WITNESS to launch "the Hub"

On November 7, WITNESS, the award-winning human rights group founded in 1992 by musician and activist Peter Gabriel, the Reebok Human Rights Foundation, and Human Rights First, will launch the Hub, "a participatory media Web site for anyone, anywhere in the world to upload, view, share, discuss, and take action on human rights-related media."

Built with open-source software, the Hub will use a range of Web 2.0 tools -- mobile and Web-based video uploads, online video and content syndication, social networking software, peer reviewing and filtering, and tagging -- to enable people around the world to connect with each other and/or take action -- both online and off.

And while it might be a tad premature to toll the bell for the mainstream media, the emergence of so-called digital media networks like the Hub certainly have the look of the future. As WITNESS co-founder and executive director Gillian Caldwell says:

We are facing an uprecedented possibility with the explosion of digital technology and the participatory culture of citizen journalism it has inspired. There has never been such a remarkable opportunity to use visual imagery and communications technologies to create change.

There are two ways to get involved in the project: by directly uploading human rights-related video, audio, images and resources to the new site; or by contributing your programming skills to help build it. To learn more, e-mail the folks at WITNESS.

-- Mitch Nauffts