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The Anita Borg Institute has several initiatives to promote and celebrate women in technology. The 2010 Women of Vision awards celebrate women who have made significant achievements in 3 areas. For Innovation: Kathleen McKeown, Henry and Gertrude Rothschild Professor of Computer Science, Columbia University For Social Impact: Lila Ibrahim, General Manager, Emerging Markets Platform Group, Intel Corporation For Leadership: Kristina Johnson, Ph.D., Under Secretary for Energy at the Department of Energy This excerpt of a post from Katy Dickinson at SanJose.MetBlogs.com shows why this is important! "I have referred dozens of young women to the 2008 WOV talk by Helen Greiner. Any girl geek who feels too alone in her love of technology will be encouraged by the amazing founder of iRobot saying that when she was young "not one person told me I should be an Engineer" and "we need diversity of perspectives … more women's life experiences influencing our directions and designs".

Also "Directors of the UK's biggest 350 listed companies should also stand for re-election every year, instead of at least every three years, to increase accountability under recommendations in the revised code." Frequent re-election should keep directors more or their toes, or will it make them spend more time trying to defend their positions instead of doing their jobs? Time will tell.

Classic case of RC style censorship. Facebook presumably in response to a complaint but ... who knows.. removes all pictures of this woman happily breastfeeding her twins in a completely non sexual context yet allows many overtly sexual 'titty' groups to remain - with pictures. Grassroots campaign of support starting on twitter but as the originator says.. no major media interested! Many women are starting to collect instances of other breastfeeding photos and groups being 'disbanded', 'removed' or in Australian terms 'refused classification'.

In an attempt by the government to modernise the 25-year-old Sex Descrimination Act, new laws have been made to protect teenagers from cyber-bullying acts such as sexting and online harrassment. It also protects breastfeeding women and gives men the same protection as women in the workplace when it comes to family responsibilities.

When it works the world of instant connectivity and social convergence is a wonderful place. Although I personally find the comments illustrative in a more depressing fashion. Derogatory comments, hotness debate and sudden normalising of "Welcome to the internet" where women are sex things and men are whatever they want to be.

High school  teachers in Queensland are questioned because of their profile pictures on Facebook. The fact that they may be really outstanding educators is now overlooked due to the mistake of posting "inappropriate" photos on a very public social networking site. Another example of how Facebook can actually ruin lives. 

A politician, a political analyst and the editor of the Russian edition of Newsweek have been, supposedly, framed by the Kremlin in order to discredit them. Videos of them in compromising positions have been distributed in the Internet: the web as a channel through which public opinion can be molded by totalitarian states. Political campaigns could "learn" a lot from the Kremlin's actions... 

D.Net, a not-for-profit research organisation has set up a program in Bangladesh called InfoLadies which involves women armed with netbooks, mobile phones to provide information gathered from the internet to villagers who would otherwise lack access to this information. The types of information provided typically cover hygiene, farming and childbirth. The program is an extension of the MobileLadies program which came before it. Another, more detailed article here: http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=99804 Can programs like this contribute to a decrease in the digital divide?

Twitter is being used as a tool for advice on how to escape risky places in thailand due to political tensions.