I am really excited for the International AIDS Conference! I was at the conference when it was in Toronto in 2006 and it was such an amazing experience to hear everyone’s struggles in battling HIV/AIDS.

I look forward to checking out the resources on the youth site, and getting to know the stories of those who are participating. I am really interested in the ways that we can utilize social networks and mobile technologies in the conference. I think that mobile blogging is definitely one way to go. For example one can post text by sending the blog entry to username-password@tigblog.org — replace username with your username, and password with your password!

It will be cool to try out some mobile video blogging technology, such as applications like Qik. Qik can be used by most smart phones, and is an application for streaming live video over the internet. While it already works on Nokia smart phones, it will be coming to the iPhone officially next week.

I think that youth can use these technologies as a form of mobile grassroots journalism. It will be interesting to look at what other ways youth communicate at the conference, as youth from around the world have different new media habits. In certain countries like Brazil and India, Social Networks are the big fad, while in other countries mobile phones dominate social communications. Youth may trade tips on media use, creating transnational media habits and sharing best practices in Citizen Media production.