Community, Content, Culture, Education, Entrepreneurship
Anastasia Ashman
2024 Progress Report: The Bigger Picture

Wearing my ‘serial founder exploring starting a company’ hat, I advanced my passion project KIP3.

KIP is a seven-year long passion project to tackle the disinformation problem on social media that makes us poor information citizens and polarized neighbors who cannot take collective action in the face of threats like the climate crisis.

2024 Progress Report: The Bigger Picture
Entrepreneurship, Education, Community, Content, Culture, Tools
Anastasia Ashman
Timely Civic Education Project ISO Peers, ...
It’s a Wikipedia + Wordle for Current Affairs to make better citizens and voters…
A comprehensive project that aims to promote trust and transparency in democracy while combating disinformation and corruption.
The deliverables can be used individually or collectively to empower citizens with the knowledge and tools needed to critically evaluate information and build a network of trustworthy sources.
Timely Civic Education Project ISO Peers, Partners, Sponsors

Freedom of the Internet demonstration, TBT

Odd to see this Internet ban memory from my final days as an expat in Istanbul at a time when America is voting to save or kill Net Neutrality tomorrow.

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A photo author, journalist & mid-east politics expert Hugh Pope took of me midway in the march from his Istiklal apartment.

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What Hugh Pope wrote about that day:

Some pictures of demonstrators on Sunday 15 May 2011 calling for reform of Turkey's new conservative internet laws in Istanbul's Istiklal St today - the biggest, loudest and happiest protest I've seen in more than a decade of living in the city center. Some signs were funny too: "Dawkins is a scientist, not a pornographer, you retard!" "Your Internet is being cut according to Islamic regulations" (carried by the two gentlemen in chador-like garb, punning on signs in religious-minded meat shops) "EnSUCKlopedia" (well, roughly), "Censorship for Security is like Sex for Virginity" and "Hands off my porn". 

Unless the government backtracks, a whole new system goes into force on 22 August. Internet providers will be obliged to offer every subscriber four filters of varying severity, and forcing Internet cafes to choose which sites can be accessed in advance. Any attempt to bypass such regulations will be criminal, and all Internet providers will be responsible for enforcement. 

The liberal Radikal newspaper, for instance, compares this coming system to that of China, Iran or Cuba. This appears to be a new turn for Turkey, which has so far been ambivalent on Internet freedom - YouTube was banned for what seemed like years, but even the Prime Minister noted that it was easy to use a proxy server to reach it. But from 22 August even proxies will be banned ... and all this in a country negotiating to join the EU! 

Not only Turks are concerned. Turkey's expat harem's Queen of Social Media, Anastasia Ashman, peeled off the crowds to visit and tweet from our windows overlooking the crowds of tens of thousands (see picture). At the same time, her Internet guru husband Burc managed to get my wi-fi system working properly for the first time in five years. So a big catch-up for me and I hope the demo will turn into a giant step forward for Turkey.

The Berkeley Method Bootcamp: Mentor & Pitch Judge

This was one of the startups I judged at The Berkeley Method Bootcamp, Fall 2016, UC Berkeley's Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology -- and the team our room sent to the finals.

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Featured in a video interview for BMOE, talking about the issues of early stage startups.

Featured in a video interview for BMOE, talking about the issues of early stage startups.

Takeaways from the European Innovation Academy

Enjoyed working with these fine fellow mentors, and the students and administration of EIA! 

Click through to read Nine takeaways from keynotes at the European Innovation Academy in Nice, France this summer. All the presentations are linked there too.

Thanks to Dany Augustinho, an innovation specialist at Amadeus IT Group, for including mine! 

 

Dany writes, "90% of startups fail. Every entrepreneur should bear this in mind. So, if you’ve been playing around with our APIs, and considering launching a startup in the near future, it is time to learn from the experts!

"For the third year in a row, Amadeus has sponsored the European Innovation Academy, a summer school that teaches students from the world’s most prestigious universities – and some selected Amadeus employees – how to innovate and launch a startup. Three weeks is all that it takes for them to find the right idea, draft a business model, prototype their product and learn how to fund their project."

 Here's my keynote, which used Product Hunt as an example: "How Meaningful Community Can Grow Your Revenue"

A few slides...click through to Slideshare to view the full presentation.

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And what a surprise appearance in the keynote of another mentor in the program, Gigi Wang's "Know Your Customer: Customer Persona & Customer Validation"!

 

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