Traveling Geeks

In the age of digital media, it is inspiring to see women with a global presence utilizing different social media channels for communication and public good. On Day 2 of LeWeb conference, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashermite Kingdom of Jordan spoke not only about “The human race living in a digital space” but of her global education initiatives.

Queen Rania is a role model for living in the digital space; she is active in the following social media outlets:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/queenrania

Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/QueenRania

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/QueenRania

Website: http://www.queenrania.jo/

On her website, Queen Rania lists her initiative areas including global education. The initiative she discussed during her talk is called 1Goal (http://www.join1goal.org/). Here are the goals from Queen Rania’s website:

“1GOAL is a new campaign to raise support for Education for All, and hold world leaders accountable to their promises. 1GOAL brings together the experience and expertise of the Global Campaign for Education with the passion and power of football through FIFA.”

Queen Rania asked everyone to take a second and spread the word on 1Goal, so I decided to share over Twitter. She then explained her reasons for getting involved in social media Here are some notes I took from her explanation:

“The human race living in a digital space. Doing more then just documenting – you are part of new field of digital anthropology that let us represent ourselves online. A “digital Darwin”. My virtual self can get closer to more people then my real self. It is hard to connect to people when you are a Queen. But online people are not afraid to speak their minds. It has created a space where everyone is free to say what they please and help spread ideas and causes. I get dubbed “Monarch on mission”. I can’t help but get excited by what I see. Can the real time web bring real time change? Can it tackle real time challenges? What we need now is to amplify our actions, offline people will have to listen. Education for all. Around the world there are 75 million kids out of school. more then 55% of those are girls, denied the chance to read a book less read a computer. With every year of education, income increases by 10%. If children were educated it could save 7 million cases of HIV in the next decade. “

So Queen Rania took her cause to Twitter. She asked her followers if online activism can change real world problems? Queen Rania’s followers wondered if it would be “difficult to get everyone out of computer chairs, they think that virtual movements lead to virtually nothing.”

She challenged us by saying “with all the digital talent in this room, we can help. Dedicate one moment for 1Goal “. MySpace has stepped up to work with 1Goal. At LeWeb Queen Rania had a chance to meet with Facebook and Twiiter.

Queen Rania then left us with a few more digital words of wisdom: ” The challenge is to deepen the link with the web and the world, for people to make their own leap from digital interaction to activism. To bring real change to humanity. To make livestreaming – life changing!”