Weekly Roundup 5/31/17

This past week, NDI attended the Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF). Nicknamed the “Davos for Human Rights”, it seeks to bring together high-profile activists and leaders working to advance freedom around the world and share the latest progress being made. The conference featured presentations by prominent figures like Garry Kasparov, Anne Applebaum, Viktor Yushchenko, and Mohamed Nasheed, as well as numerous other activists who are paying a heavy price to advance human rights in their own communities.

Bitfury presented a session on the potential for blockchain as a means to ensure trust in societies where the government is not universally trusted (check out the Blockchain Trust Accelerator, our collaboration with Bitfury and New America to find innovative ways to apply blockchain to solve governance issues). Discussions also explored fake news and some of the new measures being used to combat it, such as social media organizations’ filtering tools and a new social media law in Germany. Speakers cautioned that there also needs to be work done on the underlying causes of fake news. Overall, it was a great opportunity to interact with some of the groups working alongside NDI to promote open and free societies across the globe. Check out the event page to see video highlights of some of the top speakers.

Other News:

ICT4D:

• Mozilla’s Webmaker app helps facilitate content creation for the non-tech savvy and those in the developing world

• New tech seeks to bring innovation to agriculture in the developing world and engage youth

• RefAid seeks to connect refugees with aid organizations and services

Civic Tech:

• Portland moves to become a smart city and establish progressive open data policies

Open Internet:

• Egypt blocks internet access to 21 news sites

Cyber Security:

• Group behind NSA hack offers to release more data to those willing to pay $20k+

• Origin of Wannacry ransomware still unclear, as investigators note Chinese messages were written fluently but Korean and other languages were not

Blockchain:

• New study looks at the growth of cryptocurrencies, and the falling market share of Bitcoin

• Russian bank claims to develop a quantum computer-proof blockchain but has yet to provide proof