And they’re searching for the next big thing in social change.
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Just days after it was announced that I, on behalf of Techbook Online – the largest and most active publisher associated with Project Open Voice, a national initiative to strengthen local content – will be present at NBC 10 studios on Saturday, March 7th, for the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists’ 2015 Media Access Panels, news was released by Echoing Green, the world’s largest angel investor, that Techbook Online is among the 432 social impact organizations who, out of 3, 165 applicants from more than five countries and areas of work, will advance to the Semi-Finalist round of a worldwide search for the next big thing in social change.
For Techbook Online, which touts partnerships with several major media outlets, our big idea is using mass communications to highlight and connect black men around the world through the issues that unite them.
The timing of both aforementioned announcements are mutually reinforcing and mark a significant milestone in the black male achievement movement, particularly in the area of improving media coverage and public perception of black men and boys.
Moreover, the presence of these opportunities increase both the value of Techbook Online, as a media brand, and the public voice – black men and boys in particular – as a source of content inspiration.
In Philadelphia, where Techbook Online is headquartered, the public’s free speech opportunities in most institutions are limited to a few minutes at the mic and/or few hundreds words in an open letter to the editor of a publication.
That’s not enough time to give voice to the many concerns that one may have regarding their government. As a journalist, I believe journalism is among the highest form of public service. But as an innovator and social disruptor, serving the public, in my opinion, is no longer enough, rather the public must first be assembled and given a platform to amplify their voices.
Public voice is important because those who experience injustice – like black men and boys who are not only disproportionately stopped-and-frisked by police, but are routinely criminalized in the media – have the greatest insights and solutions to injustice.
In order to turn those solutions into real-time (social) impact, the public needs a space that enables communication with like minded individuals for the purpose of a cognitive surplus.
Techbook Online is that space, which is why our corporate mantra is “together we can write an end to the world’s toughest problems.”
At the core of Techbook Online’s works is the belief that local content is the expression of a community’s knowledge and experience, and the process of creating content provides members of the community to interact with each other, in their own languages.
The occurrence of Techbook Online being catapulted onto a bigger stage isn’t just good news for me, the executive, but for anyone who believes in free speech and its role in connecting and highlighting black men and boys through the issues that unite them.
Thanks for reading. Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® & I’m Drumming for JUSTICE!™