The EngageMedia Team

Andrew Lowenthal – Co-Founder and General Manager (Sydney)

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 as an editor and coordinator 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 will be an affiliate of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University for the 2012/13 academic year.

Cheekay Cinco - Skills and Strategies Program Manager (Manilla)

Born, raised and living in the Philippines, Cheekay is a feminist activist who has been working in the area of non-profit technology for more than a decade. From 1998 to 2001, she worked with the now-defunct Asian Women's Resource Exchange (AWORC), a network of women's resource centres. From 2002 to 2010, she was a regular staff at the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), where she was part of the Women's Networking Support Programme (WNSP) and the Strategic Technologies and Network Development Programme (STAND). At APC, she also developed the Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM), managed the Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX), conducted training on different internet-based technologies for other organisations, and wrote manuals on social media for advocacy.

Since then, Cheekay has been working as a freelance and volunteer trainer for various local and international activist groups, designing and conducting training workshops to support the strategic, secure and appropriate use of internet-based technologies for advocacy and activism.

Enrico Aditjondro – Southeast Asia Editor (Jakarta)

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. Enrico spent almost four years running media campaigns and chasing chickens for the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Avian Influenza Programme in Indonesia. 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.

Seelan Palay – Video Lingua Coordinator (Singapore)

Seelan Palay has been an artist, filmmaker and activist since 2005. For the past 6 years, he has campaigned on human rights issues in Asia, with a focus on Singapore and Burma. He has produced over 100 videos, and was one of the first contributors to EngageMedia. He has organized numerous exhibitions, demonstrations, forums and workshops to raise awareness and encourage action to bring about positive change in Asia. He is also part of the organizing committee of the Freedom Film Festival in Singapore.

As the current Video Lingua Coordinator for EngageMedia, he is working to broaden public access and communication on critical human rights and environmental stories from Southeast Asia by developing a regional network of volunteer translators and subtitlers.

Diah Sekarwidhi - Southeast Asia Logistics Coordinator (Jakarta)

After graduating as an accountant, Diah pursued her long held passion for culture and the arts. In 2006, she was a co-founder of the now biannual Vidiot: Indonesia-Dutch Video Festival in Semarang. For the next 3 years, Diah managed Importal, an arts collective focused on promoting artistic and visual literacy to youngsters in Semarang. Importal organized various video participation workshops, screen-printing workshops, photography exhibitions, film screenings, and published video compilations; Direct Documentary #1 and #2. After taking part in Curatorial workshops run by ruangrupa, Jakarta, Diah joined the team at the Jakarta Biennale 2009 as the fringe events coordinator.

When Diah received a fellowship from Yayasan Kelola, as she began a cultural management internship at CCF (French Cultural Centre) Yogyakarta. She also worked at the Jakarta-based art gallery, Nadi for several years, where she acquired essential competencies in management and organisation.

Dhyta Caturani - Migrant Workers Project Coordinator (Jakarta)

Dhyta has been an activist since the early 90s when she was in still in high school. When she was in college she joined a student movement group and then became a member of the national executive of a progressive non-electoral political party.

In 1999, she was leading a demonstration and was shot and beaten by the Indonesian police. Since then, she has worked for various NGOs and grass roots organizations, focusing on a range of issues such as women; children; workers; LGBT; involuntary disappearances and the case of 1965; and sexual and reproductive rights for young people. She has been a founder of several women's and LGBT organizations, both in Indonesia and in New York.

Since 2006, Dhyta has divided her time between Indonesia and New York. In 2009, she co-founded JAVIN, a network of documentary video makers, which brought her in contact with EngageMedia. She dedicates all of her work to justice and equality for all.

Yerry Niko Borang - Indonesian Content and Projects Coordinator

(Jakarta)

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.

Alexandra Crosby - Communications Coordinator (Sydney)

Alexandra Crosby is a writer, researcher, designer and arts worker committed to developing relationships between communities. She has worked with a wide range of groups and individuals, primarily on creative approaches to environmental issues such as forest and water management, and particularly with groups in Indonesia and Australia. In 2005 and 2008, Alexandra was co-director of the Gang Festival with Rebecca Conroy, an ongoing creative exchange project between Indonesia and Australia. In 2008, Gang Festival published an anthology titled re:Publik, Indonesia-Australia Creative Adventures. She recently received the Kirk Robson Memorial Award for Leadership in Community Cultural Development.

In 2007, Alexandra returned from a position in Yogyakarta as a Visual Arts Officer for the Australian Youth Ambassador for Development program. In 2004, she worked on the project Beyond the Factory Walls, living on the outskirts of Jakarta and producing digital storytelling and live performance with the group Teater Buruh Indonesia. She is now completing a phD researching the visual culture of activist communities in Java.

Maxim Solovyev – Finance & Administration Coordinator (Melbourne)

Maxim Solovyev has a degree in Accounting from Monash University and has been a bookkeeper in the not-for-profit sector for three two years. Prior to bookkeeping Maxim worked in the retail industry as a Junior Administrator. He also has a passion for sports, in particular soccer.