For most of the past 2 years, the Sentinel Project has been coordinated by Christopher Tuckwood and myself, Taneem Talukdar. In that time the project has grown from 2 people with an idea to an organization with a core team of over 70 smart, dedicated volunteers and a larger associated community of occasional and past volunteers, supporters and allies.
My original driving passion for the Sentinel Project was in being able to explore interesting ways in using technology to effect social change. In the last 10 years we suddenly live in a world of Facebook, Youtube, 7 billion cellphones and so much more. To save the world these days, one must have a social media strategy. At the Sentinel Project we are finding very real and tangible benefits to a focus on ICTs, and our basic operational model of a research department with an attached IT shop appears to hold a lot of promise.
Now that the team has reached a certain size and stability, I will be returning to that core technology work. Starting in October 2011, I will be stepping down from the Co-Executive Director role and will return to our ICT team. We have some big plans to formalize several open source projects this year, and I am excited about working on getting that up and running – designing, writing code, organizing hackathons and recruiting volunteer hackers. Chris will continue on as the Executive Director.
As always, if you are interested in joining our team, ICT or otherwise, check out what we do and then get in touch!
Also, a friend and fellow volunteer Serge has pledged to raise $2000 for the Sentinel Project as his birthday wish. Please check out his photo essay from Cambodia and support him if you can: http://thesentinelproject.org/sergewish/
Taneem Talukdar
Co-Founder