Can Facebook and YouTube help the poor tackle their pressing problems? Or is this promise just hype? One is faced with tough questions: Can “Web 2.0 tools” directly influence the poor themselves? Can those interested in poverty work do better to start with the “situation” rather than the “technology”? Or should one think big and dream of a network of networks encompassing a billion children and their teachers, families and friends — nearly all of the poor people in the world, and most of the rich? BytesForAll co-founder and journalist Frederick Noronha takes a look at the issue.

APC’s new member Sulá Batsu is a cooperative operating in Costa Rica since 2005. It sees itself as a collective workspace for social change. It’s experience spans over the sharing of knowledge, social economy and information and communication technologies. APCNews interviewed Margarita Salas of Sulá Batsú in order to grasp the challenges associated with the cooperative model, the opportunities and challenges that the internet represents in the Costa Rican context, the link between gender and technology and her perspective on what is referred to as social economy.