Transit Lounge Jodi Rose

Kudzai M Mubaiwa talks about why there is a clear need for women to have resources for them to attain real freedom, with a leaning towards strong networks they can activate for tangible forms of wealth. The conversation emphasizes how economic empowerment brings options.



Investor Saint + Future + Female + Zimbabwe + iZone Hub + open:fora


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iZone Hub is a Zimbabwean Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Community Development Hub that serves women and youth makers, innovators, creatives, small business owners. We help them develop their enterprises in the digital age and promote creation over consumption.


Financial & Digital Literacy Trainer | Personal Finance & Small Business Columnist
Kudzai M Mubaiwa is an economic development professional and financial educator who is the founder of Investor Saint (Private) Limited. She is a cofounder of iZone Hub that serves youth and women entrepreneurs and innovators. Her passion is to increase the financial and digital literacy of individuals and small business owners – enabling them to create wealth and ultimately escape poverty – whilst leveraging the opportunity of the internet. Kudzai anchors a personal finance radio program and writes for a weekly business newspaper on small business.


Investor Saint

iZone Hub

Twitter: @kedukudzi

@iZoneHub


 


Open:fora Feminist Cafè (OFFC)


AfricaOSH (Africa Open Science & Hardware) & AfricArXiv


Art as Protest


open:fora weeklong neighbourhood open culture event in Berlin's deep West. In times of increasing illiberal democracy (Orbàn), upload filters and Exiteering the pressures on our freedoms to act, share culture and make voices heard, reinforces the urgency to act on how we as global citizens can reclaim our collective res publica. Joining our team members from South Sudan and GIG (Global Innovation Gathering) network guests working for open cultures across five continents, open:fora invites all our neighbours, friends, students, activists and all those interested in creating resonant open cultures, technologies and ecologies in celebrating with us!





Hosted by r0g_agency for open culture and critical transformation gGmbH and Open Source Ecology Germany e.V., open:fora offers an opportunity to engage with, build and discuss that which drives critical positions on open technologies, media literacy and capacity building not only at home, but in the challenging post-conflict environments our organisations often work in. STEAM (Science Tech Engineering Art Math), #ASKotec (Access to Skills and Knowledge – open tech emergency case), PAPERPCB (symbiotic synthesizers), Open:fora Feminist Cafè (OFFC), MMN - Migrant Media Networks, AfricaOSH (Africa Open Science & Hardware), #defyhatenow, AfricArXiv, Heteropia, and Art as Protest are some of codeplay key words marking a range of activities that ALL are invited to join.


twitter: @intertwilight

facebook: opencultureagency

programm: https://www.open-fora.org/


open:fora supported by #GuerrillaFoundation


 


 


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tags: r0g_agency, open-fora, guerrilla foundation, open culture, Berlin, transit lounge, radio, podcast, conversation, Kudzai Mubaiwa, izonehub, investorsaint, Zimbabwe, women, economy, finance, empowerment, business, incubator, start-up


 

Friedrich Lindenberg talks me through the investigative journalism data tools developed by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and details of the Azerbaijani Laundromat. He is optimistic about the potential for lasting and significant structural change to dismantle the complex financial industries that support organised crime & money laundering worldwide. We agree on the importance of pirate radio!



Organised Crime + Money Laundering + Data Journalism + OCCRP + #DNL15


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Data Team Lead, OCCRP, Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, DE

Friedrich Lindenberg leads the data team at OCCRP. He is responsible for the development of OCCRP Data and supports ongoing investigations where data analysis is needed. In 2014/2015, Friedrich was a Knight International journalism fellow with the International Center for Journalists, working with the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), and in 2013 he was a Knight-Mozilla Open News fellow at Spiegel Online in Hamburg. Prior to that, Friedrich was an open data activist, and worked to promote the release of government information about public finance, lobbying, procurement and law-making across the world.


Twitter: @pudo

OCCRP: Azerbaijani Landromat

OCCRP: The Russian Laundromat Exposed

OCCRP: Investigative Tools (Find online sources / Search for leads / Map your investigation)

OCCRP: Database for Researchers (145 Million entries)

OCCRP: Data Visualisation Tools (for investigators)

Guardian: Everything about the Azerbaijani Laundromat

Reuters: National Crime Agency Account Freezing Order





The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) is an investigative reporting platform formed by 40 non-profit investigative centers, scores of journalists and several major regional news organizations around the globe. Our network is spread across Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. We teamed up in 2006 to do transnational investigative reporting and promote technology-based approaches to exposing organized crime and corruption worldwide.


We help journalists anywhere to trace people, companies and assets across the globe. Our team has worked on dozens of award-winning investigations in different regions. Their support is free for reporters from anywhere in the world.


