The International Conference on Social Media for Good

May 14-16, 2015

Kimse Yok Mu (KYM) is an international non-governmental organization carrying out humanitarian aid and development projects in 110 countries around the globe without distinction of any kind, such as race, ethnicity, language, religion or gender. Following the International Conference on Philanthropy and Peacebuilding, organized by the Academic Studies Department of KYM in collaboration with the Journalist and Writers Foundation and Istanbul Bilgi University, with the participation of 25 academicians from 19 countries in April 2014, 2015 Conference aims to reveal theoretical contributions as well as representative practices addressing the use of new generation internet applications to generate social benefit.

Social media platforms have a high potential to serve social benefits by adressing a wider user base from individuals to non-governmental organizations, from private sector to public institutions, thanks to their ability to reach a wider community and any content instantly and freely. Moreover, contrary to the clear distinction between the producer and consumer of information, news and any kind of content in the past, they now host “Prosumers,” as a new form of collective consicousness, merging the producing and consuming acts by an, inherent, motivation 3.0. The effectiveness and popularity of such cooperation-based collective consciousness, “The Wisdom of Crowds”, can be followed in the effect of the accuracy of our searches in Google search engine's patented PageRank algorithm, as well other popular channels such as the ask-the-audience lifeline of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” contest, motivated by a search for a more accurate answer, compared to the phone-a-friend lifeline.

International Conference on Social Media for Good aims at systematizing and improving existing models on social media, suggesting new innovative approaches and practices, using their effectiveness in enhancing goodness and philanthropy, and resolution of social problems.

In line with these aims, KYM particularly encourages the involvement of young as representative prosumers with the use of highest rates of social media. To this end, a series of pre-conference workshops will be organized at six universities in different regions of Turkey in November 2014. These workshops aims to contribute to enhance their knowledge on philanthropy, social media and IT applications and provide them the opportunity to develop new applications or projects on social good. Selected, best practices will be presented in "Youth for Social Good" session of the Conference.

With an interdisciplinary outlook, we invite academics, NGO professionals/volunteers, social media experts and the young to submit papers related to but not restricted to the following topics:

• Creating new platforms for social good
• Using social media for volunteerism
• Social media for campaining and raising awareness
• Social media and fundraising
• Social media and improving capacity of NGOs
• Social media in time of crisis
• Encouraging youth
• Encouraging celebrities
• Collaboration opportunities for social good
• Harnessing collaborative technologies
• Philanthropic applications
• Social media vs. traditional media
• Struggling with bystander effect: Activism vs. clictivism
• Creating reliable platforms
• Motivation 3.0 on social media

Important dates:

• Deadline for Abstract Submission: December 29, 2014
• Notification of Abstract Acceptance: January 30, 2015
• Deadline for Full Paper Submission: April 15, 2015
• Registration Due: April 15, 2015
• Wellcome Reception: May 14, 2015
• Conference: May 15-16, 2015

Expenses for travel (economy class round-trip) and accommodation will be covered for speakers.

The extended deadline for the abstracts is December 29, 2014. The abstracts must be submitted to academic@kimseyokmu.org.tr<mailto:academic@kimseyokmu.org.tr> . Abstracts must be no more then 500 words, must be written in English and must include title, name of author(s), author’s institution, e-mail address, abstract (body text) and keywords.

In December and January there will be workshops on philanthropy and social media at some universities in Turkey, Greece, Poland and Japan. These workshops aim to contribute to enhance the youngs’ knowledge on philanthropy, social media and provide them with the opportunity to develop new applications or projects on social good. The workshops are open to graduate and post- graduate students. After the one -day workshop, the attendees will prepare projects and the selected projects will be presented at a special session of the conference named ” Youth for Social Good”.

For details and the updates of the conference and Youth for Social Good Workshops please visit http://academic.kimseyokmu.org.tr