Stefaan Verhulst

A Framework for Strengthening Data Ecosystems to Serve Humanitarian Purposes

Curated on May 8, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Marc van den Homberg et al: “The incidence of natural disasters worldwide is increasing. As a result, a growing number of people is in need of humanitarian support, for which limited resources are available. This requires an effective and efficient prioritization of the most vulnerable people in the preparedness phase, and the most affected people in the response phase of humanitarian action. Data-driven models have the potential to support this prioritization process. However, the applications of these models in a country requires a certain level of data preparedness.

To achieve this level of data preparedness on a large scale we need to know how to facilitate, stimulate and coordinate data-sharing between humanitarian actors. We use a data ecosystem perspective to develop success criteria for establishing a “humanitarian data ecosystem”. We first present the development of a general framework with data ecosystem governance success criteria based on a systematic literature review. Subsequently, the applicability of this framework in the humanitarian sector is assessed through a case study on the “Community Risk Assessment and Prioritization toolbox” developed by the Netherlands Red Cross. The empirical evidence led to the adaption the framework to the specific criteria that need to be addressed when aiming to establish a successful humanitarian data ecosystem….(More)”.

Data sharing in PLOS ONE: An analysis of Data Availability Statements

Curated on May 8, 2018October 23, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Lisa M. Federer et al at PLOS One: “A number of publishers and funders, including PLOS, have recently adopted policies requiring researchers to share the data underlying their results and publications. Such policies help increase the reproducibility of the published literature, as well as make a larger body of data available for reuse and re-analysis. In this study, we evaluate the extent to which authors have complied with this policy by analyzing Data Availability Statements from 47,593 papers published in PLOS ONE between March 2014 (when the policy went into effect) and May 2016. Our analysis shows that compliance with the policy has increased, with a significant decline over time in papers that did not include a Data Availability Statement. However, only about 20% of statements indicate that data are deposited in a repository, which the PLOS policy states is the preferred method. More commonly, authors state that their data are in the paper itself or in the supplemental information, though it is unclear whether these data meet the level of sharing required in the PLOS policy. These findings suggest that additional review of Data Availability Statements or more stringent policies may be needed to increase data sharing….(More)”.

Creating a Machine Learning Commons for Global Development

Curated on May 7, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Blog by Hamed Alemohammad: “Advances in sensor technology, cloud computing, and machine learning (ML) continue to converge to accelerate innovation in the field of remote sensing. However, fundamental tools and technologies still need to be developed to drive further breakthroughs and to ensure that the Global Development Community (GDC) reaps the same benefits that the commercial marketplace is experiencing. This process requires us to take a collaborative approach.

Data collaborative innovation — that is, a group of actors from different data domains working together toward common goals — might hold the key to finding solutions for some of the global challenges that the world faces. That is why Radiant.Earth is investing in new technologies such as Cloud Optimized GeoTiffs, Spatial Temporal Asset Catalogues (STAC), and ML. Our approach to advance ML for global development begins with creating open libraries of labeled images and algorithms. This initiative and others require — and, in fact, will thrive as a result of — using a data collaborative approach.

“Data is only as valuable as the decisions it enables.”

This quote by Ion Stoica, professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, may best describe the challenge facing those of us who work with geospatial information:

How can we extract greater insights and value from the unending tsunami of data that is before us, allowing for more informed and timely decision making?…(More).

Optimal Scope for Free Flow of Non-Personal Data in Europe

Curated on May 7, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Simon Forge for the European Parliament Think Tank: “Data is not static in a personal/non-personal classification – with modern analytic methods, certain non-personal data can help to generate personal data – so the distinction may become blurred. Thus, de-anonymisation techniques with advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and manipulation of large datasets will become a major issue. In some new applications, such as smart cities and connected cars, the enormous volumes of data gathered may be used for personal information as well as for non-personal functions, so such data may cross over from the technical and non-personal into the personal domain. A debate is taking place on whether current EU restrictions on confidentiality of personal private information should be relaxed so as to include personal information in free and open data flows. However, it is unlikely that a loosening of such rules will be positive for the growth of open data. Public distrust of open data flows may be exacerbated because of fears of potential commercial misuse of such data, as well of leakages, cyberattacks, and so on. The proposed recommendations are: to promote the use of open data licences to build trust and openness, promote sharing of private enterprises’ data within vertical sectors and across sectors to increase the volume of open data through incentive programmes, support testing for contamination of open data mixed with personal data to ensure open data is scrubbed clean – and so reinforce public confidence, ensure anti-competitive behaviour does not compromise the open data initiative….(More)”.

