The Feminist Technology Exchange (FTX)

One of the most exciting elements at this year’s Forum will be the Feminist
Technology Exchange Hub. A three-day pre-conference from November 10th-12th was organized by the Women’s Networking Support Program (WNSP) of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and  Women’sNet. Visit the  FTX web site to learn more.

Global Fund for Women is a supporter of the FTX Forum and Hub and is excited to be able to both contribute and draw from the enriching conversations around feminist praxis of technology.

Listen to an interview clip from a discussion between Preeti Shekar from the Global Fund and Anna Turley, Information Manager at AWID. 

More About The FTX Hub

The FTX Hub aims to explore the intersections between communication rights, movement building, feminisms and women's rights.  The Hub will be a meeting point for all Forum participants interested in these crucial issues to exchange skills, and participate in a Take Back the Tech campaign, document their experiences of the AWID Forum using information and communication technologies, engage in discussions on the feminist practices and politics of technology or just relax with other feminist and communication rights activists from around the world!

The FTX Hub will be open every day of the Forum from 8.000 am – 8.00pm from 14 – 17 November 2008. 

At the FTX Hub, participants can:

• Share skills: join in or set up workshops on technology and communication rights. We are planning at least one skills sharing session per day on different themes: mobile activism, communicating for change, web 2.0 and the internet and more. They will be a combination of planned programmes and open sign up sessions. 
  
• Be heard: meet the FTX community of communicators, and share your experiences, thoughts and perspectives on the Forum, or about your feminist practice of technology. The FTX community are women's rights activists who have participated in the FTX training eXchange happening just before the Forum, and who will be documenting their insights on the Forum through strategic use of ICT.     
• Make connections: share ideas, ask questions & tell stories to work out the connections between technology, communication rights, movement building and feminism. You can organise a meeting or dialogue circle on women's rights, ICT, communication rights and movement building at the Hub, or meet other advocates interested in these issues to explore your connections. 
  
• Visit the FTX site for more information on the FTX training eXchange.
  

Participation in the FTX Hub is open to all AWID Forum participants. On the days of the AWID Forum, the following sessions will take place that will enable AWID attendeed to benefit from the intensive three-day FTX pre-conference forum:

Day 1: Mobile activism – How to make full use of mobile phone technology for activism. Mobile phones are a vastly popular communication platform. They can be used creatively and strategically to overcome access and infrastructure barriers, as well as content regulation and surveillance whether in online spaces or offline.

Day 2: Communications for change – How do we communicate our message? How can blogs and alternative publishing spaces be used to effectively speak to who want to converse with? What does citizen journalism mean, and what is the best way to do it?

Day 3: Web 2.0 and the internet – Websites are an important communication channel and women's rights organisations have built them to amplify concerns. How can we improve them to communicate more effectively? How do we know they work? What are some of the emerging internet platforms and applications that are being developed to share and publish content? What is the hype around social networking, and how can we make them work for activism?

Day 4: Images, audio and digital storytelling – There are many ways to tell a story. How can we use photography, icons, videos and audio to tell transformative stories in powerful ways? What strategies and tools are available for us to change the landscape of women's representation?  

For further information, please contact This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it  

Global Fund at the FTX Pre-Conference Forum:

The communications team of the Global Fund will be actively participating at the FTX hub. In addition to participating, we will also be sharing content that will be pooled via RSS feeds that you can view here.