DARK HAVENS PANEL
LEAKING MASSIVE DATASETS:
Security, Openness, and Collective Mobilisation
Ryan Gallagher (Investigative Reporter & Editor, The Intercept, UK)
Friedrich Lindenberg (Data Team Lead, OCCRP, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, DE)
Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli (Director, Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE)


This panel poses issues of security and openness related to the analysis of data leaks and strategies of indexing data, to journalists, technical experts, researchers, and the larger civic society. In the case of the Panama Papers (April 2016) 11.5 million financial and legal records were leaked in 2015 from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca; those were followed by the Bahamas Leaks (September 2016), where 1.3 million internal company register files were leaked; later, the Paradise Papers (November 2017) were a set of 13.4 million leaked confidential electronic documents about offshore investments. This huge amount of information was all leaked to the Süddeutsche Zeitung reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, who shared it with the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) who coordinated a worldwide investigation.


Ryan Gallagher (The Intercept) and Friedrich Lindenberg (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, OCCRP) discuss the ethics of massive data leaks, security and secrecy vs. openness and transparency, as well as source protection and collective mobilisation in the analysis of the material.


DARK HAVENS
Confronting Hidden Money &

Simon Shuster talks in the Transit Lounge at Dark Havens about the importance of the work journalists do as the immune system of a society.



"Investigative journalists expose things most people would agree we do not want – organised crime, corruption, illicit wealth and inequalities."



As journalists bring these secrets to light, it's important for people to understand and hear what we do, to have the media literacy to understand the kinds of conversations and complexity that goes into dealing with a story, and the synergy between journalists and activists in civil society to push for change.


Tax Havens + Investigative Journalism + Time Magazine + Berlin + #DNL15


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Simon Shuster (Berlin Reporter for TIME, RU/DE)
Simon Shuster has been the Berlin bureau chief of Time Magazines since 2013, responsible for coverage of Central and Eastern Europe. Born in Moscow and raised in San Francisco, his work in the last few years has focused on the European refugee crisis, the rise of right-wing populism and Russian hybrid warfare from Ukraine to the US. @shustry


Articles by Simon Shuster
It's Business as Usual for Russians in Sudan, Despite Bashir's Fall


How Putin Built a Ragtag Empire of Tyrants and Failing States


She Was Next in Line to Be the President. He Plays One on TV. Who Will Win Ukraine's Election? (spoiler alert: the comedian)


DARK HAVENS
Confronting Hidden Money & Power
#DNL15 DARK HAVENS brings together people from around the world who have been part of global investigations and leaks, have blown the whistle on corporations, been put on trial, and who have taken severe personal risks to confront hidden money and power.





15th conference of the Disruption Network Lab. Curated by Tatiana Bazzichelli. In cooperation with Transparency International.


Disruption Network Lab: Dark Havens

Twitter: @disruptberlin

Artistic Director and Curator: Tatiana Bazzichelli

Community Director: Lieke Ploeger

Programme Managers: Daniela Silvestrin, Nada Bakr, Monti Harmony


Thank you for tuning in, we hope you enjoyed listening as much as we did talking! Transit Lounge Radio is 100% independently produced, and ad-free. Your generous support, event invitations and sharing to community networks will help to keep the conversation free-flowing!


Support independent radio!

Donate & keep the conversation flowing

Hang out in the Transit Lounge on facebook

Reviews and stars on iTunes make us happy

Listen on the TLR YouTube Channel

Subscribe to TLR RSS Feed

Invite Transit Lounge Radio to record conversations at your event:

signal at transitloungeradio dot net


#DNL15, Transparency, Panama Papers, investigative journalism, tax justice, offshore tax havens, disruption, network, Dark Havens, Disruption Network Lab, journalism, treasure islands, finance curse, offshore tour operator, Paradise Papers, Lux Leaks, whistleblower, UBS, ICIJ, OCCRP, Berlin, transit lounge, radio, podcast, conversation, Simon Shuster, Time Magazine

HOW TO SHORT CAPITALISM:
THE CRYPTO-POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ECSA
Economic Space Agency (ECSA) is building the next generation network infrastructure for programmable economies. Most blockchain and distributed ledger technologies applications are oriented toward the creation of distributed markets, reinforcing rather than disrupting oligarchic concentration of wealth over time and questioning what “value” is actually traded. ECSA offers something different: a fully integrated, commons-oriented approach to cryptoeconomy.


