There have been some big developments over the past couple of weeks. First of all, we have set up a YouTube Channel that can be used by anyone in the UNU to share their video content. Second, we have set up an account with Tube Mogul that enable the UNU to distribute videos to a number of video portals. The idea is to place UNU videos where the audience actually is, rather than hoping people will discover them on our websites.

Third, Citt and Koari have just completed a series of seven podcasts for the UNU Priority Africa project. You can see them on the UNU Youtube Channel and they will be accessible via the UNU main website. An sample video, hosted on Vimoe, is included below to give you a better idea of the themes covered.

PRIORITY AFRICA - Information Communications Technology from UNUChannel on Vimeo.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has just endorsed a recommendation to promote e-learning. This recommendation draws on the discussions that took place at preparatory e-conference on 1 October 2007, in which the UNU Media Studio participated via video conference (see post).

The good news is that the recommendation contains specific reference to the importance of promoting open source software and open educational resources, as proposed by the UNU. Here is the direct quotation:

“E-learning can be a powerful means of creating open educational resources accessible to everybody thus counteracting a divided knowledge society. In this regard, the Assembly calls on member parliaments to support the so-called “open source” movement in software development and initiatives for open educational resources – freely accessible on the Internet, and to adopt measures to combat the digital divide in order to close the gap between those who have access to ICT and the acquisition of ICT skills and those who do not, thus ensuring digital literacy for all.”

This is a truly important development for Europe.

Voices of the Chichinautzin was awarded Best Science and Ecology Documentary at the 2nd IberoAmerican Film Festival held in Tepotzlan, Mexico, 11-18 May 2008.

Luis Patron, from the UNU Media Studio, was on hand to pick up the special Zapata statue. He was also present at the screening and participated in the follow-on question and answer session.

The documentary tells the story of the daily struggles of the local communities as they try to protect a biodiverse region outside Mexico City from illegal logging and development pressures. It was written, directed and co-produced by Patricia Sims, produced and co-directed by Luis Patron and edited by Michael Clark. The graphics and animations were produced by Sean Wood and David Jimenez.

The documentary will be screened on television in Mexico later this year.

Note: The photo of the statue is taken from the festival website.

Some exciting news! Our website - Saving the Ayuquila River - has been selected as the webpick of the day by Communication Arts.

To put this in perspective, here is an explanation about CommArts.

“Communication Arts is the premier source of inspiration for graphic designers, art directors, design firms, corporate design departments, advertising agencies, interactive designers, illustrators and photographers—everyone involved in visual communication.”

It is great to see that websites focusing on environmental topics can also get selected as the webpick of the day. This is important international recognition of the excellent work from the team at the UNU and the University of Guadalajara, particularly Sean Wood for the Creative Direction, Janine Googan for the graphic design and animations and Luis Patron as the project coordinator.

On 15 May I traveled to the Lagunas de Zempoala National Park in central Mexico to join an event organized by the Tlahuica community of San Juan Atzingo and Greenpeace . They commemorated one year of the death of Aldo Zamora, a young environmentalist from this indigenous community who was killed by illegal loggers. The story of this tragic event is told in the UNU-produced documentary Voices of the Chichinautzin.

For me it was good to meet again Aldo’s father Ildefonso Zamora, and the Thahuica Chief Alejandro Ramirez, two of the key people featured in the documentary. I had the opportunity of giving them a DVD copy of the video, and visit their land and projects for the whole day.

I am happy to report that things had changed a lot in the area since the last time I have been there. Following Aldo’s death, the massive incursion of the army and police forces has caused illegal logging activities to decrease on an estimated 95%. The Tlahuicas have also received lots of material support from several government agencies, which includes trucks and uniforms (see photo) among other things. Their ecotourism project in the Tonatihua lagoon has been built and is already receiving visitors. Perhaps most importantly, after a legal battle which spanned several decades, the ownership of 18,000 hectares of their lands had finally been given official government recognition.

However, this success story has a very bad downside. A year has passed and justice has not been done, as the identified killers of Aldo Zamora have not been captured.

Some images from the opening ceremony of the Iberoamerican Documentary Festival in Tepoztlan, Mexico. The UNU-produced documentary Voices of the Chichinautzin is part of the official selection of the festival.

The Pangea Day event on Saturday night in the UNU Media Studio was a great success. We ended up with around 50 participants from 14 different countries for what was essentially an over-night event. The group energy remained relatively high all the way to morning as can be seen in the video that was taken some time after 6am.

It was a great experience to be a part of the first ever Pangea Day with such an interesting variety of global citizens gathered together here in the Media Studio.

Information about this world wide event and highlights of the program and many of the included films are on the Pangea Day website.

The UNU will participate in the Pangea Day event organized by the people who bring you TED - Technology, Entertainment and Design.

To learn more about Pangae Day visit the website for this historic global event.

For those who prefer a video explanation, please see the video by the founder of Pangea Day.

The UNU Media Studio will be the venue for the Tokyo event and already a number of filmmakers, designers, educators and social entrepreneurs are planning to participate. Since this is a live programme of powerful films, live music, and visionary speakers linking venues across the world, the actual timing would be from 3am to 7am this Sunday (11 May 2008).

Due to the size limitations for the venue, participation is by invitation only.

Today, the UNU Media Studio participated in an online seminar with the Pan-Pacific Distance Learning Association. We were talking about Open Content, Open Software and Open Learning. The presenters were Paul McKimmy from the University of Hawaii, Scott Belford from the Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation and myself from the UNU.

We used Elluminate to connect everybody and as a presented it was a really interesting experience. I am pretty comfortable now making presentations over video conferencing. However, with Elluminate you really need to multi-task since there is are plenty of options for audience interaction.

They can raise their hands for questions, give you a smiley face or thumbs down, or you can poll their opinions. It is all pretty seamless, but takes some getting used to.

We were looking to have excellent moderators from the UH College of Education - Peter Leong and Adam Tanners - who basically kept an eye on things. Thanks so much fro this valuable experience!

Here is the 2008 presentation by Al Gore at TED. Lots of new data and some surprises. He points out that we are missing a sense of urgency. How do we start changing this? This is a must see video. Tell us what you think about it.