Podcast by Civilla: “One team’s mission to poke the universe. Civilla, a center for social innovation based in Detroit, was founded by a small team with big plans. This podcast is an inside peek at their journey as they work to create positive impact in the lives of one billion people. Season One follows the ups and downs as they assemble their very first $100 Million idea. Stories are captured in real time and shared out weekly. Key themes include: civic leadership, social innovation, philanthropy, human-centered design, change work, government, and courageous leadership….(More)”
How Snapchat Is Recruiting Bone Marrow Donors
PSFK: “Every ten minutes, blood cancer takes a life away. One of the ways to treat this disease is through stem cell transplants that create healthy blood cells. Since 70% of patients who need a transplant cannot find a match in their family, they need to turn to outside donors. In an effort to increase the number of bone marrow donors in the registry, Be The Match turned to Snapchat to find male donors from the ages of 18 to 24.
The aim of the campaign “Be the Guy” is to release short videos on Snapchat of regular guys acting silly. This emphasizes the idea that literally anyone can save a life, no matter who—or how quirky—you are. With a swipe up, any Snapchat user will be directed to a form that makes it easy to sign up to be a donor. To complete the registration, all it takes is to receive a kit in the mail and mail back a swap from your cheek….(More)”
Exposing the Invisible
About the Project: “The digital age has profoundly transformed the way people find and share information. The Internet is enabling collaboration between activists, hackers and journalists on an unprecedented scale. This has led to previously unimaginable possibilities in investigative reporting. People are newly empowered to uncover hidden information, expose corruption and bring the truth to light.
Through a series of short films, video interviews, guides and resources, Exposing the Invisible looks at different techniques, tools and methods along with the individual practices of those working at the new frontiers of investigation.
We hope that Exposing the Invisible will inspire a new generation of people committed to transparency and accountability.
New movies, interviews, guides and resources will be uploaded to our website regularly. If you have suggestions or projects you would like to tell us about, please come and talk to us or check out when a screening might be going on near you, or how to host one yourself…(More)”
Against Elections The Case for Democracy
Book by David Van Reybrouck: “Democracy is in bad health. Against Elections offers a new diagnosis – and an ancient remedy. Fear-mongering populists, distrust in the establishment, personality contests instead of reasoned debate: these are the results of the latest elections.
In fact, as this ingenious book shows, the original purpose of elections was to exclude the people from power by appointing an elite to govern over them.
Yet for most of its 3000-year history, democracy did not involve elections at all: members of the public were appointed to positions in government through a combination of volunteering and lottery.
Based on studies and trials from around the globe, this hugely influential manifesto presents the practical case for a true democracy – one that actually works.
Urgent, heretical and completely convincing, Against Elections leaves only one question to be answered: what are we waiting for?…(More)”
Soft Data and Public Policy: Can Social Media Offer Alternatives to Official Statistics in Urban Policymaking?
Marta Severo, Amel Feredj and Alberto Romele in Policy & Internet: “In recent years, decision makers have reported difficulties in the use of official statistics in public policy: excessively long publication delays, insufficient coverage of topics of interest, and the top-down process of data creation. The deluge of data available online represents a potential answer to these problems, with social media data in particular as a possible alternative to traditional data. In this article, we propose a definition of “Soft Data” to indicate data that are freely available on the Internet, and that are not controlled by a public administration but rather by public or private actors. The term Soft Data is not intended to replace those of “Big Data” and “Open Data,” but rather to highlight specific properties and research methods required to convert them into information of interest for decision makers. The analysis is based on a case study of Twitter data for urban policymaking carried out for a European research program aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of European cohesion policy. The article explores methodological issues and the possible impact of “Soft Data” on public policy, reporting on semistructured interviews carried out with nine European policymakers….(More)”
Resistance of Public Personnel to Open Government: A cognitive theory view of implementation barriers towards open government data
Bernd W. Wirtz, Robert Piehler, Marc-Julian Thomas & Peter Daiser in Public Management Review: “Open government has become an important topic in democratically developed societies. Its key aims are to increase transparency, citizen trust and public participation. Against this background, the article focuses on perceived barriers opposing the introduction of open government data. On the basis of cognitive theory and a literature review, the essential factors that impede public servants in implementing open government data are conceptualized and summarized in a model. The perceived risk-based attitude of public servants is identified as the main barrier. Other significant obstacles include perceived legal barriers, perceived hierarchical structuring of authorities, perceived bureaucratic decision-making culture and perceived organizational transparency….(More)”
Google Maps is turning its over a billion users into editors
TechCrunch: “Google has begun to further tap into the power of the crowd in order to improve its Google Maps application, the company announced this morning. This is being done through the introduction of a number of features that will allow users to more easily share location details, as well as confirm edits suggested by others. Many users had already seen these changes rolling out, but today Google is making them official – an indication that the broader rollout is completing.
