Julia Kozlov (VCN WebTeam) began her talk at last Friday’s CNET Seminar on January 29th with an overview of the wealth of opportunities for Vancouver-based students to communicate and connect – physically and virtually – via various digital and social networking initiatives. She argued that these many of these organizations complement the work of organizations like the Vancouver Community Network (VCN) and the VCN WebTeam in helping overcome the digital divide as well as encouraging the development of home-grown participatory culture.
If home-grown participation is your bag, then here are but two initiatives well worth checking out:
True North Media House “is a media collaboration campaign to encourage social coverage of the winter sports and cultural events during 2010 in Vancouver, Canada while educating about rights (and having a good time). Organized by an ad-hoc group of volunteers, [they] intend to create a facility in which all manner of media-makers can collaborate to share stories surrounding the international events as well as the local community. By doing so, [they] hope to set a precedent for social coverage of future events.” Active and aspiring local content creators alike unite!
Northern Voice is is a two-day, non-profit personal blogging and social media conference that is about to be held in Vancouver BC for the sixth. Last year’s edition out at UBC was completely sold out, and there’s no reason to think that the 2010 incarnation of the event won’t be a great success. The 2010 conference is in the planning stages. The conference is perfect for active bloggers (including text bloggers, videobloggers, podcasters, and photobloggers and of course people on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.) people interested in becoming bloggers, and anyone interested in learning more about personal publishing, social media, the read/write web and Web 2.0. Watch this space for information about the 2010 conference or help out.
That wasn’t enough? A few more links then: CODE Canada and W2 Community Media Arts