During the Feb. 16 Liberation Technology Seminar, five teams from Stanford University’s John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship program shared their ideas on using technology to push the boundaries of journalism. The first speaker,Girma Fantaye, is an Ethiopian journalist in exile. Ethiopia leads the world in the number of refugee reporters (79 fled the country between 2001 and 2011). Under the context where print journalism is unable to function independently, Fantaye is attempting to create an online journal that will provide critical coverage of the nation’s politics. He discussed the various challenges involved in such a project and why it has promise in repressive environments.

Deepa Fernandes and Michelle Holmes presented Illumin.us, a project that aims to empower non-professional journalists to create compelling news stories for the media. Mobile technologies have enabled average citizens to gather powerful stories and democratize the process of choosing which stories get told. Today, anyone can create breaking news. While the tools for production are widely available, a lot of coverage is of poor quality due to the lack of journalistic training. To combat this, the Illumin.us team is creating a mobile “pocket coach” to help anyone who wants to tell a story. The app will contain the basic tools and tips for capturing news and will be available to the curators of news. It will encourage people to use their own mobile devices to report anything from breaking news to simple stories worth sharing.

Martyn Williams then discussed his project to protect sources in an online environment. A few decades ago, newspapers went to great lengths to keep the identities of their journalists secret. Today, TV stations rely heavily on user submitted content online that is vulnerable to government surveillance. Williams’ goal is to use cheap and open source technologies to ensure that those submitting to news organizations are safe and accredited.

Djordje Padejski and T. Christian Miller are working on a freedom of information platform that will enable investigative journalists to access government information legally from any country with The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) type law. They argued that much of the information provided by Wiki leaks could be legally obtained through FOIA and other “Right to Know” laws, but there is no easy mechanism through which journalists can access public records internationally. Padejski and Miller’s project—the FOIA machine—would facilitate the usage of these under-utilized access laws. By automating the process, they hope to decrease bureaucracy, time and legal constraints. The FOIA machine will even target transnational issues by appealing to multiple governments’ records, revealing dissonance and promoting accuracy.

Emad Mekay from Egypt, discussed using technology to share government information from the U.S. with newspapers in the Middle East and North Africa. After covering the Arab Spring, he came to Stanford to work on projects to help the Arab media. Impressed by the openness of information in the U.S., Mekay came up with a plan to create an online news agency, using U.S. information technology and Freedom of Information laws to make Arab regimes more accountable and U.S. policy in the Middle East more transparent. The agency will act as a foreign correspondent for media outlets in the Middle East with a focus on getting news about the Middle East and North Africa region available in official sources in the U.S.

On Jan. 19, David Wolman contributing editor to Wired magazine, presented his new book The Instigators about Egypt’s youth activists at the Liberation Technology Seminar Series. Wolman tracks the story of a few young activists in Egypt whose efforts turned significant a year later in Egypt’s revolution. The book presents a detailed account of the April 6 movement and the founders of the Facebook page, “We are all Khaled Said” and their use of online tools in Egypt’s revolution.

Wolman made his first visit to Egypt when the movement was small and the protests led by the April 6 movement garnered only a few supporters. He then tracked how the movement gathered steam particularly with the use of online tools. The talk was a vivid account of how the Internet was used to reach young people and convert the collective anger into action. Wolman touched on how those who were tech-savvy combined forces with those who had the experience of mobilization in the lead up to the revolution.

As the Arab world undergoes an unprecedented period of political transition, many are looking towards a new development model to spur economic growth and social advancement. The Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD) at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law examined this question during its third annual conference on April 26-27, 2012 at Stanford University. The conference featured leading academics, practitioners, and activists, who looked beyond economics to present a more integrated framework for development.

According to ARD Program Manager Lina Khatib, "A goal of the conference is to present an integrated approach to development in the Arab world, particularly in places witnessing democratic transition, which links social, political, and economic factors."

The conference included a diverse array of speakers hailing from the political and social sectors, representing youth leaders, religious minorities, women's rights advocates, and civil society representatives, who joined economists to discuss new regional frameworks for development.

Conference speakers included: Mona Makram Ebeid, who has a long and distinguished career as a parliamentarian in Egypt, commenting on the challenges facing minority rights in democratic transition; Hedi Larbi, director of the Middle East department at the World Bank, who will address the issue of oil dependency and how it constrains economic development in the Gulf region; Libyan NGO leader Rihab Elhaj who co-founded The New Libya Foundation and who will speak about the important role civil society plays in the development equation; and Valentine Moghadam, professor of sociology at Northeastern University and a leading expert on gender issues, who will examine political development through a gender lens.

To view the complete program and download the presentation documents and conference report, please click here.