As deadly protests engulf Iran and a mass pro-democracy movement seems the path forward in the US, here’s my 2012 conversation with WAEL GHONIM about his book, REVOLUTION 2.0. Ghonim, a 30-year-old Google manager, unwilling to publicly criticize the Egyptian regime, anonymously launched a Facebook campaign to protest one killing by security forces. How did the Egyptian people finally find their voice and reject 30 years of oppression?} Two reasons I chose this episode: 1) Iran, taking a lesson from the Arab Spring, has cut off the nation’s internet. 2) Though the later Muslim Brotherhood coup was tragic, Egypt’s nonviolent revolution succeeded in toppling an authoritarian dictator and regime. What did it take? How did it build? What can we learn?

 

FF_GHONIM 2012_transctipt

 

 

 

Aired 02/05/12

How did the Egyptian people overthrow longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak and are the people of Egypt better off today?

I am very excited to speak with WAEL GHONIM, the Egyptian web exec who played a leading role in last year’s Tahrir Square protests. With the first anniversary of those protests and the recent elections in Egypt, we have a lot to talk about.

WAEL GHONIM was a little-known 30-year-old Google manager, unwilling to publicly criticize the Egyptian regime — silenced like many by resignation and the fear of reprisals — until he anonymously launched a Facebook campaign to protest the death of one particular Egyptian man at the hands of security forces. In his new memoir, he tells us – from his experience — why and how the Egyptian people finally rejected 30 years of oppression and found their voice.

Let me read two quotes from WAEL GHONIM: “Social media allow ideas to be shared. They are places where people can unite, Revolutions can begin. A new type of Revolution – Revolution 2.0”
and finally — “People have called me a hero, but that is ridiculous – this has not been a revolution of heroic individuals, but about people coming together to overcome dictatorship.

https://www.facebook.com/WaelGhonim

http://hmhbooks.com/hmh/site/hmhbooks/bookdetails?isbn=9780547773988&srch=true&utm_source=02-05-2012-GHONIM&utm_campaign=Wael+Ghonim-02-06-2012&utm_medium=email

DISRUPTIVE: CANCER VACCINE & HYDROGEL DRUG DELIVERY      

Dave Mooney explains how his team’s cancer vaccine can train one’s immune system to target specific cancer cells, and describes the use of novel hydrogels in drug delivery and tissue regeneration.

Chris Gemmiti, discusses translation of these hydrogels
from bench-to-bedside. 

 

Latest episode
of my podcast series with
Harvard’s Wyss Institute for
Biologically Inspired Engineering

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Free Forum Progressive Voices Network on TuneIn
Saturday 2/20 7pmPT/10pmET

TERRY TAMMINEN
CRACKING THE CARBON CODE:
Sustainable Profits in a New Economy

 

SAT 2/27
(1) CORNEL WEST, Living Out Loud

(2) LOUIS SCHWARTZBERG
Wings of Life-endangered pollinators

 

 

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