News Challenge says no, but life goes on
I actually received the “thanks, but no thanks” e-mail a couple days after my previous post, but have been too busy to mention it. I knew my application was a longshot, so I’m not too terribly crushed by this. And I have so much going on already that maybe this is a good thing. Anyway, there it is. It was worth a try at least.
Sphere: Related ContentA modest proposal to the News Challenge
A couple weeks ago, I received word from the Knight Foundation that my News Challenge proposal is “progressing to the next round of judging.” For those who don’t know, the Knight News Challenge is a contest that awards grants for “innovative ideas using digital experiments to transform community news.” Please feel free to read more about the News Challenge and have a look at last year’s winners.
Being plugged into the new media blogosphere like I am, I’ve already heard of other applicants being asked for proposals more than a month ago. My modest proposal is “not at that stage, yet.” I’m not quite sure what this means, but I’m guessing that I’ve been placed in some sort of pool of alternates just in case there’s any money left over after funding the top projects. Naturally this is quite all right with me as I felt all along that my application was a long shot at best. Although I’ve worked in Web development for more than five years, I’ve only worked in journalism for about seven months… and I’m not even a journalist! We’ll see what happens.
It occurs to me that somebody out there may actually be curious about my proposal. I applied for the minimum - a $15,000 blogging award - to blog about “creating a virtual community united by a passion for Malawi.” Here is an excerpt from my proposal:
Third world countries around the globe are slowly entering the digital age. One of these countries is Malawi - a place where I lived for two years as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer. Internet access is becoming gradually more commonplace and several Malawians are now blogging from within the country as well as from elsewhere in the world. In addition many travelers and expatriates (including current Peace Corps Volunteers) are blogging about their experiences in Malawi. Thousands of other people around the world - Malawian and otherwise - seek out current information on the country each day.
As it currently stands, no central online meeting place exists for the many people blogging about Malawi and those simply seeking out information. I plan to use open source software (primarily Drupal) to create a central meeting place anchored by forums, but also including blogs, photo galleries, videos, links, news summaries, and maps. With the exception of the forums which will be hosted on the site, the other information will be imported and aggregated via RSS using a collection of external sites. This “mashed up” data will be gathered from individual blog feeds, Flickr and Picasa tags for photos, YouTube and Metacafe for videos, del.icio.us for general links, Google News for news summaries, and Google MyMaps for personalized maps. All of these services are relatively mature with stable API’s. The aggregation of relevant data from so many external sources will add significant value to the site with very little impact on the bandwidth and disk space needed to serve the site to visitors. The main source of disk space will be the Drupal database holding all of the forum data.
It is my sincere hope that this approach will succeed in building a thriving online community of people passionate about Malawi and that it will be easy to replicate and apply to other third world countries in the future.
There’s quite a lot more in my proposal, but that should provide the gist of what I’m looking to do. It’s a project I would love to take on, but I really need the funding in order to invest the amount of time it would take to have a chance at succeeding. I’m not sure when I’ll get another update from the Knight Foundation or what the news will be, but I will be sure to let everyone know. Thanks for reading.
Sphere: Related ContentTen years ago today, I woke up in Africa
Exactly ten years ago today, I awoke to discover that I was not in Kansas America any more. Late on the evening of September 19th, 1997, I had arrived by plane at Lilongwe International Airport in Malawi after two days of travel from Washington, D.C. With me on the journey were about 25 people I had just met a couple days earlier. Everyone I had ever known and everything familiar to me were all suddenly half a world away.
Quite naturally I began to wonder what in the world I was doing. Why hadn’t I just gotten a job… a real job like a normal college graduate? Sure everybody talks about joining the Peace Corps. We all saw the same TV commercials growing up and thought that looked like a really “cool thing to do”. But who actually goes and does it? As I stepped outside the morning of the 20th, I knew that the answer was… me. I actually went and did it.
At that moment I really had no idea what was in store for me during the next two years. In retrospect it was a wonderful experience that I would never trade for anything. Of course the highs were high, the lows were very low, and there were many times along the way that I thought I had made a big mistake. But I was always able to pull myself together, laugh about my troubles, and continue the journey.
My ability to make it through those two years was due in no small part to the support of those around me: my fellow Peace Corps volunteers, the Peace Corps staff, the teachers and students at my school, and all the Malawians I met along the way. To this day I feel a special connection to Malawi and a strong bond with everyone from my original group. Most of them I’ve kept in touch with, many I’ve seen recently, and the rest I think about regularly. I’m sure this ten-year anniversary of the beginning of our adventure brings back memories for all of us.
