America.gov - Engaging the world

Democracy Video Challenge Winners Discuss Their Films

Filmmakers from around the world were asked to create a three-minute video completeing the phrase, "Democracy is …" More than 900 entries from 95 countries were received. The winners will discuss their work and answer your questions about film and democracy.

These winning filmmakers, representing every region of the world, were selected by popular vote on YouTube. In September, they will visit Washington, New York and Los Angeles to meet with leaders in government and the entertainment industry. From July 24 to August 28, they will discuss their films in CO.NX webchats:

• Aissa Penafiel of the Philippines chatted on July 24. Transcript here.

• Anna Israel of Brazil chatted on July 31. Transcript here.

• Tsering Choden of Nepal chatted August 7. Transcript here.

• Lukasz Szozda of Poland chatted August 14. Transcript here.

• Chansa Tembo of Zambia chatted August 21. Transcript here.

• Rodin Hamidi of the United Arab Emirates will chat August 28 at 8 a.m. EDT (12:00 GMT).

If you would like to participate in these webchats, please go to https://statedept.connectsolutions.com/americagov. No registration is needed. Simply choose "Enter as a Guest," type in your preferred screen name, and join the discussion. We accept questions and comments in advance of, and at any time during, the program.

40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Mission to the Moon

July 20 marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Astronaut Marsha Ivins commemorates this event.

A veteran of five space flights (STS-32 in 1990, STS-46 in 1992, STS-62 in 1994, STS-81 in 1997 and STS-98 in 2001), Marsha Ivins has logged more than 1,318 hours in space. She is currently assigned to the Astronaut Office as the head of the Constellation Branch. She also supports the Space Station/Shuttle Branches for crew equipment, habitability and stowage and launch support.

La corruption et l'Afrique

La communauté internationale ne saurait fermer les yeux sur les méfaits de la corruption, ce fléau qui sabote les projets de développement, sape la confiance dans les institutions démocratiques et ouvre la voie aux criminels et aux terroristes transnationaux.

La corruption revêt de nombreux aspects. À eux seuls, les pots-de-vin se montent, selon la Banque mondiale, à environ mille milliards de dollars annuellement dans le monde : ils étouffent le développement socio-économique, affaiblissent les institutions et minent la règle du droit.

Le 21 juillet à 13 heures GMT (9 h à l'heure de Washington), branchez-vous sur notre site http://statedept.connectsolutions.com/french où le département d'État a invité un de ses hauts membres, Monsieur Dan Whitman, à répondre à vos questions sur la corruption en Afrique. Il n'est pas nécessaire de vous y inscrire à l'avance. Choisissez l'option « Entrer en tant qu'invité » , identifiez-vous selon le nom d'Internet de votre choix et joignez-vous au débat.

Ancien interprète français-anglais à la pige pour les Services linguistiques du département d'État, M. Whitman a escorté des Africains de 1969 à 1984, dans le cadre de plus de 40 tournées aux États-Unis. Boursier Fulbright, il a enseigné l'anglais en 1980-1981 à Brazzaville (université Marien Ngouabi). Pendant cette période, il a réalisé un recueil de contes congolais récents, avec leur traduction. Il a ensuite travaillé pour l'entreprise Delphi Research Associates, où il a planifié des itinéraires aux États-Unis pour des visiteurs africains. Pendant les années 1970, il a enseigné le français à l'Académie Thayer de Braintree (Massachusetts) ainsi qu'à l'université de Boston et à l'université Brown. Après avoir rejoint en 1985 l'Agence d'information des États-Unis (USIA), il a été responsable de l'information à Copenhague et à Madrid avant d'accéder au poste de coordonnateur des programmes culturels du bureau Afrique de l'USIA en 1993-1994. En 1994-1995, il a été affecté au Service d'information des États-Unis (USIS) à Prétoria en qualité de chargé des programmes de développement pendant le mandat de Nelson Mandela, et de superviseur des programmes d'échanges financés par l'USAID. Il a ensuite été chargé d'affaires publiques à Port-au-Prince en 1999-2001, puis affecté au Bureau européen du département d'État en tant que responsable des programmes et de la coordination. Après avoir travaillé comme examinateur au sein du Conseil d'examen, il est devenu directeur adjoint par intérim au Service des affaires publiques et de la diplomatie publique (AF/PDPA) au sein du Bureau Afrique. Chargé d'affaires publiques à Yaoundé de 2005 à 2006, il occupe actuellement le poste de directeur adjoint d'AF/PDPA. Il est l'auteur d'articles sur la culture africaine et européenne et d'un livre sur la situation politique en Haïti de 1999 à 2001.

