Ashoka and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation are pleased to announce the 2009 cohort of News & Knowledge Entrepreneurs. These remarkable innovators are creating transformative social impact with new strategies and models that more effectively inform, engage, and connect people as active, change-making citizens.
SENIOR FELLOW:
Néstor Busso, Argentina
http://www.farco.org.ar/
Over 20 years, Néstor has created a national network of more than one hundred community radio stations reaching two to three million people every day. He also has led legal reform, pushing to dismantle Argentina’s Radio Broadcasting Law, which had severely limited the availability of commercial radio licenses. Now, his Coalition for Democratic Radio Broadcasting is working toward even broader change expected to produce the most forward-looking communications law in Latin America
FELLOWS:
Luis Aguilar, Guatemala
http://www.NoticiasDeMiGente.com
Luis has created an Internet news platform aimed at reviving and sustaining rural Guatemalan villages. “News of My People” provides more than 7,000 Guatemalans, at home and in 40 countries, with articles, interactive radio, television, and photographs that connect them with their hometowns. Stories produced by volunteer journalist “info-activists” are presented with context and intelligence meant to engage readers in productive dialogue on the issues facing their communities.
Alicia Cytrynblum, Argentina
http://www.periodismosocial.net/
Alicia is changing the way Argentina’s media covers social issues. She has forged a network of 14 regional newspapers that cooperate on coverage of important topics: Editors jointly map out the stories they’ll pursue each month, and journalists share sources and research to ensure deeper, more diverse coverage. Alicia’s organization, Periodismo Social, has trained more than 2,000 journalists to report on human rights, and has introduced social journalism as a new discipline in Argentine universities.
Stefan Kaspar, Peru
http://www.grupochaski.org/
Stefan is building the capacity in the Andean Region for broad video literacy, catalyzing the engagement of otherwise information-marginalized citizens. His growing chain of “microcinemas” bring indigenous Peruvian documentaries and other films to 35 communities across Peru, where participants critically assess what they watch as a way to better understand the challenges in their own communities. They also learn to use video to document their own reality, forming a new generation of storytellers.
Jocelyne Yennenga Kompaore, Burkina Faso
[No web site]
Jocelyne is connecting previously marginalized rural communities across West Africa. Her army of "synthesizers," armed with laptop computers, travel from village to village, recording inhabitants’ news, history, farming practices, and perspectives. That content is published in books and audio recordings – and, soon, in podcasts and on the Internet – and distributed across the village network as well as to government and non-governmental organizations. The result: an energetic new information resource.
Juanita Leon, Colombia
http://www.lasillavacia.com/
Juanita is creating a new model for journalism in Colombia. La Silla Vacia (“The Empty Seat”) is a nonpartisan space for public debate and critical thinking, an alternative to the nation’s media oligopoly. The interactive website combines investigative political reporting and analysis with a diverse range of discussion and blogging from emerging political leaders, economists, academics, and human rights activists. Just as important, it is fostering a vibrant online community committed to engaging in public affairs.
Paulo Rogerio Nunes, Brazil
http://www.midiaetnica.org
Rogerio’s Ethnic Media Institute challenges the profound lack of diversity in Brazil's media industry. Rooted in the conviction that a more diverse media better reflects more nuanced society, it has trained more than 600 black youths to work in the media industry since 2005. It also educates black and white media professionals to foster interracial understanding in mass and alternative media and facilitates the inclusion of diversity issues in journalism courses at Brazilian universities.
Reinaldo Pamponet Filho, Brazil
http://eletrocooperativa.org.br/
Reinaldo is catalyzing a generation of information entrepreneurs in the favelas of Salvador, Bahia. His organization, Eletrocooperativa, incorporates new media, technology, and knowledge into an education scheme meant to empower young people: Participants learn by creating audio-visual content, and earn while learning. His latest enterprise is an online platform to promote films, radio programs, and multimedia produced by Eletrocooperativa members on themes related to sustainable development.
Lexy Rambadetta, Indonesia
http://www.offstream.tv
Lexy has seized on Indonesia’s increasing press freedom and the rise of digital media to build the capacity for documentary film journalism. He has trained and supported dozens of young filmmakers who have gone on to produce dozens of full-length documentaries and thousands of video shorts. Lexy also is building a visual archive of Indonesia: At offstream.tv, individuals can view films, interviews, and important civic discussions; upload their own videos and photographs; and participate in dialogue.
Nicholas Reville, USA
http://www.participatoryculture.org
Rather than simply advocating for more democratic television, Nicholas has built a better video distribution system – and provided it for free to millions of people. His Participatory Culture Foundation has cultivated hundreds of volunteer coders, testers, and translators to build Miro, which allows video producers to reach a global audience at very low cost – and individual viewers to create their own “channels” of online media content. Nicholas’ newest venture: a network of low-cost, local video news sites.