Redefining ‘impact’ so research can help real people right away, even before becoming a journal article

Curated on May 7, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Perhaps nowhere is impact of greater importance than in my own fields of ecology and conservation science. Researchers often conduct this work with the explicit goal of contributing to the restoration and long-term survival of the species or ecosystem in question. For instance, research on an endangered plant can help to address the threats facing it.

But scientific impact is a very tricky concept. Science is a process of inquiry; it’s often impossible to know what the outcomes will be at the start. Researchers are asked to imagine potential impacts of their work. And people who live and work in the places where the research is conducted may have different ideas about what impact means.

In collaboration with several Bolivian colleagues, I studied perceptions of research and its impact in a highly biodiverse area in the Bolivian Amazon. We found that researchers – both foreign-based and Bolivian – and people living and working in the area had different hopes and expectations about what ecological research could help them accomplish…

Eighty-three percent of researchers queried told us their work had implications for management at community, regional and national levels rather than at the international level. For example, knowing the approximate populations of local primate species can be important for communities who rely on the animals for food and ecotourism.

But the scale of relevance didn’t necessarily dictate how researchers actually disseminated the results of their work. Rather, we found that the strongest predictor of how and with whom a researcher shared their work was whether they were based at a foreign or national institution. Foreign-based researchers had extremely low levels of local, regional or even national dissemination. However, they were more likely than national researchers to publish their findings in the international literature….

Rather than impact being addressed at the end of research, societal impacts can be part of the first stages of a study. For example, people living in the region where data is to be collected might have insight into the research questions being investigated; scientists need to build in time and plan ways to ask them. Ecological fieldwork presents many opportunities for knowledge exchange, new ideas and even friendships between different groups. Researchers can take steps to engage more directly with community life, such as by taking a few hours to teach local school kids about their research….(More)”.

The world’s first neighbourhood built “from the internet up”

Curated on May 6, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

The Economist: “Quayside, an area of flood-prone land stretching for 12 acres (4.8 hectares) on Toronto’s eastern waterfront, is home to a vast, pothole-filled parking lot, low-slung buildings and huge soyabean silos—a crumbling vestige of the area’s bygone days as an industrial port. Many consider it an eyesore but for Sidewalk Labs, an “urban innovation” subsidiary of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, it is an ideal location for the world’s “first neighbourhood built from the internet up”.

Sidewalk Labs is working in partnership with Waterfront Toronto, an agency representing the federal, provincial and municipal governments that is responsible for developing the area, on a $50m project to overhaul Quayside. It aims to make it a “platform” for testing how emerging technologies might ameliorate urban problems such as pollution, traffic jams and a lack of affordable housing. Its innovations could be rolled out across an 800-acre expanse of the waterfront—an area as large as Venice.

Sidewalk Labs is planning pilot projects across Toronto this summer to test some of the technologies it hopes to employ at Quayside; this is partly to reassure residents. If its detailed plan is approved later this year (by Waterfront Toronto and also by various city authorities), it could start work at Quayside in 2020.

That proposal contains ideas ranging from the familiar to the revolutionary. There will be robots delivering packages and hauling away rubbish via underground tunnels; a thermal energy grid that does not rely on fossil fuels; modular buildings that can shift from residential to retail use; adaptive traffic lights; and snow-melting sidewalks. Private cars are banned; a fleet of self-driving shuttles and robotaxis would roam freely. Google’s Canadian headquarters would relocate there.

Undergirding Quayside would be a “digital layer” with sensors tracking, monitoring and capturing everything from how park benches are used to levels of noise to water use by lavatories. Sidewalk Labs says that collecting, aggregating and analysing such volumes of data will make Quayside efficient, liveable and sustainable. Data would also be fed into a public platform through which residents could, for example, allow maintenance staff into their homes while they are at work.

Similar “smart city” projects, such as Masdar in the United Arab Emirates or South Korea’s Songdo, have spawned lots of hype but are not seen as big successes. Many experience delays because of shifting political and financial winds, or because those overseeing their construction fail to engage locals in the design of communities, says Deland Chan, an expert on smart cities at Stanford University. Dan Doctoroff, the head of Sidewalk Labs, who was deputy to Michael Bloomberg when the latter was mayor of New York City, says that most projects flop because they fail to cross what he terms “the urbanist-technologist divide”.

