Today, I am writing from day one of the Feminist Technology Exchange or FTX. As I mentioned in my very first post, the whole idea of FTX is to share ideas about how individuals and organizations are using technologies like digital stories, video, audio, SMS and social networking to foster social change. The cool thing is that all the sessions are all led by young women from around the world. They came here to Cape Town a few days earlier to cull examples and design trainings to share with the rest of us. 

The trainers in the “track” I am a part of are all young women bloggers. Manal blogs from Egypt, Ore blogs from Nigeria, and Christina, who is Bulgarian, blogs from Montreal. In many places in the world where organizations don’t have the capacity to mount fancy websites, individuals serve as agents of knowledge sharing, blogging both on behalf of themselves and of organizations and movements they are associated with.

Even though I grew up in a context where women were encouraged to use technology, it’s very empowering to learn from and with young women who are so proficient, savvy and creative. If you were to walk into the room I’ve been sitting in today, you wouldn’t think that there was anything that could limit the potential of women’s use of technology. Women + Technology = Power. See the logo of FTX (shown at the left) for a visual representation of this. Superman reclaimed.

The last thing I wanted to share with you today was my “experience” of a transnational tag cloud. Our icebreaker activity this morning was to write words that we associate with social networking on colored pieces of paper. They were all stuck on the wall and then clustered into groups based on how frequent certain words were used. This (see the outcome at the left) was our transnational tag cloud! 

Finally, in case you were wondering, Cape Town is breathtaking. 

Until soon,
Masum

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