I’d like to ask a personal question. So lean in. Closer. How hard is your underwear working?

While you’re thinking that over, I would love to introduce you to Gaurav Mishra, the Yahoo! Human Rights Fellow in International Values, Communications, Technology and Global Internet at Georgetown University.

As the Yahoo! Human Rights Fellow, Gaurav leads research on social media and mobile use in India and China and teaches a graduate course on “Social Media in Business, Development and Government.” Gaurav is on sabbatical from India’s Tata Motors, where he is Assistant General Manager with a focus on digital marketing. He also writes Gauravonomics, a popular blog on how social media and mobile technologies are changing media, business, development and government, particularly in emerging economies.

Gaurav recently came to campus to speak about his research. Some highlights:

• Even where Internet content is controlled, creative people find ways to communicate. In China, Internet users resort to images and code words to elude censorship. For example, “harmonized” was a euphemism for “my blog got censored.” When the term was banned, intrepid writers wrote about “river crab,” which sounds similar to harmonious in Mandarin. Later the meme became photos of a naked man doing pushups.
• The Internet can be a powerful tool to support free expression and social change. In India, four young women used the Internet to launch the “Pink Chaddi Campaign,” a peaceful protest against violent conservatives’ plans to disrupt Valentine’s Day by assaulting “pub-going, loose and forward” women. The campaign called for women to shame the would-be perpetrators by sending pink panties to their homes and offices. The overwhelming response resulted in more than 270 blog links; a Facebook group with more than 48,000 members, 350 discussion topics and more than 6,750 wall posts; and hundreds of pink panties sent. The campaign brought worldwide attention to the issue, mobilized thousands of young women, and the group threatening the violent action was preventively detained on Valentine’s Day.

Gaurav’s talk was particularly timely, as Yahoo! continues to explore how we promote free expression for our users around the world. Yahoo!’s Business & Human Rights Program will be hosting a Business & Human Rights Summit in Sunnyvale on May 5 (space is limited; RSVP required). The Summit will focus on how technology and the Internet facilitate freedom of expression, with a focus upon innovative approaches to addressing government challenges. Our keynote speaker is Ory Okolloh, the Exective Director of Ushahidi, the crowdsourcing platform for crisis situations developed in Kenya and used in the Congo, Gaza and the 2009 elections in India. We’ll have panels about citizen and cyber journalism (featuring journalists/bloggers from around the world) and about the Global Network Initiative, a global effort co-founded by Yahoo! to address threats to privacy and free expression in the Internet, communications and technology sector.

So… now that you know that even a pair of underwear can be a powerful tool for social change, what’s your big idea?

Here’s my interview with Gaurav from his recent visit:

Ebele Okobi-Harris
Director, Yahoo! Business & Human Rights