Three days into the Info Activism Camp in Bangalore and taking a moment to reflect... What an amazing and dynamic mix of participants. Half activists who use media and communication technology in their campaigns. From sex workers to militant nationalists/democrats from Egypt, Burma, and Tunisia, social justice activists from Latin america, Palestine, Lebanon and Asia to 'development practitioners' from across Africa and Europe. The other half of participants are media and technology activists from web developers and digital film makers/trainers to guys specializing in developing digital maps using GPS, many leaders in activist applications of mobile phones and VOiP, content and contact management peeps, and a bunch of (paranoid sounding) security artists with scary stories to tell about how vulnerable our identity and privacy are on line. It is quite a sight. 150 communication activists from across the world, all with laptops, all consuming bandwidth through a tiny satellite connection here in rural India. The programme is very dynamic and responsive. Each day there are a range of sessions to choose from and participants are encouraged to request sessions they want, propose and facilitate sessions on skills and knowledge they have to offer. After each tea break there is a short 'plenary' session where all the upcoming sessions are introduced briefly by their facilitators, then we cal vote with our feet - some sessions are large, some are small, some get repeated, some form into an ongoing 'stream' of sorts. The programme is organized along the same principals as the internet: Users/participants generate their own content and then users/participants establish demand for each session by choosing it (or not). They have tried to replicate the same methodology inside the sessions with an emphasis on participatory facilitation, dialogue, and peer learning. I found this quite frustrating at times when the facilitation is quite clearly highly knowledgeable in a field and, with the limited time we have together, insists on a series of participatory brainstorming type exercises. I never thought I'd say it... but sometimes I think a plain and simple lecture would be most exciting. At some point I'm scheduled to faciltate a session called "going off line - engaging the mass media". The skills & knowledge I've acquired in three days (to name a few): * I've explored ways to get our content/perspective out into the internet from the amandla site though engaging bloggers, using RSS (really simple syndication), exchanging links, and search engine optimization. * I've learnt how to in-crypt my email and surf the internet anominiously without attracting the attention of authorities (by they way you can never be full confidential or anominious - and facebook is evil). * I've explored the elements of story telling, segmenting and speaking to different audiences, and various innovative ways to present information. * We spent an evening watching some amazing films made by participants. * I've met multi media activists, community and 'citizen' journalists all doing similar work to us - there have been many interesting and exciting conversations over meals and into the evening. Indian food three meals a day. The novelty soon wears off. Tomorrow we have a 'day off' and the whole camp is going into town do do some shopping. I'm looking forward to my first taste of India beyond the airports and this camp. Then it's back for another four days of exchanges and learning. Some more links: http://www.revolutionvideo.org/agoratv/ http://hub.witness.org/ http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/ http://globalvoicesonline.org/ http://www.digiactive.org/ http://www.planetplanet.org/ http://www.torproject.org/ http://tacticaltech.org/