At the BBC World Service Trust London office today we welcomed an excellent external speaker, on a subject of particular interest for me (and indeed this new blog). Nathalie McDermott from social enterprise start-up On Road Media spoke to staff in London about flexible, cost-effective solutions for facilitating communication between and across marginalised groups and hard-to-reach communities.

Nathalie gave numerous examples of how free software and “web 2.0” technology has enabled marginalised groups to engage and report on their own communities and culture. Free networking sites such as Ning and Facebook and content-sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr run alongside blog platforms (this blog is hosted on wordpress) that empower the kind of “citizen journalism” and individual reporting and commentary that traditional news gatekeepers have struggled to handle. She spoke of the unique opportunity of these tools to give people their own voice, generate powerful broadcast output, and reinforce and support community cohesion.

Two of Nathalie’s projects include a private social network for young gypsies and travellers Savvy Chavvy, and a knowledge-sharing network between UK and Ugandan mental health professionals, Heartsounds. She also has experience training journalists in Sudan, introducing them to free software solutions such as the open source audio editing package Audacity.

The reference to her work in Africa prompted discussion of an issue that was on many people’s minds; namely the limited and often poor quality access to the internet in many parts of the developing world, especially for rural and marginalised communities. Nathalie responded that in fact blogs and social networks many actually be the optimum online solution for communication and media delivery in developing countries as they are “lighter” than image-heavy and very large traditional news sites. She also noted the use of tools such as RSS (really simple syndication) in developing countries, meaning that users can sign up to a “feed” from their favourite websites and blogs, without the need to load up heavy homepages and search through large sites for relevant material.

The discussion opened up an exciting range of possibilities in relation to the current work of the BBC World Service Trust, in an area that is only set to grow as commercial organisations seek to engage “emerging markets” and economies – something that is already being seen in mobile telephony growth in developing countries.

A different kind of site – and a particularly good example of the use of web 2.0 for civic empowerment – is that of the mySociety model of civic engagement websites, which promote good governance and accountability among elected representatives. TheyWorkForYou and FixMyStreet are two good UK examples. There are exciting opportunities for adapting this kind of model as part of governance and accountability projects run by the BBCWST around the world, combined with support for better social affairs and political reporting.

These are issues that we are just beginning to think about at the BBC World Service Trust, but that we should continue to talk about and develop ideas on, to exploit the best of advances in internet technology and communication practices to promote development and reduce poverty.