Efforts to mitigate violence against women online can backfire explains a report presented at the UN Human Rights Council. APC covered women’s issues and the internet at the HRC in a special edition of the policy and gender bulletin GenderIT.org.

After attending APC WNSP’s Feminist Tech Exchange in Islamabad, 24 year old lawyer and activist Sana Masood attended the she never imagined it would lead her to be a young reporter for the International Committee of the Red Cross. View her new digital story Pakistan: Youth in armed violence. Photo © ICRC / Gassmann Thierry

Computers are creating massive e-waste. The paper industry has had to double to meet printer demand. But smart technologies are bringing huge savings in energy consumption. As the UN conference on climate change starts in Cancun, the new Global Information Society Watch from APC and Hivos looks at ICTs and environmental sustainability in 53 countries, six regions and through ten expert thematic reports. What is the state of the industry in your country? Find out.

APC member in Rosario Argentina, Nodo Tau, has been working to help marginalised communities access ICTs for fifteen years. But they do not stop at access – Nodo Tau believes that technologies can change people’s lives, and that technology has its place on the road towards social justice. On behalf of the APC, we wish to congratulate you on your hard work and invite our readers to learn more about Nodo Tau’s work. Photo: Telecentre in Rosario

2010 promises to be a significant year for the future of the internet with a number of potential changes on the horizon. It could be the last year of existence for the Internet Governance Forum and ICANN is confronting big changes as it moves out from under the control of the US government. In this time of flux, policy windows can open and close quickly. APC is building a worldwide network of civil society policy advocates from different spheres of policy work and with diverse campaigning experiences who all have a vested interest in ensuring that the internet is free and open.

After several days of intense debate, APC members identified six issues as the key strategic areas that APC must tackle in the next five years: advocating for affordable internet access for all, ICTs and the environment, building the “information commons” , defending internet rights, critical and creative engagement of emerging technologies from a social change perspective and improving governance, especially governance of the internet. Why did APC members prioritise those six issues? What are the key challenges and opportunities that they perceive regarding the freedom of the internet and its use for social justice in the coming years?

APC women’s Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX) is training a key group of women’s rights advocates particularly those living in the developing world in essential internet, audio and other technical skills to enable them to use technology to most effectively document abuses, build knowledge, disseminate information, mobilise support and amplify pressures for change.

Facebook is not just a way to get back in touch with old classmates from school or see what your “friends” are up to. Activists around the world are taking advantage of this new virtual space to expand their reach and establish more immediate and interactive contact with individuals and organisations from an ever wider range of backgrounds. ITeM, an APC member in Uruguay, talked with APCNoticias about how it is using this web-based tool, and shared some practical advice for others who are experimenting with social networks and other Web 2.0 tools.

For the first time, in September 2007, a large group of people involved in one way or another with development work met to discuss the possibilities and drawbacks of sophisticated web-based applications in situations of low bandwidth and limited access to powerful hardware. Many of them had the chance to experiment with the tools in a workshop APC co-organised at a conference called Web2forDev. The interest of this community, gradually expanding under the ‘Web2forDev’ label, focuses on how cutting-edge technology can help to close the gap in access to ICTs, as opposed to widening it further.