In South Asia, the prolific penetration of mobile technology has fueled the adoption of social media at a very fast pace. There have also been several examples of technology being used as a tool for empowerment at the grass root levels. This has also led to people exploring cross-country and international networks irrespective of political and geographical boundaries. Today social media and digital tools are able to influence to everyone from experts to youth, students, journalists and entrepreneurs. It has become platform for entrepreneurs, journalists, media experts, and students to communicate, learn, share and scaling up presence, and developing long-term strategies and programmes.
In an effort to bring social media experts across South Asian countries, Digital Empowerment Foundation with a support from the American Center organized two-day South Asia Summit on Social Media for Digital Empowerment at the American Centre, New Delhi on 19-20 September 2013. The objective of the Summit was to examine and debate not only on the use of various social media tools in different contexts, but how they can bring change in the society through which individuals, academics, business owners and the government make use of this medium.
The Summit represented social media experts and leaders from South Asian countries, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives. Over 15 social media experts across South Asian countries are joining to share their experiences, knowledge, and focus on how social media can benefit journalists, entrepreneurs,students, activists and how social media is impacting/altering pedagogical thought.
The two-day intensive Summit brought a combination of panel discussions, posters sessions, roundtables and interactive discussions designed to enlighten scholars and practitioners about social media and provide them with the knowledge to create and effectively utilize social media in different contexts.

Key Focus Areas
• Understand how social media stakeholders using social media platform sharing their views and experience on social media trend while addressing crucial issues of social media regulation in the sub-continent;
•Understand the upcoming trends of social media usage across South Asia;
• Understand social media is acting as a catalyst for communication and information dissemination
• Chalk out strategies and approaches on creating rights-based approach to the social media and human rights
• Indentifying the indices of nation-building in order to facilitate youths activists’ readiness to achieve them;
• Enable environment for youth using social media platforms to realize their potential should be utilized as to become professionals, technocrats technologists, accountants, intellectuals and university dons, entrepreneurs and business tycoon and magnates, engineers and so on and so forth.
• Drive means and ways on integrating journalism with new means of social media and web 2.0 tools
• Understand the role of social media and its implications on journalism and rise of citizen journalism and its impact on the quality of news/information
• Understand the ethics of journalism and how it can be maintained being a citizen journalist using social media tool.

Objectives
• Hosting a two-day open-to-public summit created by 15 social media gurus from seven different South Asian countries on digital empowerment and the use of social media.
• Creating a regional South Asian network of social media experts in South Asia to carry out future projects and collaboration.
• Providing an opportunity to the 15 experts to meet and participate and share best practices of how social media and digital tools have empowered citizens in each of the seven participating countries.
• Creating a virtual exchange platform for people from South Asia to discuss social media issues and explore working together.
• Exploring the possibility of organizing periodic summits to meet and share thoughts and experiences on social media for digital empowerment.