Entrepreneurship, Kosovo, New Media & Technology

Barnraiser.org in Kosovo, Technology Success Story

Barnraiser is the world’s first virtual organisation dedicated to giving young people the tools they need to create a network of digital youth centers.

On 11 June 2004 Kushtrim Xhakli and Tom Calthrop from Barnraiser.org started an tour in Kosovo to introduce to young people the first sociail networking project for them.

For 10 days managed to run workshops with 55 youth in Kosovo coming from youth centers, political parties and education backgrounds, from 55 youth within 10 days we got 250 members from 1232 youth invited and 346 editorial contributions to the Barnraiser Kosovo project.

Most Kosova youth use the Internet for chatting and playing games. They are not aware of the potential to learn throughout the World Wide Web. The need for education in Kosova is vast, enhanced by the large number of disabled victims of war that find it hard to receive a standard education.
The reason we started this project in Kosovo is to provide young people with an Internet based network to move better our education, move us towards economic growth and self sustainability and allow us to participate in the information society.

Using our social networking software youth can invite their friends into their social network. The 55 youth invited a further 1232 youth into their network. Over the test period a further 195 joined, making a total survey group of 250, far outstripping our hopes of 25.

Of the 250 members 211 recorded their age as under 30, mean age 22, youngest aged 15, oldest aged 27. In gender statistics 155 are male (73%) and 56 female (27%). We would have preferred a higher gender balance; however given the male dominance within Internet café society we are comfortable with this result.
For an period of 10 days they did 346 editorial contributions to the project including blogging, creating poll, discussions in groups, making an events and creating their social network etc.

Kosova youth have not historically been given an education that encourages literacy, not has it encouraged exploitative non traditional education. The purpose of Barnraiser Kosova is to discover whether Kosova youth can and will use our software to support their education.

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