Corrupção e África

Juntem-se ao alto funcionário do Departamento de Estado Greg Garland para uma conversa em directo a 5 de Agosto.

O Sr. Garland é Coordenador de Média e Sensibilização para o Bureau de Assuntos Africanos do Departamento de Estado. Sendo diplomata de carreira, desempenhou funções em Moçambique, Angola, México e Polónia bem como na Comissão de Relações Internacionais em Jacksonville, Florida. Licenciou-se na Duke University e possui um M.A. da University of North Carolina e J.D. da California Western School of Law.

Esta conversa via internet terá lugar em http://statedept.connectsolutions.com/portuguese. Não é preciso fazer o registo. Escolha simplesmente “Entrar como Convidado”, escreva o seu nome preferido e junte-se ao debate.

Citizen Journalism

This interactive session is about the role of online tools in journalism, and how these tools and "citizen" journalism are rapidly changing the face of news coverage and the dissemination of information. With the extensive use of Twitter in the recent Iranian opposition protests, and the fact that millions of people worldwide learned about Michael Jackson's death not through the traditional channels, but through online and cell interactions (Google's e-mail thought it was under attack!), clearly this form of direct people-to-people communication is changing the face of journalism and news flow and coverage, in some ways very positively, in other ways not so positively (i.e., it threatens to erode traditional ethics rules and practices and the reliability of the information being disseminated). On July 29, we will discuss these issues. We look forward to your questions!

David Gurien is managing editor and news writer/producer for KTVU Channel 2 News, the leading television and online news organization in the San Francisco Bay area. He works directly with reporters, program producers, anchors (newsreaders), video editors, Web editors and writers to ensure the quality and completeness of KTVU’s newscasts and Web site. He also participates in the organization’s daily editorial process of choosing what stories to cover and how to cover them. Gurien also has produced professional video, including news, sports, technology and other subjects on four continents for broadcast and business clients, and has traveled to more than 20 countries and 44 U.S. states.

In addition, Gurien has taught journalism in diverse venues, including college classes, seminars and specialized training, including creating a model newscast and training journalists in Turkmenistan in 2008 under a State Department program. With more than 25 years in journalism, including television, radio, print and online, he has been witness to and has a particularly strong professional interest in how, at a rapidly accelerating pace, emerging technologies are changing the practices of global journalism.

Sustainable Forestry and Climate Change

Join forest owner, carbon credit producer and sustainable forestry advocate John Matel for a live chat on August 12.

John Matel is a forest owner who is working to put sustainable forestry into practice on his land in the U.S. state of Virginia. In addition, as communications director for the Virginia Forestry Association Tree Farm Program, he helps foster good forestry stewardship on private lands in Virginia and beyond. Drawing on his experience with such things as the sale of carbon credits, the environmental value chain, prescribed burning and sustainable forestry, he will be available to answer your questions in a live webchat. To learn more, visit his Web page at http://johnsonmatel.com/blog1/forestryecology.

If you would like to participate in this webchat, please go to https://statedept.connectsolutions.com/conxgreen. No registration is needed. Simply choose "Enter as a Guest," type in your preferred screen name, and join the discussion. We accept questions and comments in advance of, and at any time during, the program.

Entrepreneurship in the Americas

Think you are an entrepreneur? Join CO.NX for a conversation about entrepreneurship with Marsha McLean. McLean will also discuss an upcoming State Department–sponsored women's entrepreneurship conference scheduled for this fall.

Owner of her own consulting firm, Marsha McLean has worked in the field of organizational change and development for more than 30 years. She currently serves as a Franklin Fellow in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. See her full bio here: http://careers.state.gov/FF/bio/mclean_bio.html.

Q & A on U.S.-China Economic Relations

When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited China in February, she said, “It is essential that the United States and China have a positive, cooperative relationship.” When U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner visited China in May, he said, “China and the United States individually, and together, are so important in the global economy and financial system that what we do has a direct impact on the stability and strength of the international economic system.” He also told the Chinese, "The effectiveness of U.S. policies will depend in part on China's, and the effectiveness of yours on ours."

