Estonia decodes IT future

The European Union launched an information technology agency in Estonia last Saturday, just months after the Baltic country announced it would begin teaching computer programming to first-graders. Read More »

Macedonian Schools Face the Shock of the New

SKOPJE | In the past five years Macedonian classrooms have seen many changes. An additional year of mandatory education; “interactive” teaching in place of the rote learning of the past; new textbooks; a computer for every pupil – it all foretold a radical transformation of what most agreed was a woefully obsolete school system. Read More »

Russia investing millions in high-tech campus near Moscow

Russia intends to diversify its economy away from dependence on the export of raw materials by funding its own version of Silicon Valley an hour outside of Moscow. While this project isn’t exactly new, Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov announced earlier this week that state-owned companies will start transferring billions of rubles into an endowment fund for a flagship research institute at Skolkovo.

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Moldovans turn to social media to stop exam cheating

Cheating on high school graduation exams is a common practice in Moldova. Sadly, the practice is widespread and tacitly accepted by Moldovan society. In a way, exams are seen more as a game of survival, with the highest grades going to the people best able to handle the exam and not necessarily the ones who studied more. Read More »

New-media education in Azerbaijan needs overhaul

The Azerbaijan NGO Multimedia Center has presented a series of new-media modules they hope will be implemented in Azerbaijani universities.  The proposed curriculum includes four main modules: Multimedia Journalism, Online Journalism, Social Media and Introduction to New Media.

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Solving virtual problems in reality in Azerbaijan

Difficult realities are sometimes hidden from the general public. This often happens in the virtual world. Read More »

Latvian schools try out surveillance system to monitor attendance

A few Latvian schools are experimenting with an electronic monitoring system to keep track of students’ attendance, but some are uneasy about the innovation in a country with its own Soviet-era history of surveillance and repression. Read More »

Welcome to Net Prophet

Welcome to Net Prophet, a blog produced by Transitions that will be providing updates and analysis on the latest in new media and IT developments across Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

For years now, we’ve been reading the fascinating information that our project managers have been sending it from the field for grant reports, and felt it was a pity that only a few donors were privy to such updates. It has also seemed to us that blogs on new media/tech development rarely cover this part of the world, even though a wealth of interesting stuff is happening out there on the ground, with very little press internationally. Read More »