That divide, between tech types and city-planning specialists, will also need to be bridged before Sidewalk Labs can stick a shovel in the soggy ground at Quayside. Critics of the project worry that in a quest to become a global tech hub, Toronto’s politicians may give it too much freedom. Sidewalk Labs’s proposal notes that the project needs “substantial forbearances from existing [city] laws and regulations”….(More)”.

Citizen Representation in City Government-Driven Crowdsourcing

Curated on May 5, 2018May 29, 2019 by Stefaan Verhulst

Benjamin Y. Clark and Jeffrey L. Brudney in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): “This article examines the citizen representativeness of crowdsourcing achieved through 311 systems—the non-emergency and quality of life service request reporting systems used by local governments. Based on surveys of San Francisco residents conducted in 2011, 2013, and 2015, our findings suggest that no systematic biases exist in participation rates across a range of socio-economic indicators. In addition, the findings provide evidence that participation may be responding positively to the city’s responsiveness, thus creating a self-reinforcing process that benefits an increasingly diverse and representative body of users. This inquiry builds on earlier studies of Boston and San Francisco that show that 311 systems did not bias response to traditionally disadvantaged groups (lower socioeconomic status or racial/ethnic minorities) at the demand level nor from high-volume users….(More)”.

Open Social Innovation: Why and How Seekers Use Crowdsourcing for Societal Benefits

Curated on May 5, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Krithika Randhawa, Ralf Wilden Macquarie and Joel West: “Despite the increased research attention on crowdsourcing, we know little about why and how seeker organizations use this open innovation mechanism. Furthermore, previous studies have focused on profit-seeking firms, despite the use of open innovation practices by public sector organizations to achieve societal benefits. In this study, we investigate the organizational and project level choices of government (seekers) that crowdsource from citizens (solvers) to drive open social innovation, and thus develop new ways to address societal problems, a process referred to as “citizensourcing”.

Using a dataset of 18 local government seekers that use the same intermediary to conduct more than 2,000 crowdsourcing projects, we develop a model of seeker crowdsourcing implementation that links a previously-unstudied variance in seeker intent and engagement strategies, at the organizational level, to differences in project team motivation and capabilities, in turn leading to varying online engagement behaviors and ultimately project outcomes. Comparing and contrasting governmental with the more familiar corporate context, we further find that the non-pecuniary orientation of both seekers and solvers means that the motives of government crowdsourcing differ fundamentally from corporate crowdsourcing, but that the process more closely resembles a corporate-sponsored community rather than government-sponsored contests. More broadly, we offer insights on how seeker organizational factors and choices shape project-level implementation and success of crowdsourcing efforts, as well as suggest implications for open innovation activities of other smaller, geographicallybound organizations….(More)”.

Digital Skills Toolkit

Curated on May 3, 2018August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the International Telecommunications Union: “This toolkit provides stakeholders with guidance on developing a digital skills strategy. It is intended for policymakers, along with partners in the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and academia. Its overarching aim is to facilitate the development of a comprehensive digital skills strategy at country level. It is also possible to use this guide to focus on selected priorities that require a fresh approach.

Why do countries need a digital skills strategy?

Digital skills underpin nearly every aspect of work and life. From filling in a government form to communicating for work, it is difficult to find a job or life-task that does not require a basic level of digital functioning. And with new technologies emerging every day, we need lifelong opportunities to learn new skills that will allow us to succeed in an era of ongoing digital transformation. Digital skills are essential in opening the door to a wide range of opportunities in the 21st century. Countries that implement comprehensive digital skills strategies ensure their populations have the skills they need to be more employable, productive, creative, and successful while ensuring they remain safe, secure and healthy online. Critically, digital skills strategies need to be updated regularly to respond to the emergence of new technologies and their impact on the digital economy and digital society. The digital economy has created a huge shortage of people with the necessary digital skills. ITU research shows that there will be tens of millions of jobs for people with advanced digital skills in the coming years. In Europe, for example, estimates suggest there will be 500,000 unfilled positions for ICT professionals by 2020. Every region faces similar challenges. In addition to existing skills gaps, experts forecast that advances in areas like artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, 3D printing, and other technologies will usher in a new era that will radically alter patterns of consumption, production, and employment. Many countries view digital skills as one of the core foundations of the digital transformation….(More)”