DemTech: Our Blog

Libya is Back Online! Sort Of?

By Katherine Maher | Aug 22, 2011

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So first and foremost: this was not a social media revolution. This is just your friendly recap of what’s known of network connectivity in Libya during the past six months. Oh--and hai! I'm back.

A few months ago, a member of the…

Intern Hunting Season!

By Cynthia Medina | Aug 12, 2011

It's that magical time of the year... It's less than 100 degrees outside, back-to-school sales are on, the Nationals have given up…

Tuit-Tuit: Mexican Party Holds Twitter Contest To Improve Governance

By NDI Tech | Aug 02, 2011

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This is a guest post from Julian Quibell, NDI’s resident senior program manager in Mexico. You can meet Julian on Twitter or…

Technology and Economic Development: What's the Relationship?

By Cynthia Medina | Jul 26, 2011

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Earlier this week I escaped the office for a couple of hours to attend an event at the Council of the Americas, "Is Technology the Key to Development?" The event focused on a new study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) that explores…

Net Freedom: Emerging Norm?

By Chris Doten | Jul 21, 2011

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Marietje Schaake, Member of the European Parliament, dropped in on NDI yesterday. I'm a huge fan, though I first came across Marietje on…

If You Build It Will They Come?

By | Jul 20, 2011

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I had the opportunity to spend a few days in…

Safety First

By Cynthia Medina | Jul 07, 2011

From the 2009 Iranian "Green Revolution" to Egyptian President Mubarak's historic fall from power earlier this year, it has become evident that social media is playing a role in the participation and mobilization of citizens. Debates rage on whether… Read More

The Iron Law of Complexity

By Chris Doten | Jul 06, 2011

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You can't wish complexity away. The challenges we undertake in tech and development are, well, challenging. They might involve a lot of people, a lot of documents, a lot of votes, a lot of citizen reports, etc, etc: in any case, a lot of…

Back to Basics

By Cynthia Medina | Jun 30, 2011

Flash. AJAX Slideshows. Rich Media. Web 2.0. All these buzzwords in website development can make it easy to get caught up in building fancy features on a new site. My experience with web development projects this week highlighted the importance of… Read More

So Who Are You Connected To?

By Cynthia Medina | Jun 28, 2011

Social network analysis (SNA) is a hot topic in academia these days; I picked it up in a class in my Master's program at Georgetown. The concept got a lot of attention after assisting in the capture Saddam Hussein in 2003. While we can’t all use… Read More