Why is this economic relationship so important? U.S. State Department official Shawn Flatt will give a short presentation on U.S.-China economic relations and answer your questions about the relationship in a CO.NX webchat.

Shawn Flatt is the acting economic chief in the State Department's Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs. He joined the department in 1995, and before serving on the China desk, he was deputy economic counselor/petroleum attaché in Venezuela, 2005–2008; economic officer (information technology and intellectual property rights) in Japan, 2002–2005; assistant financial attaché in Mexico, 1997–2000; and vice consul/economic officer in the Dominican Republic, 1995–1997. He holds an LLM in European community law from Edinburgh University, a J.D. from Duke University School of Law and a B.S. in finance from the University of Illinois. Before joining the State Department, he worked briefly as a bank examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

If you would like to participate in this webchat, please go to http://statedept.connectsolutions.com/china. No registration is needed. Simply choose "Enter as a Guest," type in your preferred screen name, and join the discussion. We accept questions and comments in advance of, and at any time during, the program.

Renewable Energy

This program will focus on renewable energy — environmentally friendly energy, simple solar solutions, and achieving energy independence through solar, wind, biomass or hydropower. Our guest will be Scott Sklar.

Scott Sklar is founder and president of The Stella Group, Ltd., a strategic marketing and policy firm for clean distributed energy companies. These companies deal with advanced batteries and controls, energy efficiency, fuel cells, heat engines, minigeneration (natural gas), microhydropower, modular biomass, photovoltaics, small wind, and solar thermal (including daylighting, water heating, industrial preheat, building air-conditioning, and electric power generation). The Stella Group, Ltd. blends distributed energy technologies and aggregates financing (including leasing), with a focus on system standardization.

Sklar lives in a solar home in Arlington, Virginia, and has solar on both his Virginia and Washington offices. He has co-authored two books, A Consumer Guide to Solar Energy, which has been re-released for its third printing, and Forbidden Fuel: Power Alcohol in the Twentieth Century. His contributions to the Q & A column appear on the largest renewable energy Web portal, "http://www.RenewableEnergyWorld.com". He serves on numerous boards and committees, and in 2007 he was appointed to the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

If you would like to participate in this webcast, please go to "http://www.cpcwebcast.com/state". No registration is needed. Type in your preferred screen name,and join the discussion.

40th Anniversary of Apollo Moon Landing

July 20 marked the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. To commemorate this historic milestone, join CO.NX for a Q & A chat session with astronaut Daniel Tani.

Daniel M. Tani is a veteran of two space flights and served more than four months aboard the International Space Station. He has logged more than 131 days in space and more than 39 hours in six extravehicular activities (spacewalks). He was first selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1996, qualifying for flight assignment as a mission specialist in 1998.

Media and Democracy Q & A

Duke University professor Ken Rogerson, whose areas of expertise include media and communications and Internet politics and policy, will answer your questions on the role of the media in a democratic society.

Kenneth Rogerson is the director of undergraduate studies for Duke University’s Department of Public Policy and a lecturer in the Sanford Institute of Public Policy. He is also the managing director of the Policy Journalism and Media Studies Certificate program. From 1998 to 2007 he was the research director for the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy. His recent publications include articles on the use of the Internet in political advocacy and social movements and privacy and the Internet and a historical comparison of the information revolution with the industrial revolution. One of his articles, “Talking Past Each Other: International Organization Internet Policy in the Developing World,” published in International Politics, was recognized as Best Article by the Information Technology and Politics (ITP) section of the American Political Science Association (APSA).

Rogerson is actively involved professionally, most recently as the president of APSA’s ITP section. He also has served on an advisory board for the state of North Carolina's Rural Internet Access Authority. He was a reporter for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Utah, and currently teaches a course on technology policy, news writing and reporting and other media issues. He received his Ph.D. in 2000 from the University of South Carolina, where his research focused on international relations, international communications and media policy issues.

Librarians at the World Information Congress 2009

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) will hold its annual World Library and Information Congress, the 75th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, from August 23 to August 29 in Milan, Italy. Leaders in the field of library and information sciences from across the globe will gather at the conference, including representatives from U.S. Embassy libraries.

