Paper by Martijn de Waal and Marloes Dignum: “Smart city-policy makers and technology vendors are increasingly stating they want to bring about citizen-centered smart cities. Yet, it often remains unclear what exactly that means, and how citizens are envisaged as actors in smart cities. This article wants to contribute to this discussion by exploring the relation between smart cities and citizenship. It aims to do this by introducing a heuristic scheme that brings out the implied notions of citizenship in three distinct sets of smart city visions and practices: The Control Room envisages the city as a collection of infrastructures and services; The Creative City views the city from the perspective of (economic) geography and ponders on local and regional systems of innovation; The Smart Citizens discourse addresses the city as a political and civic community. These smart city discourses are mapped against two visions on citizenship and governance taken from political philosophy. A `republican’ perspective with strong presence in social-democratic countries is contrasted with a libertarian one, most prominent in Silicon Valley approaches to smart city technologies. This provides a scheme to reflect on potential benefits and downsides if a specific smart city discourse would develop. Instances of smart cities may promote notions of citizenship that are based on consumer choice and individual responsibility, alternatively they could also reinforce collective responsibilities towards the common good of society…(More)”.
GovEx Launches First International Open Data Standards Directory
GT Magazine: “…A nonprofit gov tech group has created an international open data standards directory, aspiring to give cities a singular resource for guidance on formatting data they release to the public…The nature of municipal data is nuanced and diverse, and the format in which it is released often varies depending on subject matter. In other words, a format that works well for public safety data is not necessarily the same that works for info about building permits, transit or budgets. Not having a coordinated and agreed-upon resource to identify the best standards for these different types of info, Nicklin said, creates problems.
One such problem is that it can be time-consuming and challenging for city government data workers to research and identify ideal formats for data. Another is that the lack of info leads to discord between different jurisdictions, meaning one city might format a data set about economic development in an entirely different way than another, making collaboration and comparisons problematic.
What the directory does is provide a list of standards that are in use within municipal governments, as well as an evaluation based on how frequent that use is, whether the format is machine-readable, and whether users have to pay to license it, among other factors.
The directory currently contains 60 standards, some of which are in Spanish, and those involved with the project say they hope to expand their efforts to include more languages. There is also a crowdsourcing component to the directory, in that users are encouraged to make additions and updates….(More)”
India Social: How Social Media Is Leading The Charge And Changing The Country
Book excerpt of Ankit Lal’s book ‘India Social’: on “How social media showed its unique power of crowdsourcing during the Chennai floods…
One ingenious resource that was circulated widely during the floods was a crowdsourced effort that mapped inundated roads in the city. Over 2,500 flooded roads were added to the city’s map via social media, which was put together by engineer and information designer, Arun Ganesh.
The Chennai floods were a superb example of the power of collective effort. Users across social media channels came together to offer shelter, food, transport, and even a place for people to charge their phones. SOS messages asking ground teams to rescue stranded family members also went back and forth, and there were many who offered their homes and offices to those who were stranded.
Perhaps the most simple yet effective tool during the floods was the website chennairains.org.
It began as a simple Google spreadsheet. Sowmya Rao was trying to help her uncle and aunt figure out whether it was safe to stay in their house in suburban Chennai or move to a friend’s place. When she found out that the area they lived in was under severe risk of flooding, she relayed the message to them. But she felt helpless about the countless others who were facing the same plight as her relatives. Acting on a suggestion by another Twitter user, she created the Google spreadsheet that went on to become the website chennairains.org.
The idea was simple: crowdsource details about those who could offer shelter, and pass it on to those who were tweeting about rising waters. A hastily put-together spreadsheet soon blossomed into a multi-faceted, volunteer-driven, highly energetic online movement to help Chennai, and ended up being used by the general public, police officers, government officials and celebrities alike….(More)”.
The world watches Reykjavik’s digital democracy experiment
Joshua Jacobs at the Financial Times: “When Iceland’s banks collapsed and mistrust of politicians soared during the 2008 financial crisis, two programmers thought software could help salvage the country’s democracy. They created Your Priorities, a platform that allows citizens to suggest laws, policies and budget measures, which can then be voted up or down by other users. “
We thought: If we manage somehow to connect regular citizens with government then we create a dialogue that will ultimately result in better decisions,” says Robert Bjarnason, chief executive of Citizens Foundation, the company that created Your Priorities. Mr Bjarnason and his fellow co-founder of Citizens Foundation, Gunnar Grimsson, used the software to create a policy website called Better Reykjavik just before the city’s 2010 elections.
