Stefaan Verhulst

Mahmoud Mohieldin and Mariana Dahan in the Huffington Post: “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, approved in September, takes a holistic approach to development and presents no less than 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In committing to the goals and associated targets, the international community has agreed to a more ambitious development compact — that of ending poverty, protecting the planet while “leaving no one behind”.

Despite this ambition, we may not know who precisely is being left out of our development programs or how to more effectively target our intended beneficiaries.

A staggering 2.4 billion people today lack any form of recognized identity (ID), including some 625 million children, aged 0-14 years, whose births have never been registered with a civil authority. Only 19 out of 198 economies provide a unique ID at birth and use this consistently in civil identification and public services.

The Center for Global Development recently organized an event titled “Identity and the SDGs: How Finding the Missing Millions Can Help Achieve Development Goals”. While intending to speak about SDG target 16.9 on legal identity for all, including birth registration, by 2030, it became obvious that the importance of robust identification goes beyond its intrinsic value: it also enables the achievement of many other SDGs, such as financial inclusion, reduced corruption, gender equality, access to health services and appropriate social protection schemes.

Global initiatives, such as the World Bank Group’s Identification for Development (ID4D) agenda, a cross-institutional and multi-sectoral effort, aim to “make everyone count.” They will build new alliances and reshape existing development strategies in the areas of identification and civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS). On the latter, the World Bank, with a number of partners – including UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and several bilateral donors — is launching the Global Financing Facility for Every Woman Every Child, which includes financing aimed at strengthening and expanding ID platforms of CRVS systems….

Finally, the international community should establish the right monitoring mechanisms and indicators to measure whether we are on track to achieving the SDGs. This target for universal identity will be especially critical as a means of monitoring and achieving the SDGs as a whole. As the saying goes, what is not counted doesn’t count and what is not measured cannot be managed and thus measuring progress towards global targets is a fundamental component of meeting the ambitious goals we have set….(More)”

Max Lewontin in The Christian Science Monitor: “The revolution will not be televised…the revolution will be live,” musician Gil Scott-Heron famously sang in 1970. But with the evolving ability of citizens to connect online and through social media despite vast physical distances, a slew of new social movements are increasingly pushing for action on a range of social, political, and cultural issues.

The immediacy of social media, many activists say, allows a rapid spread of information not previously available, with updates possible in near-real time. From the Arab Spring to SOPA to #blacklivesmatter, here’s a look at how online activism has impacted social issues across the globe.

1. Black Lives Matter…

2. Arab Spring…

3. Taiwan’s student protests…

4. Net neutrality…

5. SOPA/PIPA…(More)”

Press release: “Thirty years ago, the Internet was a network that primarily delivered email among academic and government employees. Today, it is rapidly evolving into a control system for our physical environment through the Internet of Things, as mobile and wearable technology more tightly integrate the Internet into our everyday lives.

How will the future Internet be shaped by the design choices that we are making today? Could the Internet evolve into a fundamentally different platform than the one to which we have grown accustomed? As an alternative to big data, what would it mean to make ubiquitously collected data safely available to individuals as small data? How could we attain both security and privacy in the face of trends that seem to offer neither? And what role do public institutions, such as libraries, have in an environment that becomes more privatized by the day?

These are some of the questions addressed in the Winter 2016 issue of Daedalus on “The Internet.”  As guest editors David D. Clark (Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) and Yochai Benkler (Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School and Faculty Co-Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University) have observed, the Internet “has become increasingly privately owned, commercial, productive, creative, and dangerous.”

Some of the themes explored in the issue include:

• The conflicts that emerge among governments, corporate stakeholders, and Internet users through choices that are made in the design of the Internet
• The challenges—including those of privacy and security—that materialize in the evolution from fixed terminals to ubiquitous computing
• The role of public institutions in shaping the Internet’s privately owned open spaces
• The ownership and security of data used for automatic control of connected devices, and
• Consumer demand for “free” services—developed and supported through the sale of user data to advertisers….