So to Alaina, Alex, Angie, Becky, Betty, Christine, Craig, Eleanor, Elise, Fred, George, Ivy, Jen, Jodie, Joe, Judy, Julianne, Julie B, Julie S, Katrina, Kim, Melanie, and Tonya, I thank you for sharing the Peace Corps experience with me and wish you the very best in all you choose to do. Zikomo kwambiri and yewo, yewo, yewo chomene.
Maybe in another ten years, I’ll go all Sergeant Pepper on you: “It was twenty years ago today…” In the meantime, take care and muyende bwino anzanga.
Sphere: Related ContentMadonna puts Malawi on the map
Malawi has been in the news this week because Madonna (yes, the Material Girl herself) is visiting. Here is the latest CNN story about her trip. Her primary aim seems to be setting up an orphanage for 4000 kids near Lilongwe under the auspices of Raising Malawi. Kabbalah apparently will be part of the curriculum (not much of a surprise). There’s even a rumor that Madonna and Guy plan to adopt a Malawian orphan, though at this point there doesn’t seem to be any hard information to either confirm or refute that claim.
As a former Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi, my opinion on all of this may or may not interest anybody. Still reading? OK… I think it’s great! Sure, I have the usual doubts about Madonna’s intentions, but I think the good far outweighs any potentially negative aspects of this for two main reasons… Read more
Sphere: Related ContentRead any good banned books lately?
This week seems like a great time to celebrate freedom in light of the 5th anniversary observed on Monday. Google has just posted an excellent list of banned books. It’s so good that I’m making it the Website of the Week (yeah, I’m trying to resurrect the tradition).
You may be wondering how many of these banned books I’ve read. OK, you’re probably not wondering that, but humor me anyway. Truth be told, I’ve read fourteen of the 42 books listed (one-third of the list). Many of them I read during rain storms in Malawi while I was a Peace Corps Volunteer while others were assigned in high school or college English classes. The list even includes five of my favorite books of all-time:
- Catch-22
- Slaughterhouse Five
- 1984
- Brave New World
- Cat’s Cradle
So if you look at that list and your total is zero out of 42, make some time to read a few of them. You won’t be sorry… especially if you read Catch-22. Yossarian is waiting…
Sphere: Related ContentWelcome back, Moammar
After nearly thirty years of exile, I’m happy to welcome Moammar Gadhafi and the nation of Libya back to the international community. According to this article on CNN.com, the United States is restoring normal diplomatic relations and will establish an embassy in Tripoli in the near future. So why am I so happy about this? Read more
Sphere: Related ContentUbuntu is world’s most popular Linux
Having taken the world by storm during the past year, Ubuntu is now the top Linux distribution on the planet. Perhaps more importantly, it is this week’s Website of the Week. All right, so that’s probably not quite as important. But it’s almost as important, right? Read more
Sphere: Related ContentBack to Africa… maybe
It’s possible that I’ll be visiting Malawi in August, but I can’t say for sure. A very good Malawian friend of mine is getting married and invited me to the wedding. Like most returned Peace Corps Volunteers, I’m always looking for a reasonable excuse to go back to my country of service. This might actually fit the bill. At least I hope it works out. Read more
Sphere: Related ContentDATA: Debt AIDS Trade Africa
For its commitment to raising awareness and effecting change with respect to the most important issues facing Africa today, DATA: Debt AIDS Trade Africa is this week’s Website of the Week.
DATA’s agenda in a nutshell is the forgiveness of foreign debts for the world’s poorest countries, the availability of affordable drugs to fight AIDS, and the establishment of fair trade policies that allow African nations to compete in the global arena. Here are just a few sobering statistics from the site: Read more
Sphere: Related ContentThe meaning of Alimadzi
I’m sure you’re curious, so I guess I can let you in on the secret of what Alimadzi means. OK, it’s not actually a secret. I just haven’t taken the time to explain it to very many people.
Alimadzi is a phrase in Chichewa, the national language of Malawi. In case you’re not aware, I lived in Malawi from 1997 to 1999 while working as a Peace Corps Volunteer teacher. Anyway, it’s actually two words so it’s usually written “ali madzi“. The literal translation is “he is in water“. Most of the time it’s yelled from the sidelines of a football (soccer) match after one player is so outmaneuvered by another that he literally appears to be playing underwater. Seeing as how barefoot six-year-old kids played football much better than I did and would blow by me like I was standing still, I heard this A LOT.
I thought it was pretty funny and liked the sound of the words so much that I decided to adopt it as my standard username. I registered this domain about two years ago to use for e-mail and now (finally) I’m starting the website. I guess the name really fits, doesn’t it?
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