NetSquared Conference Featured Projects

NetSquared, a project of TechSoup, works to inspire and assist social benefit organizations in adopting emerging technologies — such as blogs, wikis, and other social Web tools — through various programs, including its Web site, meetups, and annual conference.

This year's conference, taking place May 28 and 29 in San Jose, CA, will highlight 21 projects around the world that are using new technologies to create social change. Selected from more than 150 nominations, these projects embody the potential of emerging technologies to effect lasting change.

You can find a brief summary of each project listed below. To learn more about these projects, visit NetSquared's Featured Projects Page and click on the links.

1. Aspiration Social Source Commons
   Helps nonprofits find appropriate software to support their work, and share knowledge about tools.
2. Big Brothers Big Sisters AIM Project
   Working to create a single, Web-based system for the Big Brothers Big Sisters network, increasing the performance management of its 450 agencies.
3. FamilyFarmed.org
   Connects consumers and trade buyers with a network of organic farmers and artisanal food producers.
4. Farmer 2 Farmer Learning
   Helps farmers in developing countries learn from others' experiences, allowing them to become more efficient and market-oriented.
5. Genocide Intervention Network
   Empowers anti-genocide activists with the tools for community-based education, user-generated content, and strong shared connections, allowing them to pool the collective knowledge of a growing movement for change.
6. Global Women's Leadership Network
   Through training, community building and in-country mentorship programs, GWLN is liberating women leaders to create a new world, built on human rights, gender equality, sustainable development, and global integrity.
7. Grassroots.org Toolbox
   Working to empower nonprofits by granting free access to a suite of fully configured and hosted online tools, including content management, online event registration software, and CRMs.
8. HELP International Telemedicine Humanitarian Emergency Mobile Medical Clinic Network
   A telemedicine-based online community of physicians, financial donors, and emergency personnel bringing advanced medical assistance to disaster zones and areas of chronic humanitarian need around the world.
9. Innovatorz Media
   Produces and distributes online media for social entrepreneurs.
10. Kabissa 2.0
    Marries power of Web 2.0 with the passion of the 950-plus African organizations in its network, developing and promoting homegrown strategies for using Web 2.0 for social change.
11. Maplight.org
    Illuminates the connection between money and politics, connecting campaign contributions and votes for U.S. Congress to provide groundbreaking transparency so that bloggers, journalists, and citizens can hold legislators accountable.
12. Maps 2.0
    Maps 2.0, a collaboration already under way, will launch the first online resource for nonprofit and humanitarian organizations to share best practices in geographic information systems (GIS) and digital mapping tools.
13. Miro
    A fully open-source and open-standards nonprofit dedicated to creating the Firefox of online video.
14. MyKenyanSpace
    Will roll out country-specific social networking sites to give African producers direct access to outside markets, allowing African producers to reduce their dependence on middlemen and earn more money for their labor.
15. Nabuur.com
    An Internet platform where villages in developing countries get direct assistance. Currently, online volunteers are helping to create whatever is needed in 150 villages.
16. Stop Family Violence
    Will use Web 2.0 technologies to empower local programs, enhance information-sharing, help people find the services they need, promote local leadership, and coordinate activism that will keep women and children safe.
17. TakingITGlobal
    What if youth everywhere came together to inspire each other, get informed about social issues, and involved in their communities? TakingITGlobal evolved from this idea to a Social Network for Social Good, inspiring youth to create a better world.
18. The Freecycle Network
    A gift economy and community that relies on local social networking, The Freecycle Network operates on the principle that it’s easier (and more eco-friendly) to give something away than throw it away.
19. WiserEarth
    An international directory and networking forum that maps, links, and empowers the hundreds of thousands of organizations within civil society that address social justice and the environment.
20. Yakana.org
    Helps nonprofits located in developing countries adopt and benefit from social Web tools in their fields of work, without technical skills, financial resources for infrastructure, or English-language knowledge.
21. YouthAssets
    Will develop a Web-based knowledge-management tool that utilizes the latest mapping technologies and collaboration tools to enable youth and their supporters to share critical information about and for HIV/AIDS orphans in Southern Africa.