Essays in the Winter 2016 issue of Daedalus include:

• The Contingent Internet by David D. Clark (MIT)
• Degrees of Freedom, Dimensions of Power by Yochai Benkler (Harvard Law School)
• Edge Networks and Devices for the Internet of Things by Peter T. Kirstein (University College London)
• Reassembling Our Digital Selves by Deborah Estrin (Cornell Tech and Weill Cornell Medical College) and Ari Juels (Cornell Tech)
• Choices: Privacy and Surveillance in a Once and Future Internet by Susan Landau (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
• As Pirates Become CEOs: The Closing of the Open Internet by Zeynep Tufekci (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
• Design Choices for Libraries in the Digital-Plus Era by John Palfrey (Phillips Academy)…(More)

See also: Introduction

Paper by Kayvon Modjarrad et al in PLOS Med: “…When a new or re-emergent pathogen causes a major outbreak, rapid access to both raw and analysed data or other pertinent research findings becomes critical to developing a rapid and effective public health response. Without the timely exchange of information on clinical, epidemiologic, and molecular features of an infectious disease, informed decisions about appropriate responses cannot be made, particularly those that relate to fielding new interventions or adapting existing ones. Failure to share information in a timely manner can have disastrous public health consequences, leading to unnecessary suffering and death. The 2014–2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa revealed both successful practices and important deficiencies within existing mechanisms for information sharing. For example, trials of two Ebola vaccine candidates (ChAd3-ZEBOV and rVSV-ZEBOV) benefited greatly from an open collaboration between investigators and institutions in Africa, Europe, and North America . These teams, coordinated by the WHO, were able to generate and exchange critical data for the development of urgently needed, novel vaccines along faster timelines than have ever before been achieved. Similarly, some members of the genome sequencing community made viral sequence data publicly available within days of accessing samples , thus adhering to their profession’s long-established principles of rapid, public release of sequence data in any setting. In contrast, the dissemination of surveillance data early in the epidemic was comparatively slow, and in some cases, the criteria for sharing were unclear.

In recognition of the need to streamline mechanisms of data dissemination—globally and in as close to real-time as possible—the WHO held a consultation in Geneva, Switzerland, on 1–2 September 2015 to advance the development of data sharing norms, specifically in the context of public health emergencies….

preservation of global health requires prioritization of and support for international collaboration. These and other principles were affirmed at the consultation (Table 1) and codified into a consensus statement that was published on the WHO website immediately following the meeting (http://www.who.int/medicines/ebola-treatment/data-sharing_phe/en/). A more comprehensive set of principles and action items was made available in November 2015, including the consensus statement made by the editorial staff of journals that attended the meeting (http://www.who.int/medicines/ebola-treatment/blueprint_phe_data-share-results/en/). The success of prior initiatives to accelerate timelines for reporting clinical trial results has helped build momentum for a broader data sharing agenda. As the quick and transparent dissemination of information is the bedrock of good science and public health practice, it is important that the current trends in data sharing carry over to all matters of acute public health need. Such a global norm would advance the spirit of open collaboration, simplify current mechanisms of information sharing, and potentially save many lives in subsequent outbreaks….(More)”

New book edited by Marcus Foth, Martin Brynskov, and Timo Ojala “…this book brings together case studies and examples from around the world to discuss the role that urban interfaces, citizen action, and city making play in the quest to create and maintain not only secure and resilient, but productive, sustainable and viable urban environments. The book debates the impact of these trends on theory, policy and practice. The individual chapters are based on blind peer reviewed contributions by leading researchers working at the intersection of the social / cultural, technical / digital, and physical / spatial domains of urbanism scholarship. The book will appeal not only to researchers and students, but also to a vast number of practitioners in the private and public sector interested in accessible content that clearly and rigorously analyses the potential offered by urban interfaces, mobile technology, and location-based services in the context of engaging people with open, smart and participatory urban environments….(More)”

Sebastian Berger in the Scientific American: “More than ever, psychology has become influential not only in explaining human behavior, but also as a resource for policy makers to achieve goals related to health, well-being, or sustainability. For example, President Obama signed an executive order directing the government to systematically use behavioral science insights to “better serve the American people.” Not alone in this endeavor, many governments – including the UK, Germany, Denmark, or Australia – are turning to the insights that most frequently stem from psychological researchers, but also include insights from behavioral economics, sociology, or anthropology.

Particularly relevant are the analysis and the setting of “default-options.” A default is the option that a decision maker receives if he or she does not specifically state otherwise. Are we automatically enrolled in a 401(k), are we organ donors by default, or is the flu-shot a standard that is routinely given to all citizens? Research has given us many examples of how and when defaults can promote public safety or wealth.

