Vladimir “Kaladan” Petkov wins the 2006 Dirk Award

Since 2003, Vladimir Petkov (aka Kaladan) has worked as an eRider, serving as Content and Project Manager at Interspace, a New Media Art Centre in Sofia, Bulgaria. He is part of a great team which supports his efforts in spreading eRiding; the team is creative, dedicated and ever-willing to welcome new visitors to Interspace. Several years back, the term “supeRider” was coined to describe an individual who showed strong mentorship and leadership skills both on their own eRider team as well as in the larger eRider community; Kaladan has been an embodiment of that term ever since he started eRiding.

Vladimir “Kaladan” Petkov

Along with his team of talented eRiders at Interspace, Kaladan has “hosted” visits from two other eRider teams, Open Consultants from Georgia and the eRider team from Tajikistan. Kaladan set a week-long agenda for each visiting team that offered learnings on how the Interspace eRiding team has been successful, but also provided opportunities to address the visiting teams’ current challenges. Kaladan has also traveled to Tajikistan and most recently Thailand to provide training to eRider groups there; in Thailand he trained with eRiders working in the “Free Burma” movement, and he has agreed to travel to Sierra Leone to work with teams of eRiders working in West Africa. He is also responsible for the running of the eRiders.net website.

The Dirk Award is given annually to Circuit Riders or eRiders who have shown extraordinary contributions to the nonprofit and international NGO technology communities while paying tribute to the principles of social justice and the role technology can play in empowering other communities and individuals. eRiders are one of the largest global resources of ICT capacity building for development organizations and work in a world-wide movement with growing representation in more than 20 countries. For more information: dirkaward.org