Exciting Summer Ahead

Now that the semester is over, I’m enjoying the summer break.

First up: Benin. After following the (prolific!) blogging of Plan USA‘s Linda Raftree, I’m very happy to have the opportunity to join Plan Benin for a month in Cotonou. I arrived on Tuesday and while here I’ll be supporting a project designed to report and reduce violence against children. The project facilitates community-based reporting via FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi, two powerful open source technologies that are increasingly important to development organizations around the world. My work involves collaborating with the great team here to address a number of technical and social questions that have come up in the first year of implementation.

In mid-June I’ll head back to Washington, D.C., and will spend the remainder of the summer break working with Development Seed, a small, cutting-edge technology firm that pushes the boundaries of what is possible in open data, online and offline mapping, web design, and technology use in international development. These guys are super sharp and I can’t wait to dig in.

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Category: commentary

Tags: Benin, DC, development, Development Seed, Plan Benin, Plan International, Plan USA, travel