While Google says that it makes “millions” of updates to Maps every day, it’s still not enough to ensure that every location has the most accurate, detailed information. That’s why it’s turning to users to help it improve the mapping service.
The company has expanded users’ ability to both add missing places to Google Maps or correct business information through its Google Maps iOS and Android applications, as well as in Google Search. You may have already noticed options for “Suggest an Edit,” or “Add a Missing Place,” for example, which allow you to make your contributions.
Those edits don’t immediately go live, however, as one user’s input alone isn’t enough to determine the edit’s accuracy….(More)”
Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance
Worldbank: “The Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance project is an initiative of the World Bank’sGlobal Indicators Group, which produces a range of datasets and benchmarking products on regulations and business activity around the world. These datasets include Doing Business,Enterprise Surveys, Enabling the Business of Agriculture and Women, Business and the Law.
The Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance project explores how governments interact with the public when shaping regulations that affect their business community. Concerned stakeholders could be professional associations, civic groups or foreign investors. The project charts how interested groups learn about new regulations being considered, and the extent to which they are able to engage with officials on the content. It also measures whether or not governments assess the possible impact of new regulations in their countries (including economic, social and environmental considerations) and whether those calculations form part of the public consultation. Finally, Global Indicators of Regulatory Governance capture two additional components of a predictable regulatory environment: the ability of stakeholders to challenge regulations, and the ability of people to access all the laws and regulations currently in force in one, consolidated place.
The project grew out of an increasing recognition of the importance of transparency and accountability in government actions. Citizen access to the government rulemaking process is central for the creation of a business environment in which investors make long-range plans and investments. Greater levels of consultation are also associated with a higher quality of regulation…(More) ( View project summary (PDF, 190KB)”
Mapping Momentum
Report by Rachel Sinha and Tim Draimin:”As we hurtle towards a human community of 9.7 billion people by the year 2050, coupled with new technologies and the growing challenges of our planet’s carrying capacity, there is more and more discussion of systems and how they change or are created. The post-war era has witnessed an unprecedented growth of global, national and regional systems but systemic challenges like climate change and inequality are undermining the viability and resilience of our 20th century systems.
It’s against this backdrop that a movement is starting to gain traction. A community of practitioners trying to shift incumbent systems no longer fit for purpose and build new ones that work for our current reality.
But this field is nascent and largely unsupported. In this publication, we have created two maps designed to shine a light on the work of this group of pioneers. We offer these with the hypothesis that the field will be better able to organize itself if it can see itself more clearly. Our theory of change? A clearer picture leads to greater connectivity, connectivity leads to stronger networks, and accelerates the best initiatives we so badly need if we are to effectively shift systems….(More)”
Fine-grained dengue forecasting using telephone triage services
Nabeel Abdur Rehman et al at Science Advances: “Thousands of lives are lost every year in developing countries for failing to detect epidemics early because of the lack of real-time disease surveillance data. We present results from a large-scale deployment of a telephone triage service as a basis for dengue forecasting in Pakistan. Our system uses statistical analysis of dengue-related phone calls to accurately forecast suspected dengue cases 2 to 3 weeks ahead of time at a subcity level (correlation of up to 0.93). Our system has been operational at scale in Pakistan for the past 3 years and has received more than 300,000 phone calls. The predictions from our system are widely disseminated to public health officials and form a critical part of active government strategies for dengue containment. Our work is the first to demonstrate, with significant empirical evidence, that an accurate, location-specific disease forecasting system can be built using analysis of call volume data from a public health hotline….(More)”