Hello Everybody,<br>It is great to be a part of this group. I can see a lot of familiar names that I have always wanted to meet, and a handful of people who I look forward to meeting again. I completed my doctoral work from the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore where I worked on a thesis titled "The Technosocial Subject: Cities, Cyberspaces and Cyborgs". It has been an incredible journey for me so far, from the early days of University rejections in India, where I was advised that the 'cyberspace' is 'too flimsy' to be studied to extremely enriching fellowships in East Asia (Taiwan and China) to now, where I co-founded my own <a href="http://www.cis-india.org">research organisation</a> in 2008, as Director of Research.<br>
<br>A lot of the ambitions and visions that the Centre for Internet and Society has, draw from my own personal experiences and challenges as a research student in South Asia, working in a field that still suffers from a paucity of research and pedagogy. Some of the larger visions that we have are to build localised, multidisciplinary research infrastructure which can facilitate further research in the field of Internet and Society, to look at questions of equity, justice and rights as they get mediated by digital technologies, and to implement innovative pedagogic models towards an open and accessible knowledge system. It sounds quite a mouthful, and as a young research centre, we are still taking small steps towards actualising these ideas, but they are dreams that drive us in new and often exciting directions. <br>
<br>In the last two year, apart from managerial and programmatic commitments aimed at incubating and facilitating new research within India, I have been spear-heading a Knowledge Programme called <a href="http://www.hivos.net/Hivos-Knowledge-Programme/Themes/Digital-Natives-with-a-Cause">"Digital Natives with a Cause?"</a> The research inquiry looks at the potentials and possibilities for social transformation and public participation embedded in young peoples' use of digital and Internet technologies in the emerging ICT societies of the Global South. We have been interacting with young people from Asia, Africa and Latin America to consolidate knowledge about how young people perceive politics of change and their own role as change makers. The learnings from <a href="http://digitalnatives.in">these interactions,</a> with more than a 100 people who identify themselves as digital natives along with a larger community of actors who support, draw from, interact and work with digital natives, are coming out in a book titled "Digital (alter)natives with a cause?" that is being launched in mid-September. Which means that I might be actually able to bring some copies with me to the Mobility Shifts workshop :)<br>
<br>At the workshop in NY, I am going to present some of the work we have done with a complementary project called The Pathways Project, which actually looks at digital outcasts and people who live on the fringes of digital and online technologies. It is a project that seeks to reformulate young peoples' notions of social justice by working with undergraduate students who are identified, through affirmative action, as 'underprivileged.' The project introduces them to different possibilities of digital and internet activities and helps them implement their own visions of change towards better articulation and awareness of 'social justice' within their peers as well as external related communities. The project also asks questions about the space of the classroom, the changing nature of students' expectations and the role that mobile technologies of computing and information access play in reformulating young students' interaction and engagement with larger social and political movements in the country. <br>
<br>I shall stop here, before this email becomes a novella. I shall look forward to learning more about other participants and the discussions that are going to ensue.<br><br>Warmly<br>Nishant<br>-- <br>Nishant Shah<br>Director (Research), Centre for Internet and Society,( <a href="http://www.cis-india.org">www.cis-india.org</a> )<br>
Asia Awards Fellow, 2008-09<br># 00-91-9740074884<br>