Kara Andrade is an Ashoka fellow based in Guatemala, where she runs HablaGuate, a citizen journalism website initially funded by the U.S. State Department. She is Guatemala-American and holds a Master's in Journalism from University of California at Berkeley and has ten years of experience in nonprofit development, public health and community organizing.

Miguel Cap is the coordinator of youth projects at Asociación Renacimiento.

Julio Chinchilla coordinador de MiMensaje basado en Mazatenango. 

Motion Graphic Dessigner y Developer, estudiante de la carrera de Ingeniería en Sistemas en la Universidad Mariano Gálvez, con 9 años de experiencia en medios de televisión y producción de video, actualmente fundador del Proyecto Mi Mensaje, en busca de nuevas tecnologías y medios alternativos, que permitan desarrollar creatividad e interactividad con los usuarios. Se especializa en el mundo multimedia.

Brad Eller is a graphic designer with five years of agency experience, a BFA in sculpture and quick hands from years of DJ’ing. He designs smart solutions for intelligent businesses. He partners with advertising agencies, creative professionals and businesses of all sizes in need of inspired web and print solutions with a solid creative strategy behind them.

Julio C. González is the coordinator, trainer and administrator for Asociación ARGOS, Guatemala.

Emma Hulse graduated from Columbia University magna cum laude with honors in History. She was a 2009-2010 Fulbright Fellow in Guatemala, focusing on bilingual education in rural villages.

Emily Jacobi is the Executive Director & Founder of Digital Democracy. She has worked on media, youth development and research projects in Latin America, West Africa, Southeast Asia and the U.S. Emily began her career as a youth journalist working to highlight young people's voices in professional media. At the age of 13, she reported from Havana, Cuba on the lives of young Cubans during the Troubled Period. She previously worked for Internews Network, AllAfrica.com and as Assistant Bureau Director for Y-Press. Since January 2007 her work has focused on researching and supporting the capacity of local organizations in closed and transitioning societies. At Digital Democracy Emily manages staff, oversees strategic planning and development and works directly with grassroots partners on program design for human rights and community engagement.

Jorge López-Bachiller Fernández is the Municipal Advisor for Patzún Municipality in Guatemala. His background includes work in sustainable development, marketing, government administration and institutional strengthening through development councils and setting up E-government and telemedicine programs.

Paul Menchu and Wielman Cifuentes both work at The Rigoberta Menchu Foundation in various capacities.

Maria Martin is a Knight International Journalism Fellow who trained rural radio journalists in Guatemala.  In her work as a radio journalist, she has developed groundbreaking programs for public radio including NPR’s Latino USA and Despues de Las Guerras: Central America After The Wars. A recipient of Fulbright and previous Knight Fellowships, she has extensive experience in journalism and radio training in Latin America, especially in Guatemala and Bolivia. Martin holds a Masters degree in journalism from The Ohio State University, and currently heads the GraciasVida Center for Media and GraciasVida Productions based in Austin, Texas and Antigua, Guatemala. 

Erik Sundelof is currently the CTO of Spot.us, a global platform for community-funded local reporting (winner of the Knight News Challenge). Previously, Erik co-founded Allvoices.com, where he served as the VP of Social Media and User Interface. Allvoices.com is a global community that shares news, videos, images and opinions. Erik helped Allvoices raise $7.5M in venture capital and grow to 8M unique visitors per month, making it the largest citizen journalism portal in the world. Erik was a fellow in the Reuters Digital Vision Program at Stanford University between 2005-2006. As an RDVP fellow, he created the website inthefieldONLINE.net, which drew widespread recognition from major global media including PBS, CNN and BBC, and was featured on Discovery International’s Rewind 2006 as one of the 25 highlights of the Year.

Nicholas Wirtz is an English journalist who finds himself in Guatemala, with a German surname. Having graduated journalism school in 1996, Nic was one of the original six reporters that founded planetfootball.com that was sold to SkySports, the English version of FoxSports for $500 million in 2000. Since 2002 Nic has worked as a freelance journalist before arriving in Guatemala in 2005.where he co-founded the country's first Waldorf school with his wife. In 2007 he started working for CCP, a company based in Iceland, helping to manage the online community of an online game with over 500,000 players worldwide. In 2010 he was asked to help brand Antigua, Guatemala and recently started working with Kara Andrade as editor of the Vozz project website.

ORGANIZATIONS

ARGOS Association is a nonprofit that conducts research, training, dissemination and appropriate technology transfer, in order to facilitate access to resources that contribute to improving the quality of life in Central America. It works collaboratively with industry, the State, Civil Society, MSMEs, the Academy and International Cooperation, to strengthen the competitiveness of the region, encouraging the democratization of science and technological innovation.

Asociación Renacimiento  is a communitarian organization dedicated to the development of Patzún, Pochuta and the municipality of Chimaltenango.  Asociación Renacimiento was created in 1987 thanks to the concern of a group of families in Patzún, creating a nursery for 100 children in the community.  Currently it works in the health, education, and productive activity fields, in research and sponsorships with the help of Non Governmental Organizations from the United States, Europe, Bilateral Cooperation, and National and International Organisms and Institutions.

Digital Democracy is a non-profit organization based in New York city that works with grassroots organizations and local technology groups, they develop information and communication tools to help communities build their capacity. They will develop and adapt the curriculum for use in the 50 municipalities. These materials will be adapted from the Project Einstein Manual (currently being translated to Spanish) which can be downloaded here. In 2009 adapted trainings were conducted with youth from a remote town of Guatemala call “Lancetillo”. They reported, shot, and produced slideshowsand then exhibited their work in La Antigua, Guatemala.

Noticias de Mi Gente is the news portal which provides more than 7,000 Guatemalans, at home and in 43 countries, with articles, interactive video, television, and photographs that connect them with their hometowns.

Red GuateDigital is a network of journalists and provincial capital city of Guatemala, connected through the Internet to share news information with their audience in and outside Guatemala. It was formed with the support of Maria Emilia Martin, a Knight fellow.

The Rigoberta Menchu Foundation contributes towards recuperating and enriching inherent human values to create world peace taking as its base the ethnic, political and cultural diversity of the world. To work to create justice and democracy, especially for indigenous peoples and natives. The Rigoberta Menchu Foundation continues to uphold the nature of the Nobel Peace Prize won by Dr. Menchu. The Foundation is a solid institution that is accredited for its contributions to the defense of human rights especially of indigenous peoples which impels educational programs, citizen participation, community development and combating impunity.