The power of motivating and facilitating dialogue and learning, especially among youth, lies not only on the technological tools, but also on the social interactions they afford. Digital social networking provides tools for youth to get engaged, to articulate, and to be critical as well as collaborative. Virtual networking and media sharing technologies offer an opportunity to multiply the participation of youth, and can help in developing a new working model for the so-called ‘conferences without walls’ or ‘conferences beyond borders’.
To achieve the maximum benefit from the new technologies, it is suggested social networking opportunities be developed as a follow-up virtual component. The proposed follow-up virtual initiative will allow youth in the Arab/Islamic countries and from the United States to connect in virtual communities that can promote as well as sustain a new relationship between the Us and the Muslims around the world. This initiative will increase the number and the diversity of youth engaged (either from Arab/Muslim countries or the US) and encourage other youth and activists around the world to use new technological strategies to get their messages across.
Social networking opportunities will be broadly defined within a framework of computer-mediated communications to include the use of social network media and Web 2.0 (Facebook and Twitter, for example); interactive, Internet-based video conferencing; etc. This initiative will also use an online wiki-template framed clearinghouse that would facilitate the interactions of communities of the same interests, expand the participation of youth and it will also allow them to use their preferable means of interaction such as sharing books, articles, videos, songs, graphic designs etc. This will empower youth and help them sharing knowledge, lessons learned, and best practices in this realm.
The phenomenon of computer-mediated communications is a great equalizer because it gives a space for anyone to communicate their moderate voices and beliefs to others rather than leaving the arena only to fanatic and extremist voices. These technologies can be expanded to allow social organizations a larger workspace to expand their community, establish communication networks between local and transnational civil society organizations; and enhance partnerships between myriad movements focusing on promoting cross cultural dialogue and eliminating stereotypes.
To facilitate the interaction of youth activists a series of virtual international meetings will be conducted on several locations in the United States and the Arab, Muslim and non-Muslim countries. The purpose of these meetings is to teach youth how to leverage the technological tools available to them. More importantly, these activities are good opportunities for youth to discover why they should be working together to promote dialogue between the US, other Western countries and Muslim communities around the world.
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is considered to be the best place to conduct such virtual international meetings as it presents the best of the new model of Library. It is also regarded as a leading institution of the digital age show casing top of the line communication and IT resources that will greatly facilitate these virtual meetings.