"Technology in the Arts 2007 is now seeking session proposals for their conference held on the Carnegie Mellon University campus in Pittsburgh, PA, from October 12-13. The conference hosts arts service organizations, performing, visual and presenting organizations from across the U.S., from the local to national levels.

Teresa Crawford writes, "The long awaited eRiders.net is nearing completion.  We have done alot with the new site and I think you all will be happy with the mountains of new content we have added."

Rudi von Staden at Ungana Afrika is starting a research project looking into different ways that ICT students or recent graduates can be engaged to provide capacity building and technology support to NGOs and Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Africa. If you are personally involved in one, or know of other projects that he can contact to participate in the research, please contact them via http://www.ungana-afrika.org/projects/sdp.htm , which also provides more information on the project.

Our friends in London are hosting the second London Social Source event, in affiliation with the global Penguin Day movement.

Adrian from LASA writes:

Social Source UK 05 is for those interested in the potential of free & open source software and methods for the voluntary and non-profit sector.

Programme for SocialSource 2005:

• introductions for those who have had no hands-on contact with Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS)
• case studies
• details of projects going on within the sector using F/OSS tools.
• demonstrations of Open Source software in action
• opportunities for discussion.

All are welcome to attend, whether new to Open Source or already involved in projects, with key stakeholders envisaged as those:

Another story from MobileActive: Emily Gertz, our friend at WorldChanging and our prolific MobileActive blogger, profiles Tad Hirsch of txtmob fame and his Speakeasy project in Chinatown in Boston.  Using voice over IP telephony and mobile phones, Speakeasy is a "a software-enabled telephone call center staffed by multilingual community volunteers. Newcomers to Chinatown who are not fluent in English can call the service and connect with someone from the neighborhood who can provide immediate language interpretation, answer questions, and offer advice."

We here at Aspiration and all of the previous recipients of the Dirk Award are happy to announce the 2005 winner of the award:  Ungana-Afrika.  Here is the official announcement. Congratulations!

The Dirk Award Committee is honored to announce Ungana-Afrika as this year’s winner of the Dirk Award.

The Dirk Award is given annually to those circuit or eRiders who have shown extraordinary contributions to the nonprofit and international NGO technology communities while paying tribute to the principles of social justice and the role technology can play in empowering other
communities and individuals.

Ungana-Afrika provides innovative technology support to NGOs in Southern Africa. Ungana-Afrika believes that information and communication technologies (ICTs) offer new opportunities for African community-based and development organizations to do what they do better.

With its emphasis on technology, social justice, and community empowerment, the small staff of Ungana-Afrika has taken the principles of eRiding to innovative new levels with its trainings and capacity-building workshops and innovative projects such as those focusing on community radio and free and open source software within an African context.

Ungana-Afrika further works tirelessly to assure that the eRiding model takes hold in the Southern Africa region by working with other organizations in the region on developing their own eRiding projects. It makes its learnings and materials widely available under Creative Commons license and its staff are active community participants in the
international eRider Network. The organisation is supported by the Soros Foundations Network and the Government of Finland.

eRiders are one of the largest global resources of ICT capacity building for development organizations and work in a world-wide movement with growing representation in more than 20 countries.

The Committee of previous Dirk Award recipients and the global eRider and nonprofit technology support community congratulate Ungana-Afrika and its staff Toni Eliasz, Ryan Jacobs, Angel Kgokolo, Tshepo Thlaku, and Rudi von Staden for visionary and exemplary work!

For more information about Ungana-Afrika, please visit
www.ungana-afrika.org. More information about the Dirk Award for eRiders is at www.dirkaward.org.