OmanTwestival - spirit of global community

On the 25th March 2010, when over 200 cities around the world join hands to celebrate Twestival (Twitter Community Festival) OmanTwestival is to be held here in Muscat http://muscat.twestival.com/
When - 25th March 2010 Thu (5pm - 8pm) Report at the Port Qaboos by 4.30 pm Sharp - Gates closed by 5.30 pm - Ferry Sails by 6 pm Sharp

Where - On board of 'Hormuz' ferry - World's fastest catamaran

What to bring - Mobile phone, laptop, Camera (free WiFi provided on board)

Sponsors - National Ferries Company & OmanAir & Omantel

Location Map: Port Qaboos at Corniche

What's in for OmanTwestival 2010?

In flat 5 days, Muscat is preparing to host this event. Lots of surprises await twitter users attending #OmanTwestival, including entertainment & gifts at perhaps the only Twestival Venue on sea.

• Charity Round - Open Your Heart & Open your Wallet for Charity - Collection
• SNK Boys Break Dance
• Fun competition
• Traditional 'Oud' Music
• Oud & Guitar Medley
• 2 Short Films made by Omani nationals - submitted at Gulf Intl. Film Festival

What is a Twestival?

Twestival - a community gathering of the members of the twitter community (http://www.twestival.com/) – an event held on the same day of the year across several cities of the world synchronised in the real world.

Quote : "Organizing online and gathering offline allows Twestival to harness the incredible communication power of Twitter to propel participation in real events around the world."
-Amanda Rose, Founder of Twestival

What is the purpose of Twestival 2010?Twestival 2010 supports the cause 'Education' through ‘Concern Worldwide’ a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organization that reaches to out-of-school children such as girls, orphans, street children, working children, children affected by conflict, children affected by HIV and AIDS, and children with disabilities. Concern’s education programs currently reach over 700,000 people in 25 countries across the regions of Africa, Asia, & the caribbean.

Who supports the Twestival?

Among numourous volunteers and several corporates supporting Twestival, PayPal the official global sponsor for Twestival has waived processing fees for ‘Concern Worldwide’ for the duration of Twestival. Twestival extends its online reach with TwestivalFM, where high-profile artists and musicians around the world donate their songs to download for donations. eBay supports Twestival, by hosting ‘Auction140’, a global online auction of celebrity-donated items and celebrities including Paris Hilton, Queen Rania of Jordan are supporting. An iPhone application for live donations and results widgets will enable real-time donations at local events. Twestival also has partnered with Ustream to live stream the day’s events, starting in New Zealand and ending in Hawaii.

TWESTIVAL - a global festival synchronized Offline

Twestival 2010 rallies for social cause of "Education”

On March 25, 2010, in more than 175 cities around the world, thousands of people will demonstrate social media's power for social good through the second annual Twestival.

Organizing online and gathering offline allows Twestival to harness the incredible communication power of Twitter to propel participation in real events around the world.

- Amanda Rose, Founder of Twestival

About Twestival

A Twestival is a community gathering of the members of the twitter community – an event held on the same day of the year across several cities of the world. Well beyond a gathering, this global event generates funds through voluntary contributions for a common social cause. This post has drawn more inputs from the twestival website at www.twestival.com and wish to attribute credits here.

Harnessing Synergic Strength

Twitter community of various cities around the world have signed up to host a ‘Twestival’ in their respective locales, in real life to rally around for the cause of Education by hosting local events to have fun and create awareness.

Every single tweet (a post on twitter under 140 characters length) has a purpose and when torrents of tweets by several users join hands to strengthen social media for a social cause – 2010 being for education. It is about the social networking community connecting by little tweets connecting and working together to a difference to the lives several unfortunate communities around the world.

Concern Worldwide

All proceeds generated from the 2010 Twestival will support education and be donated to Concern Worldwide, a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organization that since 1968 has dedicated itself to reducing suffering and eliminating poverty.

“An estimated 72 million children worldwide are not enrolled in school,” said Tom Arnold, CEO of Concern Worldwide. “Concern is committed to reaching those left behind, giving them access to learning and the chance to break out of the cycle of poverty.

Twestival Global is revolutionizing the way concerned citizens all over the world connect to benefit the poorest among us. We are thrilled to have been chosen, and we’re rolling up our sleeves to make the most of this extraordinary opportunity.”

Logistics of event

Free volunteering champions from cities that have signing up for twestival, invest their energies and efforts to rope in other community members to organize a gala night offline. When open invites are posted online attendees willingly sign up to attend an event in their neighbourhood and also offer their services & expertise voluntarily.

Twestival 2009 for 'Water'

The first global Twestival was held on 12^th February 2009 across over 202 cities with the cause of providing clean water. It managed to raise over US$ 250K for ‘Charity – Water’ to provide more than 55 wells in Uganda, Ethiopia and India having a direct impact for over 17,000 people. Watch the videos of the first Twestival well drilled in the village of Mai Nabri, Ethiopia. Visit http://www.charitywater.org/twestival/to see how the funds were utilized for the needy.

Twestival 2010 for 'Education'

In 2010, the twestival supports ‘Concern’ - a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organization that reaches to out-of-school children such as girls, orphans, street children, working children, children affected by conflict, children affected by HIV and AIDS, and children with disabilities.

