Palestinian conference for social media. It will be held over a period of 3 days in the city of Ramallah on 4th to 6th December 2011 at the Ramallah Cultural Palace.

This is the first-ever Palestinian conference for social media. It will be held over a period of 3 days in the city of Ramallah on 4^th to 6^th December 2011 at the Ramallah Cultural Palace. The event will target and be open to Palestinian social media activists, journalists, media professionals, media outlet managers and representatives, academics, students, civil society representatives, ICT entrepreneurs, and business community members from across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Khaled Abu Aker, AMIN’s Executive Director, strongly believes in the significance of this conference and the exceptional outcomes that can be drawn out of such a high-scale event.

“The goal of the conference is to bring Palestinian social media activists from all across Palestine together in order to increase the efforts and unite the forces for promoting the culture of social media in Palestine and increase awareness on the crucial role social media can have in Palestine – as a tool for positive change within the Palestinian society. This conference is an attempt to promote self expression and encourage Palestinians, particularly marginalized groups with marginalized voices, to express themselves and speak their minds and to use social media tools to convey their messages to raise their voices.”

About Conference

Therefore, the goal of the conference is to gather Palestinians from various sectors together for the first time in one location to start a dialogue about the Palestinian social media landscape and the potentially important role it can play in building and strengthening Palestinian civil society, economic, and educational competitiveness. The conference will assist Palestinian social media practitioners, universities, journalists, and private sector representatives to organize and expand their networks, increase their knowledge, understanding, and use of new and innovative tools and technologies to benefit their efforts, get products to markets, and learn how to “tell their stories” more effectively. The conference will include presentations; panel discussions; work groups; strategy development, etc.
Overall, the conference intends to create a culture of social media within the Palestinian society. It will be a unique and first-ever opportunity for social media practitioners with past initiatives and campaigns to get to know each other, in order to unite their work and increase the effect.
A wide range of topics will be highlighted, with particular focus on 4 main areas. These include the use of social media for:

1. Advocacy
2. Education
3. Business
4. Journalism
5. Technology

Other aspects will also be discussed including citizen journalism, new social media tools and skills, utilizing social media to make a change, using technology to support activism, granting social media activists support and protection, ICT infrastructure, networking and expanding existing networks, balancing the personal life with the social media profile, amplifying messages and reaching out to a larger audience through social media networks, economic innovation, effective story-telling for the internet, etc.
Several local and international keynote speakers and panel participants will participate in the conference in order to lead conference panels. Video Conference will be utilized to link between conference participants from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip throughout the conference. Currently, this is the only mean of communication available due to the siege imposed on Gaza and the lack of access of movement between the two parts of the Palestinian Territories. Part of the panel sessions will be lead by participants from Gaza broadcasted to the West Bank via video conference.
Live streaming of the entire conference sessions will grant the Palestinian audience from various areas around the West Bank and the Gaza Strip regions, that are unable to be physically present at the conference, an opportunity to “attend”, benefit, and take part in the conference. This feature is particularly aimed at large groups of people, such as universities, who will be encouraged to follow the conference activities and actually interact and participate in the conference.
In addition to the series of panel sessions and discussions, there will be networking time slots, during which participants are granted opportunity to communicate and get to know each other to discuss networking methods and collaboration opportunities.