Join U.S. Embassy Rome and CO.NX as we host a series of video webchats in conjunction with the IFLA conference. From August 23 to August 25, leading American librarians will discuss issues of importance to the library and information sciences community and take questions related to the field via live video webchats.

The schedule of upcoming chats and topics is as follows:

• Michael Stephens, assistant professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in Illinois, discussing “Library 2.0 and Social Networking Technologies” on August 23, 14:30 GMT (10:30 a.m. EDT)

• Josie Parker, director of the Ann Arbor District Library in Michigan, discussing “Innovative Public Library Programs” on August 24, 10:00 GMT (6 a.m. EDT)

• Meaghan O’Connor, program coordinator at IREX (the International Research and Exchanges Board, a nonprofit organization), discussing “Sister Libraries” on August 24, 14:00 GMT (10 a.m. EDT)

• Erich Kesse, past director of the Digital Library Center at the University of Florida, discussing “International and Collaborative Digital Library Projects” on August 25, 10:00 GMT (6 a.m. EDT)

• María Gentle, youth services librarian for the Arlington Public Library in Virginia, discussing “Youth Services/Teen Services and Outreach” on August 25, 12:00 GMT (8 a.m. EDT)

• Karen Coombs, head of Web services at the University of Houston in Texas, discussing “Making the Most of Your Library’s Internet Presence” on August 25, 14:00 GMT (10 a.m. EDT)

The general public is invited to participate in these webchats. To do so, please go to http://statedept.connectsolutions.com/ifla. No registration is needed. Simply choose "Enter as a Guest," type in your preferred screen name, and join the discussion. We accept questions and comments in advance of, and at any time during, the program.

Fuel-Efficient and Alternative Cars

Improving the fuel-efficiency of conventional vehicles and replacing many of them with gasoline-electric hybrids, flexible-fuel cars and plug-in electric autos carries the promise of strengthening energy security and slowing global warming. But there are many questions related to advanced vehicle technologies: What will bring the greatest fuel savings fastest — improvements in conventional engines or advances in fleet electrification? Will hydrogen be the silver bullet? Will technologies alone solve our energy and climate problems?

This chat will discuss automotive technologies that can help reduce the consumption of petroleum in the transportation sector as well as the future of that sector. Our guest will be Steve Plotkin.

Steven Plotkin is a staff scientist with the Argonne National Laboratory’s Center for Transportation Research, specializing in analysis of transportation energy efficiency. He has worked extensively on automobile fuel economy technology and policy as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy and was a consultant to the National Research Council’s study on the Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. He was a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2007: Mitigation of Climate Change. He was for 17 years a senior analyst and senior associate with the Energy Program of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), and prior to that he was an environmental engineer with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Plotkin has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Columbia University and a master's degree in aerospace engineering from Cornell University. He is the 2005 recipient of the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Barry D. McNutt Award for Excellence in Automotive Policy Analysis.

If you would like to participate in this webchat, please go to https://statedept.connectsolutions.com/conxgreen. No registration is needed. Simply choose "Enter as a Guest," type in your preferred screen name, and join the discussion. We accept questions and comments in advance of, and at any time during, the program.

Exchange Opportunities for Students in the Americas

This will be a lively discussion on professional and academic exchange and study opportunities in the United States. The focus will be on new directions and on ways that students in North and South America can take advantage of these programs. We will give special attention to popular exchange programs such as the Fulbright, Humphrey and Gilman scholarships, as well as programs for undergraduate and high school study in America. Questions on English language programs, academic advising and the visa process are also welcome. Guest presenter Alina Romanowski is the deputy assistant secretary of state for academic programs.

Alina L. Romanowski was appointed in May 2009 as deputy assistant secretary for academic programs in the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, where she oversees all academic programs, including the Fulbright Program, the Humphrey Program, Gilman Scholarships, English Language Programs and international marketing of American education resources and advising. She received a bachelor's degree in history in 1977 and a master's degree in international relations, with a concentration on the Middle East, in 1980 from the University of Chicago. She speaks French and has studied Arabic and Hebrew.

If you would like to participate in this webchat, please go to https://statedept.connectsolutions.com/americas/. No registration is needed. Simply choose "Enter as a Guest," type in your preferred screen name, and join the discussion. We accept questions and comments in advance of, and at any time during, the program.