Tweet Week - Syria

Week 6: Beshr, Syrian blogger (Since 2009) & a photographer

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 00:20:23 +0300

This week’s (27 July -> 3 August) curator is Beshr, a Syrian blogger (Since 2009) & a photographer. Tweets under: @beshroffline.

(If you would like to nominate someone to become the curator for TweetWeekSyria, or if you’d like to nominate yourself, please visit: http://tweetweeksyria.tumblr.com/nominate)

Week 5: Woroud, an Architecture graduate living in Damascus

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 12:23:55 +0300

This week’s (20 July -> 27 July) curator is Woroud, an Architecture graduate and a Social Media addict that believes in Art & Science

(If you would like to nominate someone to become the curator for TweetWeekSyria, or if you’d like to nominate yourself, please visit: http://tweetweeksyria.tumblr.com/nominate)

Week 4: Ouais, CS Student living in Damascus

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:18:19 +0300

This week’s (22 June -> 28 June) curator is Ouais, a Computer Science student living in Damascus.

A little bit about Ouais in his own words:

Let’s see, there isn’t much, almost done studying CS, wrote a short book about computers for children, relatively liberal, amateur guitar playing skills.

I develop experimental AI software, have been doing so for the past two years. I’ve been trying to break into a couple of new worlds for the past while, namely industry and research. Things are beginning to take shape, it’s too early to judge though.

(If you would like to nominate someone to become the curator for TweetWeekSyria, or if you’d like to nominate yourself, please visit: http://tweetweeksyria.tumblr.com/nominate)

Week 3: Anas Qtiesh, Program Manager at @meedan, Google Map Maker Advocate, Android blogger at @ardroid

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 23:02:03 +0300

This week’s (14 June -> 20 June) curator is Anas (@anasqtiesh on Twitter). Anas is a Syrian human rights and anti-censorship activist and a blogger currently based in San Francisco. He’s also a Program Manager at Meedan and has worked as a freelance translator and a research assistant at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. He’s a Google Map Maker Advocate and Regional Expert Reviewer, Global Voices Online contributor, and a tech enthusiast. He has written for Ardroid.com, an Arabic tech blog focused on everything Android.

(If you would like to nominate someone to become the curator for TweetWeekSyria, or if you’d like to nominate yourself, please visit: http://tweetweeksyria.tumblr.com/nominate)

Week 2: Ahmad, Information Technology Student, Blogger and Activist who was was forced to leave Syria

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 21:16:31 +0300

This week’s (8 June -> 14 June) curator is Ahmad (@ahmadabou on Twitter), a 22 years old student, blogger and activist from Jarablous (north of Aleppo). He was forced to leave Syria to avoid being arrested. His blog: ahmadalabou.wordpress.com/.

(If you would like to nominate someone to become the curator for TweetWeekSyria, or if you’d like to nominate yourself, please visit: http://tweetweeksyria.tumblr.com/nominate)

Week 1: Leila Nachawati, Spanish-Syrian human rights activist and communication strategist.

Thu, 31 May 2012 08:40:00 +0300

Please join me in welcoming Leila Nachawati who will be the curator for the first week (1 June -> 7 June) of this project.

Leila (@leila_na on Twitter) is a Spanish-Syrian human rights activist and communication strategist. She teaches at Carlos III University in Madrid and contributes to several media outlets. Her blog: leilanachawati.com.

Leila wrote a blog post on her blog explaining a little bit about herself and what she’ll be tweeting about in her week:

After more than a year since the beginning of the Syrian uprising, my personal Twitter account has become mainly devoted to news coming from Syria, where there hasn´t been a single day without a story of tragic death and a story of inspiring courage.

I lived in Damascus in the 80s. I have only returned for vacations since then, but I haven´t forgotten how I went to school dressed in the military uniform children used to wear until very recently. I haven´t forgotten the chants we repeated to honor the leader whom we were taught to view as immortal. I haven´t forgotten the silence and the whispering of adults when children where around. And I will not forget the first time I wrote about Syria, after years writing about everything else and carefully avoiding my father´s country. My country, too. I still have a hard time understanding where Syrians found the courage to break a wall of fear and silence that it took decades to build. My admiration for these people does not fit in a million tweets.

