Journalists from all over the world came together to celebrate the power of the press last Tuesday, Oct. 11. Three women, each from a different country; the president of Free Press, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization; and Adrienne Russell, whose book “Networked: A Contemporary History of News in Transition” were each recognized during the Journalism in the Public Interest symposium by DU’s Estlow International Center for Journalism and News Media in the Cable Center near the Ritchie Center.

The symposium opened with women whose life stories are as inspiring as the posts they are publishing on World Pulse, an online networking site, which have helped them transform their lives and become role models for oppressed and non-oppressed,women everywhere. They said technology is helping women worldwide to campaign for political and social change.

Beatrice Achieng from Uganda, Sarvina Kang from Cambodia and Martha Llano from Colombia each discussed their vision for connecting women worldwide through technology.

“My vision is to connect girls to people like you,” said Achieng. “If you hold someone close and open their mind, they can do extraordinary things.”

Her fellow speakers echoed these words.

“I believe that when we educate girls, we get a chance to educate others,” said Kang.

“We just have this one planet,” said Llano. “Let’s put all our problems together; if we do, we can change the world.”

Each woman recounted their experiences prior to being a part of World Pulse. They said they felt empowered when they had a chance to share their voice with the world.

Achieng, who is currently working with rural communities to combat HIV/AIDS, said World Pulse users rallied around her for support when her brother died.

“When I text that my brother died, people around the world emailed me,” said Achieng. “They said, ‘Tell your mother if anything happens, we will stand with you.'”

Llano said most people only know Colombia for its drug war and its censorship. She said despite the country’s violent nature, she speaks with a message for peace.

“Even my friends, they tell me to take a gun, but I will never take a gun to speak,” said Llano. “A gun will never speak for me.”

A member of the audience asked Llano if she was afraid for her own life.

“I am, yes,” said Llano – adding that her children are home in Colombia.

Kang, who has only been speaking English for a year, spoke on how her parents struggled to pay for her schooling and how she was introduced to technology.

“I went to the Internet café and found an article about girls’ education in Cambodia,” said Kang, who is the only person in her community with a university degree. “Education is very powerful. It saves girls from a living hell.”

Jensine Larsen, founder of World Pulse, encouraged audience members to participate in World Pulse’s online community.

“We want to have a vocal uprising that is so loud that world decision makers can no longer ignore us,” said Larsen.

Larsen founded World Pulse when she was 28 after helping women struggling with oil contamination in the Amazon. They wanted her to be their messenger, so she decided to start World Pulse to share their experiences. Women from 185 countries participate in the community.

After the women spoke, the symposium paused for lunch before Craig Aaron, the president of the Free Press – which is working to reform the media in many ways, including lobbying in Washington D.C. – received the 2011 Anvil of Freedom Award on behalf of the organization for its work for protecting independence in the media.

Before Aaron accepted the award, however, he spoke about how journalism and media are changing to keep up with technology.

“Every era has dealt with public access to information,” he said. “If we want our free Internet to stay that way, we have to fight external, political policies.”

Aaron spoke at length about Net Neutrality, the concept in which different Internet service providers (ISPs) like Comcast and Qwest-now CenturyLink should not charge users additional fees to access content and other online information at different download speeds, among other stipulations.

“High-speed Internet is not yet like water or food – it’s like hot water,” said Aaron, emphasizing the stress Internet users would feel if Congress had passed legislation allowing ISPs to enforce anything but net neutrality.

Aaron also suggested ways in which the media – especially public media – needs to change to survive in the future.

“Public media are far from perfect,” he said. “We need public and community media now more than ever. We [the United States] are spending pocket change on public media – $1.50 per taxpayer.”

Aaron went on to propose spending $5 per taxpayer instead, providing enough funding to create content across all platforms with no paywall, or fees users must cover to access content. He also discussed the future of the business of media.

“The next great big debate: providing personal information online and having Facebook sell it back to us,” Aaron said.

The 2012 Anvil of Freedom Award will be presented to Juliana Rotich, co-founder and executive director of Ushahidi Inc, a non-profit company that develops free and open-source software for sharing information. Rotich will receive the award on Jan. 12, 2012.