This page features panels at SXSW Interactive 2013 that will be presented within the BiT House at the Hilton-Garden Inn.
Additionally - this page includes panels that will take place outside of the BiT House that self-selected BiT as a tag, or have panelists or subject matter that we think is of particular interest to blacks in tech. If you would like to have a panel included on this page, please email the SXSW schedule page url to us at info@wearebit.com.
Three million girls a year in Africa alone are at risk of female genital cutting (FGC) and 140 million women worldwide live with the harmful consequences of this human rights violation. FGC is a social norm, and it is changing at the grassroots where communities are abandoning thanks to human rights based community empowerment. Across West Africa the message is spreading from person to person, village to village, and inspiring people elsewhere, too. Around the world a movement is growing with individuals, organisations and communities pushing for an end to the practice and we are harnessing this online. Foot binding ended in China in less than 20 years at the turn of the 19th-20th century; FGC could go the same way and we know that the web, social media, new mobile technology all have a part to play. Born out of success on the YouTube Davos Debates in 2010, Orchid Project believes an end to FGC is possible, and that by building an online movement, we will see this within a lifetime.