Concern’s education programs currently reach over 700,000 people in 25 countries across the regions of Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Readers can follow @concern on Twitter to get a glimpse of their staff tweeting from around the world.

Support Unlimited

Organisers of the Twestival are provided with multimedia and other branded promotional material for free download and use in the awareness sessions. In addition Citrix Inc. has offered their web conferencing software – GoToMeeting, to facilitate organizers to hold online meetings.

Education is a global issue and by giving our support to a nearby Twestival or by checking www.twestival.com to see how to get involved.

PayPal the official global sponsor for Twestival has waived processing fees for ‘Concern Worldwide’ for the duration of Twestival.

Twestival extends its online reach with TwestivalFM, allowing high-profile artists and musicians around the world to donate their songs to download for donations.

eBay supports Twestival, by hosting ‘Auction140’, a global online auction of celebrity-donated items and experiences on eBay that will feature a live Twitter stream for the first time.

An iPhone application for live donations and results widgets will enable real-time donations at local events. Twestival also has partnered with Ustream to live stream the day’s events, starting in New Zealand and ending in Hawaii.

Dubai Twestival

Our nearest neighbor Dubai is holding Twestival for the 2nd time this year with abundant support from both corporate and individuals who are striving to make it a grand success. Follow up details and register to attend this DubaiTwestival on the 25th March 2010 by registering at www.dubai.twestival.com.

The future of privacy

Most of us have no idea how much others can find about us, our personal lives, hobbies, interest or profession.

This post is an introspective view of certain technologies that have made it possible to find our electronic foot prints in the modern times. Protecting one’s anonymity is a game that one can never win completely once and for all.

Even to those skeptics who claim that they have taken all possible measures to protect their privacy by not indulging in social networking online and limiting their communications to close circle of family and friends, it might be a rude shock to know how simple it is easy to track them electronically.

Mobile tracking

Consider the common mobile phone, which is an electronic device just meant to make and receive calls. Let us not even introduce the mini-computer like abilities that modern phones are capable of at this point. It is almost impossible to purchase a new mobile connection without revealing other personal identity information connected to their real life.

Once these details are provided to the mobile-service provider, it is possible to track every conversation and all exchange of calls with contacts. Several national and political scandals have come to limelight just because of this traceability of telephone calls.

Card-based footprints

Those who have the habit of swiping cards at hotels and shopping malls, are little aware that their shopping habits and preferred brands and services are traceable. Many retailers retain this information in a database and comb this often to prepare your profile and later target promotions and specific marketing communications customised for you.

Even the fast food center near your house knows your exact location and your favourite item. Some companies have gone to the extent of gathering geo-positioning data from your mobile phone calls and precisely tell us where you are ordering from. Data brokers with weak systems have been targeted by hackers and in the end result it is the customer’s who pay the price for privacy violations.

Camera conscious

Consider choosing a personal visit to a shopping mall or a restaurant to avoid being tracked electronically. The myriads of globes handing on the roof could be live cameras recording your moves, and storing them is large data drives. At any point these videos could be played back, zooming close at your face enough to recognise that it is the real you.

If masking our telephone calls is difficult then covering up your online activity is almost impossible. All Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are required to maintain records about their users and dish them out completely when requirement by law-enforcement agencies.
In social media sites like the facebook and twitter, it’s certainly nice to share information and photographs and even mobile contacts. But all these platforms are public platforms and the chances that they could be technically compromised makes your data there sensitive.

Archived anonymous

Those tech geeks who pride themselves in the use of anonymiser software to erase their online trails have little to celebrate. Technically anonymisers must be tracking and archiving your website visits. For law enforcement purposes they may be forced to reveal these data. It could also be possible that decoy anonymisers are planted by government agencies to trap people who use these and frame cases with valid proof. It’s only possible that your own ISP may not have to online voyages, but this is electronically archived in some server out there.

Profiling through data

As citizens, immigrants or even as visitors, the extent of surveillance we undergo is quite sizeable. The data so far collected about is resides as digital data somewhere. It is up to technologies such as search engines, semantic webs, geo-positioning systems and data-mining software to make meaningful relations between these disparate data about you and me from various sources and eventually create a complete profile about us that we are even conscious of.

Imagine how much Google knows about you, from the way you search, the emails you exchange, the documents you place in their clouds, the blogs you maintain with blogger, your customised news profile, the videos you watch on youtube and the places you have traversed on Google maps. Haven’t we told Google enough about us, that scares us about their intrusion into our privacy circles if ever required?

Change is inevitable

Let us consider adoption of technology as a generation of change and find ways to adapt our lives with these interventions. Privacy is now more of a relative matter where the naïve and innocent are victimised without remedy for protection. We are aware of people whose email accounts have been hacked in causing embarrassment and a permanent haunt for all the resulting exposure of mails and contacts.

It a natural phenomena that the more we network and communicate, either with or without technology, we tend to share our personal details of varying degree. Rethinking privacy, it is now for us draw a new line, one beyond which, privacy violation affects us personally, emotionally or economically. In a digital lifestyle, the electronic trail we leave behind certainly a prime factor to be considered in this direction.

Perhaps in the era where identification and authorisation happen through biometric more naturally and automatically (for example holding a door handle can authenticate and authorise you for entry) then there will be no need to panic about privacy.

This post is meant to be more of thought provoking than to chastise privacy protection measures through products or policies, emphasising on our readiness to taken actions. Your view points are welcome by emails or tweets.