This week the @tweetweeksyria account will be tweeting in Arabic, English and Spanish, probably retweeting in some other (Romanic) languages. Please helps us spread the word about Syrian news so that we can keep attracting more people to the Syrian struggle, which is about freedom, justice and dignity, universal values that we should all defend together. I hope we will soon get to tweet these three words: “Syria is free”.

Meanwhile, here´s the first tweet I will be publishing from the TweetWeekSyria account in a few hours:

“We will never forget you, Bassel. #Syria #FreeSyria”

(If you would like to nominate someone to become the curator for TweetWeekSyria, or if you’d like to nominate yourself, please visit: http://tweetweeksyria.tumblr.com/nominate)

Syrians: #RotationCuration and Why You Should Get Involved!

Fri, 04 May 2012 23:52:00 +0300

#RotationCuration is not just a model the TweetWeekSyria is based on, it’s a ground-breaking movement in the world of social media specifically and social change in general.

Why Social Media?

Social media has given us a great new way of communicating with each other and is continuously allowing us to form powerful networks that can be harnessed in different ways for the benefit of humanity.

James Surowiecki, journalist and staff writer at The New Yorker, argued in his TED talk titled “The Turning Point for Social Media” that people, acting in mass, could be smarter than we think. James is also the author of The Wisdom of Crowds, which proposes that in some circumstances, large groups exhibit more intelligence than smaller, more elite groups.

Why #RotationCuration?

RotationCuration gives a platform, on social media, for different people (somewhat average) to speak their minds. No matter what the cause or the focus, #RotationCuration has proved itself as a movement and different adaptations of this model started to emerge.

A project started by the Swedish Institute, called Curators of Sweden, was the starting point. The project hands over the official country’s account on Twitter (@Sweden) to be managed by a new Swede every week.

In an age of mass communication and increasing globalization, a country depends largely on how it is perceived abroad. Political objectives, trade, investments, visitors, exchange of talent and creativity are all heavily dependent on the view of the outside world. Sweden’s development and future prosperity depend on strong relations with the outside world and a more active exchange with other countries in many areas. This is only possible, if more people are familiar with Sweden and become interested in the country and what it has to offer. [*]

Other projects had different aspirations. @TweetWeekUSA, an unofficial account and an adaptation of the #RotationCuration Model defines its purpose as:

… to afford US citizens and residents the opportunity to exchange their perspectives and opinions and to provide a forum where other citizens of Planet Earth may engage them as well. [*]

Why TweetWeekSyria?

#RotationCuration is a very democratic experience at its heart. There might be many reasons why such a program is important to Syrians and Syria in general, but the most important one of them is that since Syrians are at the verge of drastic political and social change, we believe that offering a platform to which many people pay attention (Syrian and global citizens) and many Syrians can use to cast their voices and speak their ideas will hopefully be of tremendous value, through social media channels that are becoming mainstream.

If you’re Syrian and have anything that you’d like to say, or know of anyone who’s ideas you want to be heard, click on Nominate a Curator and submit a nominee.

Welcome to TweetWeek Syria!

Tue, 01 May 2012 20:00:00 +0300

Thank you for visiting Tweet Week Syria!

TweetWeek Syria is a localization of the Swedish Curators of Sweden and TweetWeekUSA projects and the concept behind it is based on the #RotationCuration model. You can read more about it on Wikipedia.

Different curators will have full control over the TweetWeekSyria account on Twitter every week, allowing them to share their visions, perspectives or ideas to mass audience using the Twitter platform.

Similar to the TweetWeekUSA project, TweetWeekSyria is not an official account for any association and is in no way related to any organization, ideology or religion. The sole purpose of this project is to provide a wide platform for Syrians around the world to share their thoughts and express their opinions without any censorship.

The project will kickstart on the 1st of June 2012 and the account on Twitter will begin to be managed by someone who is yet to be selected using a public voting platform. Voting will begin on May 29th and will be open for three days. If you’d like to nominate yourself or someone to take control of the account for the first week, please click here.