Jon Gnarr, Reykjavik’s then mayor, encouraged people to use the platform to give him policy suggestions and he committed to funding the top 10 ideas each month. Seven years on, Better Reykjavik has some 20,000 users and 769 of their ideas have been approved by the city council. These include increasing financial support for the city’s homeless, converting a former power station into a youth centre, introducing gender-neutral toilets and naming a street after Darth Vader, the character from Star Wars.
Your Priorities has also been tested in other countries, including Estonia, Australia, Scotland, Wales, Norway and Malta. In Estonia, seven proposals have become law, including one limiting donations from companies to political parties and another that requires the national parliament to debate any proposal with more than 1,000 votes.
The software is part of a global trend for people to seek more influence over their politicians. In Australia, for example, the MiVote app allows people to vote on issues being debated in parliament.
…At times, the portal can become a “crazy sounding board” Mr Svansson concedes. The Reykjavik council has put in quality controls to filter out hare-brained proposals, although Mr Bjarnason says he has had to remove inappropriate content only a handful of times….During Iceland’s parliamentary elections last month, 10 out of 11 political parties published their election pitches on Your Priorities, allowing voters to comment on policies and propose new ones. This interactive manifesto website attracted 22,000 visitors.
Testing the efficacy of platforms such as Your Priorities is perhaps easier in Reykjavik — population 123,000 — than in larger cities. Even so, integrating the site into the council’s policymaking apparatus has been slower than Mr Bjarnason had foreseen. “Everything takes a long time and sometimes it is like you are swimming in syrup,” he says. “Still, it has been a really good experience working with the city.”…(More).
Science’s Next Frontier? It’s Civic Engagement
Louise Lief at Discover Magazine: “…As a lay observer who has explored scientists’ relationship to the public, I have often wondered why many scientists and scientific institutions continue to rely on what is known as the “deficit model” of science communication, despite its well-documented shortcomings and even a backfire effect. This approach views the public as “empty vessels” or “warped minds” ready to be set straight with facts. Perhaps many scientists continue to use it because it’s familiar and mimics classroom instruction. But it’s not doing the job.
Scientists spend much of their time with the public defending science, and little time building trust.
Many scientists also give low priority to trust building. At the 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science conference, Michigan State University professor John C. Besley showed these results (right) of a survey of scientists’ priorities for engaging with the public online.
Scientists are focusing on the frustrating, reactive task of defending science, spending little time establishing bonds of trust with the public, which comes in last as a professional priority. How much more productive their interactions with the public – and through them, policymakers — would be if establishing trust was a top priority!
There is evidence that the public is hungry for such exchanges. When Research!America asked the public in 2016 how important is it for scientists to inform elected officials and the public about their research and its impact on society, 84 percent said it was very or somewhat important — a number that ironically mirrors the percentage of Americans who cannot name a scientist….
This means scientists need to go even further, venturing into unfamiliar local venues where science may not be mentioned but where communities gather to discuss their problems. Interesting new opportunities to do this are emerging nation wide. In 2014 the Chicago Community Trust, one of the nation’s largest community foundations, launched a series of dinners across the city through a program called On the Table, to discuss community problems and brainstorm possible solutions. In 2014, the first year, almost 10,000 city residents participated. In 2017, almost 100,000 Chicago residents took part. Recently the Trust added a grants component to the program, awarding more than $135,000 in small grants to help participants translate their ideas into action….(More)”.
MOPA: How an app generates data that help clean-up Maputo
Making All Voices Count: “Maputo has a population of over 1.1 million people, with 54 per cent living below the poverty line and 70 per cent living in informal settlements. The majority of the city’s roads are unpaved and flood control is limited, particularly in informal settlements in peri-urban areas. During the rainy season, streets flood and gutters quickly fill with debris and garbage, blocking the drainage of rainwater.
Solid waste management is one of the most important services that the Maputo Municipal Council must provide. However the lack of funding, capacity, and transparency within the municipality has resulted in substandard waste removal.
