Cases Across Asia

Cases across Asia:

1) Too much control:

Google has been released world-wide, available to every country- except China. Unlike Google plus, which had been terminated by tireless government blocking. Although there are drives equivalent to Google available, such as: Baidu’s WangPan or Shanda’s Everbox, the citizens of China had no voice in the decision. Yet again, China’s rulers have made a choice to keep certain information out of reach.

“Today in international tech news: Google Drive is “dead in the water” in China. Meanwhile, a soap opera is unfolding in South Korea, where there’s a feud between the chairman of Samsung and family members who want a bigger piece of the company’s fortune. Elsewhere, Twitter plays a central, and unfortunate, role in an English court case.”(Google Drive Hits China’s Wall)

2) What happened to restrictions?

“The victim of a 2011 rape had her identity divulged both on Twitter and on a television broadcast that displayed a Twitter feed as part of its coverage, according to The Guardian” (Twitter Overshares).

The newspaper released this statement, “”In our coverage last night we very briefly revealed the victim’s name despite heavy redaction, and if watching in real-time viewers would not have noticed,” said a Sky News spokeswoman. “We would, however, like to apologize to the victim and her family for any distress caused.”"

The two cases, while unrelated, bring up the issue of security- how much is too much or not enough?

ICT4D Professional Profile: Michael (Mike) McKay

Mike McKay

• “Occupation: hacker for social justice”- present
• Works at RTI International
• Health Informatics Specialist, present
• Viant, DecisionSoft, and BaobabHealth
• Attended Claremont McKenna College for Management Engineering and UCLA for Computer Science Engineering
• Lives in Washington DC
• He has accounts on: Quora, Flicker, twitter and who knows how many other sites
• Married, grateful, honored

Mike McKay has worked in an astonishing number of diverse positions in the ICT4D world. His experience includes:

• RTI International - Washington DC
• International Development Technologist
• SocialRange LLC - Washington DC
• Co-Founder, organization developing mobile applications: embrace open technologies, improve lives, prosper.
• Dimagi - Washington DC
• Implementor
• Qualcomm Wireless Reach Philippines - Tarlac, Philippines
• Technical Lead, contractor to RTI International
• World Health Organization – Geneva, Switzerland
• Consultant
• Baobab Health Partnership - Lilongwe, Malawi
• Country Director
• Social Enterprise Initiative of the Claremont Colleges
• Member of advisory board – September 2010 – Present
• TED Alumni
• Long Beach, CA March 2009
• • Received high-five from Tim Berners-Lee for using HTTP to fight HIV in Africa.
• NBC Universal and the Motion Picture Association of America -
• Oxford, UK / Lilongwe, Malawi
• Online media consultant, April 2003 – Jan 2006
• Semanak - California, USA / Oxford, UK
• Partner, Jan 2003 – Jan 2005
• DecisionSoft - Oxford, UK
• Software Engineer, Oct 2001 – Dec 2002

Past these positions, McKay has an extensive list of publication, presentations and related activities. Since a young age McKay has devoted his time and resources to ICT4D applications to improve world health.

Forum Websites he’s a member of:

Social:

• Peek You
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Friendfeed.com
• Delicious.com
• Identi.ca
• Foursquare
• Brightkite.com
• Google.com
• Xanga
• Blogger
• Last.fm
• eBay
• MySpace
• Pinterest

Photo/Video:

• Picasaweb.google.com
• Youtube.com
• Flickr

Miscellaneous- vdomck.org, Amazon.com, gdata.youtube.com

He also has a personal blog, Hactivate, where he writes about his life and technologies.

Interviews:

1 Dir. Edward Scotcher and Mike McKay

S: “What in your opinion is the best way to give exceptional Africans visibility.”

M: “I think blogging is a pretty powerful way of doing it. I found a newspaper article about William Kamkwamba when I was living in Malawi, put it on my blog, and before he knew it he was on a plane to Ted in Uganda and now he has a best selling book because I saw his story in a newspaper article and I put it on my blog! So I think that has a lot of potential to really impact innovators and people doing great stuff on the ground”

Mike McKay – Baobab Health  Dir. Edward Scotcher.

S: “How could sharing ideas in the kind of online-offline format that Africa Gathering’s got help expose talent in Africa further?”

M: “I guess using multiple forms of conversation. It’s really critical to have that face-to-face chance to meet someone and to make a connection or to share a meal with somebody and just talk about the weather or whatever. But to be able to follow them on twitter and start thinking about what their work is or even what they’re doing on a daily basis, I think provides a connection that can lead to friendships that often lead to opportunities to start businesses or organizations together or just collaborate on a new idea that you couldn’t have thought of yourself.”