{"id":112,"date":"2015-04-08T17:53:34","date_gmt":"2015-04-08T17:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emdcon.org\/?page_id=112"},"modified":"2026-05-16T02:29:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T02:29:31","slug":"affinity-groups","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/emdcon.org\/archive\/affinity-groups\/","title":{"rendered":"EMDC 2026 Affinity Groups &#038; Communities of Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>During EMDC, Affinity Group Facilitators convene meetings along three main categories: Geographic, Social, Technological.\u00a0 These may vary slightly depending on the location (Europe\/Asia), the theme, and the year, but you can get an idea from the list below.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>&#8220;It was one of the best conferences I have attended during the last 20 years of ministry when it comes to location, environment, <\/em><em>facilities and program. The time for workshops and interaction (affinity groups) was so excellent and the whole set up of ministry leaders and fieldworkers gave nice opportunities for connections on all levels.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong>Bengt-Ake Bengtson, IBRA Media\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>These are the Affinity Groups and leaders from EMDC 2024, Thailand.\u00a0 Closer to the EMDC start date we will update this for 2026.<\/strong><\/h4>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\"><strong>Many of these Affinity Groups are functioning as Communities of Practice on <a href=\"https:\/\/emdc.online\/landing\">EMDC.Online<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<div class=\"gmail_default\">\n<h3><em><strong>Geographic<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">South Asia:\u00a0<em>India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh,\u00a0 <\/em><strong>Joshy Kurian, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">joshy@emdcon.org<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Southeast Asia:\u00a0<em>Countries east of Bangladesh, <\/em><strong>Jasming Ng, Justin,<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">\u00a0justin_randolph@sil.org<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Middle East, N &amp; S Central Asia, <strong>David Gray, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">david_gray@sil.org<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Indo-Malay &amp; Islands, <strong>Lanny <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">lt@linkmail.org<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Africa, <strong>David Oluseyi <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">ige.oluseyi@gmail.com<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><em><strong>Social<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Next Gen, <strong>Joshua Chew<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">ablaze.media.prod@gmail.com<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Ethnoarts, <strong>Anne Esteban<\/strong>, <\/span><\/span><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">anne_esteban@sil.org<\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Trauma Healing, <strong>Michael Wan, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">michael_wan@sil.org<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Orality\/Storytelling , <strong>Bharat Nadar, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">bharatnadar@gmail.com<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Literacy, Linguistics, &amp; Education, <strong>Karsten van Riezen, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">herald_rajan@sil.org<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Scripture Engagement, <strong>Jennifer Brassington<\/strong>, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>jennifer_brassington@sil.org<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Social Media\/Digital Engagement, <strong>AJ &amp; Clyde, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">aj_partner@pobox.com<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Diaspora, Displaced, &amp; Refugees, <strong>Sunny Hong<\/strong>, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>sunny_hong@sil.org<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><em><strong>Technological<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Publishing, <strong>John Hatton,<\/strong> <\/span><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">john_hatton<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>@sil.org<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Video\/Film, <strong>Joshua Chew &amp; Steve Baldwin<\/strong>,<a href=\"mailto:FilmAffinity.EMDC@gmail.com\"> <strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">FilmAffinity.EMDC@gmail.com<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">AI &amp; Chatbots, <strong>SABDA Team <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">sabda4god@gmail.com<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Apps, <strong>Richard Margetts<\/strong>, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>richard_margetts@sil.org<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Kalaam Media User Group <em>(websites)<\/em>, <strong>Dave Johnson<\/strong>, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>davej@kalaam.org<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Audio\/ Radio, <strong>Joost B, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">JoostBastiaans@twr.nl<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Language Technology, <strong>Mark Penny<\/strong>, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>mark_penny@sil.org<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During EMDC, Affinity Group Facilitators convene meetings along three main categories: Geographic, Social, Technological.\u00a0 These may vary slightly depending on the location (Europe\/Asia), the theme, and the year, but you can get an idea from the list below. &#8220;It was &#8230;..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-112","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emdcon.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emdcon.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emdcon.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emdcon.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emdcon.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/emdcon.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10753,"href":"https:\/\/emdcon.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/112\/revisions\/10753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emdcon.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}