The municipality has contracted private companies to collect the waste from the urban communities. Micro-entrepreneurs are hired to travel by foot through high-density, low-income areas using trolleys to pick up trash from households and communal bins in the peri-urban neighborhoods.
Both the waste removal companies and individual waste collectors have difficulties locating waste for removal, coordinating their routes and organising collection points.
MOPA – a tool for both citizens and local government
MOPA is a communications platform that allows participatory monitoring of waste collection in Maputo. Once a waste management problem is reported, one of two large waste collection companies and 56 micro-enterprises act to resolve it. Their actions are logged on the platform by Maputo’s municipality staff.
Implemented by the private company UX Information Technologies and co-designed with the Maputo Municipal Waste Management Services, the platform was initially supported by the World Bank.
With funding from Making All Voices Count, the platform expanded to 42 neighbourhoods (from the four pilot areas) and managed to include a free-to-user mobile application that can be used on any cellphone device with USSD and SMS alternatives. This change enabled residents to directly notify the municipality of problems, track their resolution, and get updates on when and how their issue has been addressed…(More)”.
Delivering the digital state
William D. Eggers and Steve Hurst at Deloitte: “…Consumer surveys indicate that satisfaction with government services has fallen to an eight-year low. Recent Gallup polls show that Americans continue to name dissatisfaction with government as the nation’s second most-important problem, after the economy.
Many government officials, moreover, are entirely aware of this dissatisfaction. In our digital government survey of state and local government officials, 73 percent believed their organization’s digital capabilities were behind those in the private sector. In another recent survey, state IT personnel and decision makers identified the most critical areas needing better digital capabilities; these included health and human services, motor vehicles, employment, public safety, licensing, renewals, and permitting.
Clearly, there’s a huge gap between the service state and provincial governments offer today and that provided by companies such as Amazon, eBay, Uber, and Airbnb. To provide the same seamless experience these companies do, a state government would need a robust digital platform offering the equivalent of one-stop shopping, making a range of functions available in a few clicks. This government platform would “know you” based on past transactions, and anticipate your needs. It would be able to navigate the breadth of content to connect you with the right service or the answer you seek.
Most states can’t do that today, largely because of the way in which they organize and govern digital technology: with databases that can’t communicate with one another, limited information sharing, and overly complex rules and protocols. The 2017 Center for Digital Government survey identified some of the most significant obstacles: legacy systems, lack of qualified staff, poor procurement processes, security issues, inadequate funding, and current employee practices.
To deliver the customer experience their citizens want, states need to focus on three crucial elements:
- An end-to-end digital experience developed from the customer’s point of view, accessible anywhere, anytime, and from any device.
- A unique, uniform digital ID that grants agencies access to the appropriate data and services.
- Mechanisms that allow agencies to share data across the state enterprise….(More)”
Smart Cities, Smarter Citizens
Free eBook courtesy of PTC.com: “The smart city movement is on a roll. Technology leaders are looking to transform major cities through advanced computer technologies, sensors, high-speed data networks, predictive analytics, big data, and IoT. But, as Mike Barlow explains in this O’Reilly report, the story goes beyond technology. Citizens, too, will need to play a large role in turning cities into smart, livable environments.
According to a United Nations report, by 2050 two-thirds of humanity will live in more than 40 mega-cities of 10 million people each. All of them will need to determine how to deliver more services with fewer resources. Cities will have to improve efficiency and reduce expenditures wherever possible, through new technologies and other means.
To create a thriving environment where innovation can blossom, citizens will not only be called upon to generate much of the data, but they’ll also need to be at the center of decision-making, based on what that data reveals.
Download this report today, and learn about the progress that various groups and organizations have already made in major cities around the world, and what lies ahead for all of us….(More)”.
The Unsung Role That Ordinary Citizens Played in the Great Crime Decline
Emily Badger in The New York Times: “Most theories for the great crime decline that swept across nearly every major American city over the last 25 years have focused on the would-be criminals.
Their lives changed in many ways starting in the 1990s: Strict new policing tactics kept closer watch on them. Mass incarceration locked them up in growing numbers. The crack epidemic that ensnared many began to recede. Even the more unorthodox theories — around the rise of abortion, the reduction in lead or the spread of A.D.H.D. medication — have argued that larger shifts in society altered the behavior (and existence) of potential criminals.