Economic Space + Cryptophilosophy + Post-Capitalism + Speculative Economy + Fabulation


I met with Erik Bordeleau at the ECSA 'Economic Space Design Program' in the Haus der Statistik Werkstatt in Berlin to find out exactly what is 'Economic Space' and how we can claim agency. The readings and notes come from the subsequent 'Token Logic Design' seminar series with Erik at the School of Disobedience, Art and the Blockchain.


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Edited transcript:


JR: Can you tell me what exactly the Economic Space Agency is? I imagine intergalatic cryptocurrencies…


EB: As it exists now comes from an initiative called ‘Robin Hood Hedge Fund Coop’ making captures on the actual financial markets. We were able to gather some money and redistribute it to projects that we found interesting. Commons-oriented projects essentially. And then blockchain and distributed ledger technologies came in. We were being Robin Hoods of the traditional markets, which can only go up to a certain point.


Then with distributed ledger technologies, you can start to imagine creating new markets or new financial stratas that you can start operating with. The way I understand it is the opportunity to create a thousand financial plateaus, from which you can start deterritorializing finance as it exists, and start making value a little bit more multi-dimensional. One of the things we used to say at ECSA is that we are stuck in a mono economy, where everything gets valued within a very narrow set of coordinates, which we call capitalism. Which generates as all we know tremendous externalities. The way forward towards a post-capitalist economy needs to be towards recognising all these values that are considered external to our economic system.


JR: What is fabulation?


EB: Fabulation is a way of saying that you can't think of the 'real' economy, as opposed to the speculative economy. The economy is always speculative, all the way down. That's not something to judge, or it's not something to deplore. It's something to accept, to deal with, so we need to accept that we are also part of self-fulfilling prophecies or processes. We are part of that.


We're a little bit lunatic at times, we are entertaining ideas that seem completely incredible. But it's part of the game. The economic game is fuelled with dreams, and fabulation is a term to name the passage from the virtual to the actual.


As one philosopher I really like says 'Only people who are dreaming can modify someone else's dream'. You can't just go up to someone and make them change their minds. You have to be meeting people in the space where they dream, they're also dreaming of something... So, the open office was organised here at Haus der Statistik which is a dream itself. But a dream with a fantastic reality..


I would like to have this collective adventure keep on going, and grow organically. So there's a mix of fantasy, craziness, crazy ambition that we express collectively, but I also want other types of intelligences that are more grounded, closer to the granular aspects of all the relationality of our lives. I want that to be more and more part of our process. Because that's how something sustainable, organic will sustain in the future. That's really important.


We're coming in with quite radical ideas but they need to be translated, converted into practices of dif

Frederik Obermaier on global crime & collaborative reporting, the demise of the 'lone wolf' investigative journalist, Panama Papers cocktails, writing that email to Vladimir Putin, and a thank you message to John/Jane Doe for the 11.5 million files contained in the Panama Papers.


The stories are global, crimes are global and journalism needs to be global: Frederik dishes on the complexities of working collaboratively with 400 journalists from 80 countries over a year to publish the Panama Papers.


Tax Havens + Investigative Journalism + Collaboration + Panama Papers + #DNL15


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Frederik Obermaier


Investigative journalist, Süddeutsche Zeitung, DE



"It was a difficult process, to be honest. Our editor-in-chief (Wolfgang Krach) was a big fan of collaborations, so he encouraged us to share the data. It think he's a visionary in this aspect.


We also had colleagues who asked us:


'Frederik, Bastian are you stupid?


You're sharing a scoop!


Why should you?'


Sometimes they're in this old lonely wolf mindset, journalists, especially investigative journalists being the lonely wolf not sharing anything even with his outlet... always secretive, always hunting for the scoop.


These times are over in journalism. I think in investigative journalism, it's now the pack, the power of the pack. And it's only logical because crime is not limited to one country anymore.


We're speaking about transnational organised crime groups. So it's only logical to team up as journalists to tackle this problem, to uncover it. And I think we need more. We do see a lot of collaborations currently in journalism, and I think that's good. The more, the merrier!"



Frederik Obermaier is a Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter for the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s leading broadsheet. He is one of the two reporters first contacted by the anonymous source of the Panama Papers, the leaked documents that prompted a global investigation involving hundreds of journalists. He also initiated the Paradise Papers-revelations. Obermaier is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, ICIJ.org.


Photo by Stefanie Preuin/SZ


If you have data, contact Frederik Obermaier using a secure channel & encrypted communication. Please note that unencrypted email, skype and phone calls are highly susceptible to being monitored or accessed.


Contact details on his website

Email encryption via PGP

Threema: FPN4FKZE


Documentary: The Panama Papers (2018), directed by Alex Winter (TRAILER)


“We’ve said it again and again: some stories are too big, too complex and too global for lone-wolf muckrakers or even individual news organisations to tackle. We believe collaboration is the wave of the future in global journalism. Pooling resources and sharing information is a powerful way to investigate and expose stories that politicians, corporations and organized criminals are determined to keep in the shadows.”


