On September 21st, right in the midst of the UN MDG Summit, the UN Foundation, Mashable and the 92Y put together a really incredible social media summit that allowed journalists, bloggers and activists the opportunity to engage in conversations around the MDG Summit and following General Assembly meeting which is usually reserved to high profile personalities and world leaders.
I was asked to sit on a panel called "Reel Impact: The Power of Film to Change Lives" with FilmAid International's Founder and CEO, Caroline Baron. In all the hoopla of the MDGs, I felt it was important to ask critical questions about the role of filmmakers - particularly Western filmmakers - in telling development stories.
The panel was written up and posted on the front page of Mashable.com - which is huge considering its reach and impact. Tom Cruise even picked up and tweeted about it. I was thankful as it gave me an opportunity to introduce two of my projects - NOT YET RAIN, my film on unsafe abortions in Ethiopia and MDGFive.com which is a new media initiative uniting artists and activists for maternal health.
You can view the article here and watch the video of the panel above.
