Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have traditionally been a voice for the voiceless, a mammoth task that has been carried out in the face of scarse resources. This state of affairs might be overhauled by the advent of the 2.0 Web revolution.

Testament of this is even in this blog I am writing, with the aid of a movement called the biggest revolution since the birth of the internet as my enabler.  

SANGONeT sought to practice what they preach to social activists from the NGO sector. Delegates at the 2007 SENGONeT Information and Communications Technology conference and exhibition were exposed to the power of the this revolution by speaker Robert Purdie.

Purdie, who originally hails from Canada and now a resident of London, is a self-confessed change agent.

Purdie runs a project management consultancy that works with NGOs and other cause related entities. Evidence of his activism is explicit even in the name he has chosen for his company: Important Projects.

Presenting a paper titled RSS: why should NGOs care? Purdie's task was essentially to demystify the Web 2.0 concept and showcase the benefits of this phenomenon.

"RSS is 'Really Simple Syndication', says Purdie to the keen audience.

He adds that this in a nutshell is the ability to publish and share content on the web.

Purdie says that this information is normally made available by web managers through a "feed".

Purdie is explaining part of the process which many believe was first coined by Tim O'Reilly and Dale Dougherty to describe the internet after the dot.com hype had come to a thumping fall.  

The two noted a real shift from content protectionism in favour of a more collaborative internet community.

A sort of breaking down of hegemonic internet forces towards a "brave new world".  

The movement saw the creation of web based software applications that could be distributed and shared with the entire web community for greater good.

Purdie says that users can access all this exciting content by obtaining for example a Google Reader.

The reader, Purdie says, searches for information in areas such as web based content managent systems, blogs and wikis.

Purdie explains that wikis are websites that allow users to edit content such as in the case of the Encyclopedia site Wikipedia.

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