Radio 2.0 for development

Twenty years ago, in 1988, a group of tech savvy Salvadorans and Canadians undertook a project combining radio broadcasting and new ICTs to help bring about social and political change in Central America.

Once a week a computer equipped with a 1200 bps modem would automatically call a similarly equipped computer in Nicaragua and in less than three minutes would download a zip file with a dozen or so pages of news prepared by the Salvadoran guerrilla station, Radio Farabundo Martí.

Once in Canada, the information was printed and faxed or sent by post to a network of community and student radio stations in Canada and the USA, providing hundreds of thousands of listeners with up-to-date news and analysis of Central America’s struggles from the perspective of the revolutionary movements and helping to build and strengthen solidarity between them and progressive movements in North America.

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