Participant Media is using an online and social media campaign to promote its new film, “No,” about an ad campaign that contributed to the end of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s presidency. The film stars Gael García Bernal as advertising executive Rene Saavedra who spearheads a campaign against Pinochet during a referendum in 1988. The film was released in Chile on August 9 and is set to be released in the U.S. early next year. Amanda Farrand of Participant Media said the social media campaign is meant to mirror that of Saavedra’s: a free speech campaign that empowers people to speak out.… more

There was a really cool profile of a Latina engineer in STEMinist this week, Luz Rivas currently works as an engineering educator at Iridescent. She first became interested in technology in school when she came into contact with a Apple IIe computer. She said that it’s important for children to be informed about STEM and to encourage them to pursue these fields:

It’s important for kids to know about cutting-edge science research. I think kids should be aware that science is not a set of facts and that people are working on answering scientific questions and developing new technologies, sometimes in their own neighborhoods.

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Border Fact Check is a website that provides answers to questions related to the border, providing factual information to back up its answers. A few questions include: Are terrorists crossing the border “from time to time?”, Are migrants routinely abused by Customs and Border Protection agents? and Is Texas unprotected, or just empty? The site is run by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and seems to have gone up earlier this year.… more

The Department of Commerce released a study that shows that, even if women pursue STEM fields, they are more likely to change majors and not end up in those fields. According to USA Today:

That’s encouraging news for people who are concerned about a persistent gender gap in college degrees in science, technology, engineering and math —STEM, for short. The notion that it might have to do with aptitude has long been dismissed. Yet research shows that girls who enjoy — and excel at — math and science in high school are less likely than boys to pursue a college major in those fields.

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The U.S. Census Bureau released an interesting report called “Who’s Hispanic in America?” that includes interesting statistics about Latinos in the U.S. Everything from population projections to age, profession, ethnic subgroup and maps are included. Visualized data in the report include maps and charts that illustrate Latino growth over time, in different counties and states, as well comparative data for different sub-groups. Check it out and download it here.… more

Vimeo, the high quality video sharing site, is now available in Spanish, a move the company said was to attract more U.S. and Latin American Latinos. Spanish is already the second most spoken language on the site, according to a report. According to Hispanic Business:

The Spanish-language users come primarily from countries such as the U.S., Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Colombia. The site attracts more than 70 million unique visitors per month and has almost 12 million registered users, according to Trainor.

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A report from comScore found that Latinos continue to overindex in smartphone adoption compared to other groups. The study also found that Latinos are more likely to convert to customers in response to digital advertising, that movie and music consumption is higher among this group and are more “socially engaged” on the Internet. Among other things, this report shows why allowing for a fair mobile marketplace is of particular importance to Latinos. The report notes:

Hispanics continue to outpace non-Hispanics with the adoption of smartphones, an increase from 43% in 2010 to 57% in 2012 compared to an increase from 36% in 2010 to 46% in 2012 for non-Hispanics.

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The Coalition of The Silence, an advocacy group, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education that black, Latino and disabled students are being shut out of Fairfax County’s prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia. According to The Washington Post:

The complaint alleges that black and Latino students, as well as students with disabilities, are being shut out of Thomas Jefferson, or TJ, long before they apply in eighth grade because of Fairfax County Public Schools’ systematic failure to identify them for gifted-education programs that begin in elementary school… Together, black and Latino students account for about 4 percent of the 480 students admitted to next year’s freshman class at TJ.

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An interesting piece in Politic365 this week highlights a discussion at the “Job Creation and Education: Programmatic Efforts to Increase Broadband Adoption in African American Communities” panel at the 2012 National Urban League Annual Conference. The low down is this: these days, without broadband, you are at a fundamental disadvantage. From the piece:

The panelists underscored that Internet was essential to living a meaningful life in the 21st century. Honig illustrated four main advantages of adopting broadband – having greater access to healthcare (through tele-health technologies), education, job opportunities, and civic engagement.

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An interesting piece in Global Voices Online follows the recent Festival Clic that took place in Havana, Cuba in June. According to the piece, the festival:

was designed to discuss Internet and Society in Cuba, has got several bloggers talking about technology and the role it can play in the country’s future.

For me the key takeaway from über famous Cubana blogger Yoani Sanchez was this:

With material simplicity, the CLICK Festival managed to exceed our expectations. The frank and open debate, uncensored, the great participation by the audience, and the success in pulling off a technological and futuristic event, were some of the major achievements.

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