GSCFFI is proud to honor EngageMedia for their ground-breaking work in empowering social movements and activists in the Asia Pacific.  EngageMedia is charting a new course by providing the skills and resources necessary for turning social justice and environmental messages into effective, widely distributed video packages that not only use new media technologies, but maximize their communicative power.

EngageMedia uses the power of video, the internet and free software technologies to create social and environmental change, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. EM believes independent media and free and open technologies are fundamental to building the movements needed to challenge social injustice and environmental damage, as well as to provide and present solutions. This Australia-Indonesia-based group works with independent filmmakers, video activists, technologists, campaigners and social movements to generate wider audiences for their vital messages and move people to action.

Andrew Lowenthal – General Manager

Andrew Lowenthal has been working in the field of media and technology activism since 1998. He got started with video activists Access News in the late nineties before moving on to work actively with Melbourne Indymedia for six years. From 2006-08 he worked with the UK based Tactical Technology Collective as their participatory media project lead, editing the NGO-in-a-box series of free software packages and the more recent Message-in-a-box as well as facilitating at training camps in Indonesia, the Netherlands, Thailand and India. Andrew is based on the internet, or somewhere between Jakarta and Melbourne.

Andrew Garton – Organisational Development Manager

Andrew Garton is a writer, composer, performer and media arts producer. Andrew has a history in community broadcasting going back to the mid-70′s and from the late 80s to mid-90s was extensively involved in the coordination and establishment of independent media / computer networks throughout Australia, the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia.

Andrew was co-founder of the new media artists collective, Toy Satellite, the net label Secession, and was OPEN CHANNEL’s inaugural Program Director. In 2001 he produced the opening of the Taipei International Arts Festival touring the work, Undercurrents, to festivals throughout Australia.

A strong advocate for open platforms, Andrew is also a supporter of flexible licenses for all forms of cultural practice and learning. He is co-founder of Open Spectrum Australia and serves as Board Secretary of the international ICT and Internet rights organisation, the Association for Progressive Communications, and Director of its Australian member, apc.au.

Enrico Aditjondro – Southeast Asia Editor

Enrico has lived and worked in Indonesia, West Papua, the US, Australia and Timor Leste. He started his journalism career in 1998 when he joined THE MARITIME WORKERS’ JOURNAL in Sydney, reporting on labor issues and shipping industry. Seeking for more excitement, he moved to Jakarta and joined the Southeast Asia Press Alliance in 2000, while also traveling and working in Timor Leste with UNESCO and UNTAET.

Enrico also campaigned around corruption issues for Transparency International-Indonesia and in 2005 he was the Southeast Asia Representative for the International News Safety Institute. The same year he co-founded and became managing editor for PARAS INDONESIA, one of the country’s leading bilingual social-political website during those years. He was a fan of EngageMedia before joining the group in May 2009. He is now based in Jakarta, writing, producing films and maintaining the Southeast Asia content for EngageMedia.

Yerry Borang Niko – Indonesian Content and Outreach Coordinator

Borang Yerry Niko is an independent journalist based in Jakarta. While studying at university, he joined the student movement and created several propaganda bulletins in 1998. From 1999, working with publishers in Yogyakarta, he helped translate several English books on politics and literature into Indonesian, including Orwell’s Animal Farm. In 2004 he participated in early meetings to rebuild Indymedia Jakarta. He worked as a radio / web / video journalist for more than six years at vhrmedia.com. During that time, he also worked with community radio and media networks.