One of the most important questions facing the planet, however, is how to manage the transition into a carbon-free economy. In a recent paper, Felix Ebeling of the University of Cologne and I tested whether defaults could nudge consumers into choosing a green energy contract over one that relies on conventional energy. The results were striking: setting the default to green energy increased participation nearly tenfold. This is an important result because it tells us that subtle, non-coercive changes in the decision making environment are enough to show substantial differences in consumers’ preferences in the domain of clean energy. It changes green energy participation from “hardly anyone” to “almost everyone”. Merely within the domain of energy behavior, one can think of many applications where this finding can be applied:  For instance, default engines of new cars could be set to hybrid and customers would need to actively switch to standard options. Standard temperatures of washing machines could be low, etc….(More)”

Book by Hollie Russon Gilman: “Democracy Reinvented is the first comprehensive academic treatment of participatory budgeting in the United States, situating it within a broader trend of civic technology and innovation. This global phenomenon, which has been called “revolutionary civics in action” by the New York Times, started in Brazil in 1989 but came to America only in 2009.  Participatory budgeting empowers citizens to identify community needs, work with elected officials to craft budget proposals, and vote on how to spend public funds.

Democracy Reinvented places participatory budgeting within the larger discussion of the health of U.S. democracy and focuses on the enabling political and institutional conditions.  Author and former White House policy adviser Hollie Russon Gilman presents theoretical insights, in-depth case studies, and interviews to offer a compelling alternative to the current citizen disaffection and mistrust of government. She offers policy recommendations on how to tap online tools and other technological and civic innovations to promote more inclusive governance.

While most literature tends to focus on institutional changes without solutions, this book suggests practical ways to empower citizens to become change agents. Democracy Reinvented also includes a discussion on the challenges and opportunities that come with using digital tools to re-engage citizens in governance….(More)”

“We Feel is a project that explores whether social media – specifically Twitter – can provide an accurate, real-time signal of the world’s emotional state….Hundreds of millions of tweets are posted every day. A huge topic of conversation is, of course, the authors; what they are up to, what they have encountered, and how they feel about it.

We Feel is about tapping that signal to better understand the prevalence and drivers of emotions. We hope it can uncover, for example, where people are most at risk of depression and how the mood and emotions of an area/region fluctuate over time. It could also help understand questions such as how strongly our emotions depend on social, economic and environmental factors such as the weather, time of day, day of the week, news of a major disaster or a downturn in the economy.

Whilst there is already a wealth of academic research on mental health and wellbeing, such as the Black Dog Index, this information is traditionally gathered by surveys and isn’t a real-time indication of what’s happening day to day. The traditional approach is time consuming and expensive. Twitter offers a large and fast sample of information that could hold the key to a real-time view of our emotions….

See also: Milne, D., Paris, C., Christensen, H., Batterham, P. and O’Dea, B. (2015) We Feel: Taking the emotional pulse of the world. In the Proceedings of the 19th Triennial Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2015), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, August 2015.”

Beth Noveck in The Guardian: “Increasingly, these technologies of expertise are making it possible for the individual to make searchable lived experience. The New York police department, for example, maintains a database of employee skills. As the social service agency of last resort, the department needs to be able to pinpoint quickly who within the organization has the know how to wrangle a runaway beehive in Brooklyn or sing the national anthem in Queens in Chinese.

In public institutions, especially, it is all too common for individual knowhow to be masked by vague titles like “manager” and “director”. Using software to give organizations insights about the aptitude of employees has the potential to improve effectiveness and efficiency for public good.

Already an accelerating practice in the private sector, where managers want granular evidence of hard skills not readily apparent from transcripts, this year the World Bank created its own expert network called SkillFinder to index the talents of its 27,000 employees, consultants and alumni. With the launch of SkillFinder, the bank is just beginning to explore how to use the tool to better organize its human capital to achieve the bank’s mission of eradicating poverty.

Giving people outside as well as inside institutions opportunities to share their knowledge could save time, financial resources and even lives. Take the example of PulsePoint, a smartphone app created by the fire department of San Ramon, California. Now used by 1400 communities across the United States, PulsePoint matches those with a specific skill, namely CPR training, with dramatic results.

By tapping into a feed of the 911 calls, PulsePoint sends a text message “CPR Needed!” to those registered members of the public – off-duty doctors, nurses, police and trained amateurs – near the victim. Effective bystander CPR immediately administered can potentially double or triple the victim’s chance of survival. By augmenting traditional government first response,  Pulsepoint’s matching has already helped over 7,000 victims.

Employers can accelerate this process by going beyond merely asking employees for HR information and, instead, begin to catalog systematically the unique skills of the individuals within their organization. Many employers are anyway turning to new technology to match employees (and would-be employees) with the right skills to available jobs. How easily they could develop and share databases with public information about who has what experience while at the same time protecting the privacy of personal information….(More)”