Stories from the 2024 Skoll World Forum
Meedan representatives were in Oxford, England, for the event.
Hey Checklisters!
If you’re running late, here’s your TL;DR Checklist
✅ This year’s Skoll World Forum took place April 9-12 in Oxford, England.
✅ Meedan was honored with a Skoll Award for Social Innovation.
✅ Our team members were at the event, and they’re sharing their stories.
Top Comment
As we reported in our most recent update, Meedan was announced as a 2024 Skoll Award for Social Innovation recipient earlier this month. Since then, CEO Ed Bice, Director of Programs and Impact Lead Dr. Dima Saber, and Director of Research Dr. Scott A. Hale all attended the Skoll World Forum, which was capped by an award ceremony celebrating Meedan alongside fellow honorees Food for Education, IllumiNative and SaveLIFE Foundation. Together, we’re the latest cohort in a string of distinguished awardees extending back several years.
The occasion was an exhilarating whirlwind, and we’re ready to use this moment as a launching point for the next phase in our efforts to build a more equitable internet.
In this special Checklist issue, we’re excited to take a moment to reflect on a humbling achievement and strategize about what comes next.
Joining a ‘global force for change’
Winning the Skoll Award means joining a community of 127 awardees, all of whom have made the conscious decision to make the measure of their life’s work the value they bring to others. This community is a global force for change, and there is no question that it will, in the years ahead, be a critical component of Meedan’s work to impact information equity at the scale of the internet.
— Ed Bice
Recalling ‘the power of South-South activism and solidarity’
I joined the forum at a time when I felt the world was still stubbornly resisting change. As the war on Gaza entered its sixth month, hate speech and gender-based violence continued to swirl across our online spaces while repressive governments tightened their grip even further on all spaces of freedom, equality and social justice. I also felt there couldn’t be a more critical time to restore my — and our — faith in the power of collective action. For me, Skoll was a great place to be reminded of the power of South-South activism and solidarity. I left it feeling a little less overwhelmed and a little more hopeful for our potential as grassroots civil society organizations working on the impossible task of making the internet, and by extension our own hyperlocal offline communities, kinder, safer and more inclusive.
— Dr. Dima Saber
Witnessing ‘the power of people working together’
The Skoll World Forum brought together an amazing group of thinkers, doers and funders. I was struck by how information integrity challenges run through so many initiatives. Poor information environments impede progress on addressing climate change, just as they weaken public health initiatives and undermine democracy. At the same time, the initiatives showcased at the forum showed the power of people working together in community. I came away with a renewed drive to continue our work with communities at the hyperlocal level to create a more equitable internet.
— Dr. Scott A. Hale
‘This means more than you know’: An excerpt from Ed Bice’s speech at the Skoll Awards Ceremony
There is a phrase appropriate to the moment: “This means more than you know.”
It’s very true tonight, but this phrase is also a centering point for the fundamental challenge my organization seeks to address. How do we enable communities to collaborate on the critical civic task of bringing needed context to online content during the moments when this knowledge is most needed?
2024 will be the biggest voting year in the history of democracy. Elections will be held in 76 countries home to some 4.2 billion people. Around the world, citizens will be placing votes based on the information available to them. Increasingly, this information will arrive via an encrypted messaging platform like WhatsApp, Telegram or Viber. With no content moderation, these networks are uniquely susceptible to the distribution of disinformation.
Democracy is the operating system for society. Disinformation is a virus in this operating system that impacts virtually every aspect of society, from journalism to public health to the very task of holding an election itself. With the additional perils of journalism in retreat and generative AI moving quickly to fill the void, the global philanthropic community needs to consider the compromise of our information ecosystem as posing an existential threat to humankind.
Read the full Skoll Awards Ceremony speech.
Contact us to explore collaboration opportunities.
Define_social innovation
“We view social innovation as the quest to solve a societal problem by applying a novel or reimagined solution that effectively contributes to lasting and systemic social change.”
— Skoll Foundation, “Skoll Awards”
Townsquare
May 9
Climate Tracker announced a new funding and mentoring opportunity for journalists from Argentina, Brazil and Mexico who are interested in covering environmental issues.
June 26-28
GlobalFact 11 will be held this year in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, with a special focus on elections, artificial intelligence, freedom of expression and information integrity.
July 17-19
DataFest Africa 2024 is a two-day event that celebrates data science and its ever-evolving impact on the African continent while showcasing solutions and innovations.
What else we’re reading
In this special issue of The Checklist, we’re spotlighting publications from and about our fellow 2024 Skoll Award recipients.
“As the Kenyan city sleeps, chefs, cleaners, drivers and loaders get to work preparing 60,000 meals to serve children as part of the largest school meals programme in Africa.”
(Peter Muiruri, The Guardian)
“In the last few years, Native and Indigenous representation has shifted and changed in a positive way. Check out what’s in and what’s out in Native representation.”
(IllumiNative)
“The ZFC (Zero Fatality Corridor) model looks at conditions and realities specific to low- and middle-income countries and makes scientifically-backed suggestions on the most cost-effective solutions for road crash and fatality prevention. The model is adjustable and scalable for contexts where complex settings and low resources are the major deterrents to employing the traditional road safety guidance emerging from developed nations.”
(Krishen Mehta and Piyush Tewari, Stanford Social Innovation Review)
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