Gerard Ryle, Director ICIJ


Panama Papers wins Pulitzer Prize

How the Panama Papers were unwrapped

Reporting on The Panama Papers

Reporting on The Paradise Papers

The Panama Papers: Breaking the Story of How the Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money, by Bastian Obermayer & Frederik Obermaier. The inside story from the journalists who set the investigation in motion.

ICIJ Investigations: Panama Papers / Paradise Papers

ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database

OCCRP: Organized Crime & Corruption Reporting Project

Forbidden Stories: Network of Journalists

Twitter: @f_obermaier


PANAMA PAPERS:
How the Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money
WATCH VIDEO: DARK HAVENS KEYNOTE


Frederik Obermaier (Investigative Journalist, Süddeutsche Zeitung, DE). Moderated by Max Heywood (Transparency International Global Outreach and Advocacy Coordinator, UK/DE).


The Panama Papers began with a cryptic message from a

RYBN.ORG
RYBN walk us through the Offshore Tour Operator to explore local traces of the transnational and liquid financial industry, and introduce classic tax avoidance schemes the Double Irish, Singapore Sling, Bermuda Black hole and Dutch Sandwich. Offshore Tour Operator directs the user through addresses from the ICIJ Offshore Leaks database to discover & map the local premises of businesses listed in the Offshore Leaks, Bahamas Leaks, Panama Papers, and Paradise Papers.


A situationist GPS prototype for psychogeographic drift encouraging you to create concrete visual representation of the opaque and offshore, thus reshaping the imaginary around tax havens. Photographs of buildings listed at each address capture the offshore economies in the local landscape, architecture and environments.


Tax Haven Tourism + Algorithmic Investment + Psychogeography + Art as Financial Optimiser + #DNL15


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Financial optimisation through art, it turns out only works for dead, (mostly) white & male artists, and collectors who can afford to stash excess cash in anonymous shell companies and complex trusts to hide their money through the acquisition of art. It doesn't work so well for living artists, who apparently can't transform themselves into tax havens to help offset billionaires income. I, like most artists could help you write off millions through conceptual art, feel free to call anytime!




ALGOFFSHORE TAX OPTIMIZER THROUGH ART is a system that generates tax optimization schemes, using art as a speculative vehicle. Taking advantage of every possible offshoring strategy to compute a personalised solution for any interested art collector, the user can customise the optimisation scheme with personalised parameters and dedicated algorithms.



RYBN.ORG
Extra-disciplinary Artistic Research Platform, FR
RYBN.ORG is a Paris-based collective founded in 1999. The collective follows an extra-disciplinary investigation methodology on the functioning of complex and esoteric phenomena and systems - high frequency markets structure, algorithmic trading strategies, offshore banking networks, kabbalah hermeneutics, digital labor and human computers, computer viruses, etc. Their works have been presented in many art centers and festivals internationally.






Explore Psychogeographies of the Financial Imaginary uncovering  tax havens hidden in plain sight through counter-financial dérive.


RYBN Offshore Tour Operator
Offshore Tour Operator is a situationist GPS prototype, orientated toward a computer assisted psychogeographic drift, that dictates the walk of the user through the ICIJ Offshore Leaks database addresses - including the Offshore Leaks, the Bahamas Leaks, the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers. The prototype exists in two versions : a DIY open hardware version, using a raspberry pi 0 coupled to a GPS, and an android app.


RYBN Algoffshores

RYBN Resources: academic papers on tax evasion, tax avoidance, tax havens and fiscal optimisation

Offshore Tour Operator, Art as Financial Optimiser Neural.it

Art, Capital of the 21st Century

Offshore Tour Operator on We Make Money Not Art

Twitter: @RYBn_


Image credits: RYBN & LISTE BASEL


Offshore Tour Operator / Algoffshore - The Great Offshore, RYBN.ORG / Exhibition HeK at LISTE Art Fair Basel, 2018, curated by Boris Magrini - courtesy of Ivana Krešič.


RYBN.ORG
THE GREAT OFFSHORE
RYBN.ORG (Extra-disciplinary Artistic Research Platform, FR) Moderated by Ela Kagel (Digital Strategist and Founder of SUPERMARKT Berlin, DE) RYBN presents the “The Great Offshore” project, an artistic investigation conducted in several tax havens.


The Great Offshore addresses the question of representation of offshore finance: due to its opaque nature and the secrecy that surrounds it, it is impossible to picture. The symbolic representations that are usually in use are, as many