good
community where we are cultivating the talents and capacity of young
people to do good, this meeting held some great examples of the kinds of
projects we expect to develop this year.
As highlighted in the opening remarks by TakingITGlobal
Executive Director, Jennifer Corriero who moderated the event, the boom in
mobile usage and mobile social technology is truly impressive: there are 6
billion mobile usage cellular subscriptions at present compared with 2.2
billion in 2005, according to ITU Statistics.
Some political uses of social media are now quite common – hashtags are
used at major events everywhere to generate interest and point to highlights or
summaries. Two of our participants – Liam O’Doherty, Community Partnerships
Coordinator, TakingITGlobal and Cameron Fenton, National Director, Canadian
Youth Climate Coalition – joined us remotely from the CIVICUS World Assemby in
Montreal, where they are using #civWA.
In the past these participants used #RioPlus20 and, notably, #RioFail. That
latter tag was used by so many conference attendees that it trended on Twitter
and got the youth climate movement spotlighted in The Guardian. Youth are using
social media on mobile devices to empower their ability to coordinate,
organize, and mobilize their meetings and messages.
Mobile web applications are developing as well and, in some
cases, by the hands of activists and people looking to contribute to positive
change. Liam O’Doherty, who did a presentation at CIVICUS on Commit2Act, says
the full potential of the app is in using Online to reinforce actions Offline,
as well as connecting people around their mutual actions. The app can be
integrated with other campaigns, just as it will be used to get people to come
to an upcoming event in Canada called Powershift. O’Doherty views mobile web
technology as the latest step in the development of the web. Cameron Fenton,
one of the organizers of Powershift, plans to develop an app for just for their
upcoming events. With this app, activists can be asked to commit to acts in
real time such as registering others, or being prompted once checked in at a
location to call or message politicians.
Our participants from Rome and Brussels contributed their
lessons from recent experiences. Frederico Brocchieri is based in Rome, and is
the Youth Director of the Italian Climate Network, a branch of the coalition
which he started after noticing he was the only Italian youth participants at
COP 17 in Durban. He says the power of mobile web to spread news immediately,
and to share climate news. Recently he found that a picture can spark a global
conversation. He tweeted a snapshot with a caption of a spot in the Alps where
he had observed significant loss of snow and ice in his lifetime, and this was
retweeted by a weather reporter and made its way to the news.
Preslav Mitranov is based in Brussels, and is Vice-President
of Junior Achievement Young Enterprise Alumni Europe, which supports students
starting microenterprise. He is also a member of the Innovate4Good online
community. He is involved with developing an app for JA-YE Alumni Europe’s
Changing Lives Campaign. The campaign focus is getting Alumni to engage
classrooms, sharing with students about how companies can benefit themselves
and their communities. The app will allow these young leaders to take a picture
of the classroom they spoke to, and upload the image to the campaign in order
to monitor and track progress towards the goal of reaching 100,000 students.
Most of these examples are being done by youth and for
youth, however these notions are also integrating into more formal settings to
innovate policy governance. Steadman Noble contributed such an idea at this
meeting. Calling in from London, Noble has been a Youth Policy Consultant with
the Commonwealth Secretariat. With his current work, Noble evaluates policy
across countries and is considering how to use technology more broadly. Noble
sees an opportunity for youth to use mobile web technology to provide feedback
on policy results they are experiencing in day-to-day life, and he is
researching how this can be done.
It was challenging to contain this conversation within the
strictures of a one hour teleconference, because clearly this topic resonates
with young leaders. We’re looking forward to seeing what the youth climate
movement will do with Commit2Act and other apps at upcoming events such as
PowerShift and COP18 Doha, and what can be created through the project-focused
Innovate4Good community.
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| Ryan MacLean |
Source: TakingITGlobal
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