~ Paul Auster, City of Glass

The Global Journal has released the top one hundred best Non Governmental Organizations in the world with Wikimedia Foundation topping the list for its efforts of coming up with the famous Wikipedia. According to Global Journal the criteria which was used to come up with the top hundred covered areas like:

Innovation
Effectiveness
Impact
Efficiency and value for money
Transparency and Accountability
Sustainability
Strategic and Financial Management
Peer Review

Some of the big organisations ranked in the top ten and operating in Zimbabwe include Oxfam, Care International, International Rescue Committee and Medicine Sans Frontiers. The only African based organisation in the top ten list is a Kenyan organiation called Ushahidi. The organisation specialises in developing free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping. Ushahidi developed a software package, to map incidents of violence and peace efforts from reports submitted via the web and mobile phones during the Kenyan elections in 2007.

Source

Pretty damn cool …. from Flavorwire

How’s this for a clever concept? Inspired by an envelope of foreign stamps that she received from her dad over a decade ago now, New York-based artist Molly Rausch creates paintings that explore the background world that exists outside of their tiny frame. She starts each piece by gluing the stamp to a sheet of paper, and then uses watercolor and gouache to extend the small-scale scenes by freehand; rather than researching her subjects ahead of time, Rausch lets her imagination take her to strange and interesting places. Click through to see what we mean.

US education reformer Horace Mann: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” Jane McAdam Freud smiles. “It doesn’t have to be some big victory,” she says. “Just a little thing.”

I recently had the opportunity to interview Rosemary Siyachitema, the Executive Director of the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe. A few days previously I had seen a headline in Newsday shockingly titled ‘CCZ urges Price Freeze’. Having lived through the pre-dolarisation price controls I couldn’t wait to take Ms Siyachitema to task for being so irresponsible. As it turns out the headline was misleading.

Upenyu: I read an article in Newsday titled CCZ Urges Price Freeze which was an advisory from you about the size of the consumer basket. Zimbabwean still have vivid recollections from price freezing in the past. Is this what you meant to say?

Rosemary Siyachitema: That is not what I was saying at all! I said I saw no reason why prices should increase considering that prices in Zimbabwe are already high. Saying that does not mean that there should be a price freeze. In this environment we see that prices keep increasing yet salaries are not moving at the same pace. I never said anything about price controls; I think there should be some kind of balance in our economy. You can’t keep asking consumers to tighten their belts. My other issue is that what kind of person do we want to create in Zimbabwe? A poor one or somebody who is able to survive? The way we are going we are creating poorer and poorer people. We are not bridging the gap we are creating poverty.

The 24 hour information blackout is a protest against the anti-piracy laws, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act in America.

Part of the story published on its wikinews site Wikipedia says,

The English version of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia will go offline for 24 hours in protest against American anti-piracy laws, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). The blackout will start at midnight EST (05:00 UTC) on Wednesday. The action was confirmed on Monday night with three Wikipedia administrators closing one of the most commented on policy discussions in the history of Wikipedia. According to the Wikipedia page where the issue was debated, 479 users supported a blackout only for users in the United States (with other readers seeing a banner instead), while 591 supported a global blackout.