Already doing it

I had a great idea after listening to Secretary Clinton’s speech on internet freedom. I wondered whether it would be possible to use mobile phones to improve governance in Africa. Today I found out that not only is the answer yes, but that someone is already doing it.

Government in a box reconsidered

Seems like my skepticism was justified.

The Power of the Internet

I know that the ‘internet’, Twitter, Facebook, etc are not the solution to all the world’s problems.  Really, I do.  But every once in a while, it’s wonderful to read about how they’ve solved one problem: Natalie Nakatani has a bone marrow donor match.

Nathalie is the inspiration for @SaveNatalie, an extreme bone marrow donor drive run by Adriel Hampton, a Gov2.0 expert from San Francisco.  In addition to trying to find a specific match for Natalie, the efforts focused on recruiting minority donors.  This drive, in addition to saving Natalie, the drive has likely helped dozens of others.

There’s more information available online thru the Save Natalie Facebook site.

Don’t these guys have anything better to do?

This reminds me of freedom fries, freedom toast, and freedom vanilla ice cream: using a silly distraction as a cheap way to score political points at home. With an increasingly restive population and growing threats of sanctions, I would figure that the Iranian government has enough to keep itself busy. Appartenly, I was wrong.

The *right* way to use numbers

Somewhat related to Barak’s post last week about how to ask a question is this cartoon by PhD Comics on how to report the answers.

I wish I could think of a more original reason for this besides blaming CNN for creating a negative feedback loop as reporters strive for ever more news to fill the 24/7 cycle, and the public becomes more and more jaded about the quality of the news, and instead flips back to the Daily Show on DVR, but right now I can’t.