But none of these explanations have paid much attention to the communities where violence plummeted the most. New research suggests that people there were working hard, with little credit, to address the problem themselves.
Local nonprofit groups that responded to the violence by cleaning streets, building playgrounds, mentoring children and employing young men had a real effect on the crime rate. That’s what Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at New York University, argues in a new study and a forthcoming book. Mr. Sharkey doesn’t contend that community groups alone drove the national decline in crime, but rather that their impact is a major missing piece.
“This was a part that has been completely overlooked and ignored in national debates over the crime drop,” he said. “But I think it’s fundamental to what happened.”…(More)”.
Augmented CI and Human-Driven AI: How the Intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Collective Intelligence Could Enhance Their Impact on Society
Blog by Stefaan Verhulst: “As the technology, research and policy communities continue to seek new ways to improve governance and solve public problems, two new types of assets are occupying increasing importance: data and people. Leveraging data and people’s expertise in new ways offers a path forward for smarter decisions, more innovative policymaking, and more accountability in governance. Yet, unlocking the value of these two assets not only requires increased availability and accessibility (through, for instance, open data or open innovation), it also requires innovation in methodology and technology.
The first of these innovations involves Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI offers unprecedented abilities to quickly process vast quantities of data that can provide data-driven insights to address public needs. This is the role it has for example played in New York City, where FireCast, leverages data from across the city government to help the Fire Department identify buildings with the highest fire risks. AI is also considered to improve education, urban transportation, humanitarian aid and combat corruption, among other sectors and challenges.
The second area is Collective Intelligence (CI). Although it receives less attention than AI, CI offers similar potential breakthroughs in changing how we govern, primarily by creating a means for tapping into the “wisdom of the crowd” and allowing groups to create better solutions than even the smartest experts working in isolation could ever hope to achieve. For example, in several countries patients’ groups are coming together to create new knowledge and health treatments based on their experiences and accumulated expertise. Similarly, scientists are engaging citizens in new ways to tap into their expertise or skills, generating citizen science – ranging from mapping our solar system to manipulating enzyme models in a game-like fashion.
Neither AI nor CI offer panaceas for all our ills; they each pose certain challenges, and even risks. The effectiveness and accuracy of AI relies substantially on the quality of the underlying data as well as the human-designed algorithms used to analyse that data. Among other challenges, it is becoming increasingly clear how biases against minorities and other vulnerable populations can be built into these algorithms. For instance, some AI-driven platforms for predicting criminal recidivism significantly over-estimate the likelihood that black defendants will commit additional crimes in comparison to white counterparts. (for more examples, see our reading list on algorithmic scrutiny).
In theory, CI avoids some of the risks of bias and exclusion because it is specifically designed to bring more voices into a conversation. But ensuring that that multiplicity of voices adds value, not just noise, can be an operational and ethical challenge. As it stands, identifying the signal in the noise in CI initiatives can be time-consuming and resource intensive, especially for smaller organizations or groups lacking resources or technical skills.
Despite these challenges, however, there exists a significant degree of optimism surrounding both these new approaches to problem solving. Some of this is hype, but some of it is merited—CI and AI do offer very real potential, and the task facing both policymakers, practitioners and researchers is to find ways of harnessing that potential in a way that maximizes benefits while limiting possible harms.
In what follows, I argue that the solution to the challenge described above may involve a greater interaction between AI and CI. These two areas of innovation have largely evolved and been researched separately until now. However, I believe that there is substantial scope for integration, and mutual reinforcement. It is when harnessed together, as complementary methods and approaches, that AI and CI can bring the full weight of technological progress and modern data analytics to bear on our most complex, pressing problems.
To deconstruct that statement, I propose three premises (and subsequent set of research questions) toward establishing a necessary research agenda on the intersection of AI and CI that can build more inclusive and effective approaches to governance innovation.
Premise I: Toward Augmented Collective Intelligence: AI will enable CI to scale
Premise II: Toward Human-Driven Artificial Intelligence: CI will humanize AI
Premise III: Open Governance will drive a blurring between AI and CI
…(More)”.