Stanford University

American Public Diplomacy towards the Arab World in the Digital Age

Discourse on American public diplomacy has been traditionally focused on use of the broadcast media by the US government, such as Voice of America, to reach out to audiences in the Middle East and other regions. For example, much has been written about initiatives such as Radio Sawa and Al-Hurra television, and their struggles to gain credibility among Arab audiences.

“Woman by Woman: New Hope for the Villages of India" [UNAFF Film Screening]

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“Woman by Woman: New Hope for the Villages of India"
(27 minutes) India/USA - documents the stories of women in some of the least developed areas of rural India as they progress toward personal freedom. The film presents Janani, a group that trains women to become family planning counselors in their villages. These women become role models by having the confidence to go beyond traditional boundaries.
Following the screening Academy Nominated filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman will talk about her work in the US and abroad with the UNAFF Founder and Executive Director Jasmina Bojic.
For more details about the film go to:  www.unaff.org/2002/F_Woman.html  

Co-presented with Bechtel International Center, School of Education, California Foreign Language Project, United Nations Association Midpeninsula Chapter, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and UNAFF

Bechtel International Center Assembly Room

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Eric Brewer on the role for technology in developing regions

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Eric Brewer is Professor of Computer Science at the University of California Berkeley where he leads the Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (TIER) research group.

Eric spoke about the role for technology in effective development strategies at the base of the pyramid.

The history of development to date has been characterized by large agencies funding big projects with strings attached, usually in the form of debt or demands for political allegiance. These kinds of projects are hampered by their scale and the requirement to work with corrupt governments. They typically include little role for new technology as projects move slowly and lack the expertise to facilitate this.

Outside the sphere of traditional development, technology is having a major impact on economic prosperity. The mobile phone revolution, driven by bottom up demand, provides enormous advantages to any worker operating in a large radius. A taxi driver given a mobile phone, for example, will increase his revenue by 60% on average. Other bottom-up businesses have seen major success. The Village Phone scheme, which runs as a franchise model with capital coming from microfinance, now covers the majority of Bangladeshi villages. A village phone lady will make on average two times the income she would have done from farming.

However, the mobile phone remains a largely urban phenomenon since cellular networks require a certain density of users before they can economically justify the installation of a base station. The availability of an internet connection is crucial for the viability of businesses and services in rural areas.  WiFi-based Long Distance networks (WiLDNet) are emerging as a potential low-cost alternative to traditional connectivity solutions for rural regions. Unlike mesh networks, which use omni-directional antennas to cater to short ranges, WiLD networks are comprised of point-to-point wireless links that use directional antennas with line of sight over long distances.

Eric's Berkeley research team has partnered with Aravind Eye Hospital in Theni in the southern India state of Tamil Nadu to use this technology to address the problem of blindness in the region, 70% of which is treatable. The long-distance wireless network they have installed is allowing eye specialists to interview and examine patients in five remote clinics via high-quality video conferencing. 25,000 patients have recovered sight using this system and it is set to expand to 50 centers covering 2.5 million people.

Eric's team has also worked on software that addresses local educational needs in developing regions. In poorly resourced schools, students will often be sharing a mouse and computer screen with a group of others. Metamouse gives each student their own mouse to use; when answering questions all users must agree on a location before progressing. This encourages collaboration between students and has had impressive results in boys in particular, with a 50% improvement in scoring compared to each user having their own PC.

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Participatory Development in East Africa's Largest Slum: The Carolina For Kibera Story

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Carolina for Kibera (CFK) inspires and nurtures youth leaders in the slum of Kibera, Kenya through a unique model of participatory development.  CFK recognizes the youth of Kibera as resilient, wise, innovative, and eager to lift their community above the poverty and violence that plagues it.  CFK's long-term initiatives provide youth opportunities to learn and serve while addressing a wide range of community needs including healthcare, education, waste recycling and reduction, HIV/AIDS testing and counseling, and girls' empowerment.  CFK's model of participatory to fight abject poverty, and prevent ethnic, gender and religious violence has been internationally recognized, earning awards as a Time Magazine and Gates Foundation "Hero of Global Health" and the 2008 Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation's Reflections of Hope Award.  CFK is a major affiliated entity of UNC based at the Center for Global Initiatives.


Salim Mohamed Salim Mohamed co-founded and served as the Executive Director of Carolina for Kibera for eight years. At the age of 16, he was involved in the development of MYSA - the largest youth sports program in Africa based in the Mathare slum of Nairobi.  Salim has helped launch community based sports and development programs in Ghana, Gambia, and Nigeria and presented at the International AIDS Conference. He serves as a director for Shoe 4 Africa, an advisor to Global Education Fund and a YES! facilitator.  A TED Africa Fellow, he is currently pursuing a master's degree at the University of Manchester.

Rye Barcott  While an undergraduate on an NROTC scholarship at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2001, Barcott founded CFK with the late nurse Tabitha Atieno Festo and community organizer Salim Mohamed. Barcott served five years in the Marine Corps before earning a combined MBA and MPA at Harvard as a Reynolds Social Entrepreneurship Fellow and a member of the Harvard Endowment's Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility.  In 2006, he was named an ABC World News Person of the Year.  A TED Fellow and member of the UNC Chancellor's Innovation Circle, Barcott is writing a book that juxtaposes community organizing and counter-insurgency (under contract, Bloomsbury Publishing).

Oksenberg Conference Room

Rye Barcott Founder (l) Speaker Carolina for Kibera (CFK)
Salim Mohamed Co-Founder (r) Speaker Carolina for Kibera (CFK)
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