On Mon, Nov 10, 2014, at 12:35 PM, Jesse Krembs wrote: > Dear all > > For a number of years now I've been ponderer the idea of ICT/IS > consultancy > organization focus on the NGO/Activists/Press (N/A/P) markets. The basic > idea being that there should be a boutique consultancy group that is > focused on upping the over all ICT/IS game of N/A/P world.
> So a couple of questions. > 1: Is there already someone doing this? Global Journalist Security seems to be doing it right in terms of creating a business solely focused on comprehensive physical and operation security trianings: http://www.journalistsecurity.net/ They claim to be "the only news and nonprofit training provider to successfully compete in both the private and donor-driven sectors." Otherwise, there are a lot more groups out there in the world doing this kind of work than you may think. They don't do it as their primary work or source of funding, but it is an important aspect of ensuring their larger work is not compromised by ICT/IS issues. A few examples from my own efforts include Tibet Action Institute's digital security trainings and fellowship program: https://tibetaction.net/digital-security/ https://tibetaction.net/project/fellowship-in-cyber-security/ and the work we do at the Guardian Project in mobile security trainings, such as when we partnered with the Rory Peck Trust for an online mobile security talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KekYW8DhDkU We also partner with Small World News and Free Press Unlimited to offer trainings for freelance journalists, built around the security curriculum developed for the StoryMaker app: https://storymaker.cc/lessons/?Lesson=/2/2.2/&Lang=en Again, this is not a primary consultancy profit / funding source for any organization, but we do have capability and expertise in-house, and are able to support this work as part of grants or contract work. That said, we are often short handed at trainings, and when it comes to providing long term support and broader training on ICT/IS issues for an organizations, we have to often say "sorry, we don't do that". > 2: Is there a market for this sort of organization? Sure, if you can show people you are in it for the long haul, and provide excellent value and appropriate rates for the space, then I think you could build a decent business out of this. > 3: How do you make the funding work? I think the funding is out there, either directly from foundations/funders who are concerned about their grantees, or from organizations themselves who have built into ICT/IS auditing, upgrades and training into their budgets for grants. If you can mix in private industry customers, as GJS does, then you can likely come up with something that would work in a sustainable way. +n -- Nathan of Guardian [email protected] -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at [email protected].
