Rebecca Rumbul at Journal of eDemocracy and Open Government: “A number of NGOs across the world currently develop digital tools to increase citizen interaction with official information. The successful operation of such tools depends on the expertise and efficiency of the NGO, and the willingness of institutions to disclose suitable information and data. It is this institutional interaction with civic technology that this study examines. The research explores empirical interview data gathered from government officials, public servants, campaigners and NGO’s involved in the development and implementation of civic technologies in Chile, Argentina and Mexico. The findings identify the impact these technologies have had upon government bureaucracy, and the existing barriers to openness created by institutionalised behaviours and norms. Institutionalised attitudes to information rights and conventions are shown to inform the approach that government bureaucracy takes in the provision of information, and institutionalised procedural behaviour is shown to be a factor in frustrating NGOs attempting to implement civic technology….(More)”.
Making Citizen-Generated Data Work
Danny Lämmerhirt at Open Knowledge: “We are pleased to announce a new research series investigating how citizens and civil society create data to drive sustainable development. The series follows on from earlier papers on Democratising The Data Revolution and how citizen-generated data can change what public institutions measure. The first report “Making Citizen-Generated Data Work” asks what makes citizens and others want to produce and use citizen-generated data. It was written by myself, Shazade Jameson, and Eko Prasetyo.
“The goal of Citizen-Generated Data is to monitor, advocate for, or drive change around an issue important to citizens”
The report demonstrates that citizen-generated data projects are rarely the work of individual citizens. Instead, they often depend on partnerships to thrive and are supported by civil society organisations, community-based organisations, governments, or business. These partners play a necessary role to provide resources, support, and knowledge to citizens. In return, they can harness data created by citizens to support their own mission. Thus, citizens and their partners often gain mutual benefits from citizen-generated data.
But if CGD projects rely on partnerships, who has to be engaged, and through which incentives, to enable CGD projects to achieve their goals? How are such multi-stakeholder projects organised, and which resources and expertise do partners bring into a project? What can other projects do to support and benefit their own citizen-generated data initiatives? This report offers recommendations to citizens, civil society organisations, policy-makers, donors, and others on how to foster stronger collaborations….(Read the full report here).
How Does Civil Society Use Budget Information? Mapping Fiscal Transparency Gaps and Needs in Developing Countries
Paolo de Renzio and Massimo Mastruzzi at International Budget Partnership (IBP): “Governments sometimes complain that the budget information they make publicly available is seldom accessed and utilized. On the other hand, civil society organizations (CSOs) often claim that the information governments make available is very difficult to understand and not detailed enough to allow for meaningful analysis and advocacy. Is there a mismatch between the budget information supplied by governments and demand among civil society?
This paper examines the “demand side” of fiscal transparency using findings from a global survey of 176 individuals working in civil society that use budget information for analysis and advocacy activities. Based on the responses, the authors identify a “fiscal transparency effectiveness gap” between the fiscal information that governments often provide and the information that CSOs need.
These findings are used to develop a set of recommendations to help governments ensure their transparency practices deliver increased citizen engagement, improved oversight, and enhanced accountability….(More)”
Global Standards in National Contexts: The Role of Transnational Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives in Public Sector Governance Reform
Paper by Brandon Brockmyer: “Multi-stakeholder initiatives (i.e., partnerships between governments, civil society, and the private sector) are an increasingly prevalent strategy promoted by multilateral, bilateral, and nongovernmental development organizations for addressing weaknesses in public sector governance. Global public sector governance MSIs seek to make national governments more transparent and accountable by setting shared standards for information disclosure and multi- stakeholder collaboration. However, research on similar interventions implemented at the national or subnational level suggests that the effectiveness of these initiatives is likely to be mediated by a variety of socio-political factors.
This dissertation examines the transnational evidence base for three global public sector governance MSIs — the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative, and the Open Government Partnership — and investigates their implementation within and across three shared national contexts — Guatemala, the Philippines, and Tanzania — in order to determine whether and how these initiatives lead to improvements in proactive transparency (i.e., discretionary release of government data), demand-driven transparency (i.e., reforms that increase access to government information upon request), and accountability (i.e., the extent to which government officials are compelled to publicly explain their actions and/or face penalties or sanction for them), as well as the extent to which they provide participating governments with an opportunity to project a public image of transparency and accountability, while maintaining questionable practices in these areas (i.e., openwashing).
The evidence suggests that global public sector governance MSIs often facilitate gains in proactive transparency by national governments, but that improvements in demand-driven transparency and accountability remain relatively rare. Qualitative comparative analysis reveals that a combination of multi-stakeholder power sharing and civil society capacity is sufficient to drive improvements in proactive transparency, while the absence of visible, high-level political support is sufficient to impede such reforms. The lack of demand-driven transparency or accountability gains suggests that national-level coalitions forged by global MSIs are often too narrow to successfully advocate for broader improvements to public sector governance. Moreover, evidence for openwashing was found in one-third of cases, suggesting that national governments sometimes use global MSIs to deliberately mislead international observers and domestic stakeholders about their commitment to reform….(More)”
New Tech Helps Tenants Make Their Case in Court
Corinne Ramey at the Wall Street Journal: “Tenants and their advocates are using new technology to document a lack of heat in apartment buildings, a condition they say has been difficult to prove in housing-court cases.
Small sensors provided by the New York City-based nonprofit Heat Seek, now installed in some city apartments, measure temperatures and transmit the data to a server. Tenant advocates say the data buttress their contention that some landlords withhold heat as a way to oust rent-regulated tenants.
“It’s really exciting to be able to track this information and hopefully get the courts to accept it, so we can show what everybody knows to be true,” said Sunny Noh, a supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society’s Tenant Rights Coalition, which filed a civil suit using Heat Seek’s data.
…The smaller device, called a cell, transmits hourly temperature readings to the larger device, called a hub, through a radio signal. The hub is equipped with a small modem, which it uses to send data to a web server. The nonprofit typically places a hub in each building and the cells inside individual apartments.
Last winter, Heat Seek’s data were used in eight court cases representing a total of about 20 buildings, all of which were settled, Ms. Francois said. Currently, the sensors are in about six buildings and she anticipates about 50 buildings will have them by the end of the winter.
Data from Heat Seek haven’t been admitted at a trial yet, said Ms. Noh, the Legal Aid lawyer.
The nonprofit, with help from housing lawyers, has chosen to focus on gentrifying neighborhoods because they expect landlords there have more incentives to force out rent-regulated tenants….(More)
Artificial Intelligence Could Help Colleges Better Plan What Courses They Should Offer
Jeffrey R. Young at EdSsurge: Big data could help community colleges better predict how industries are changing so they can tailor their IT courses and other programs. After all, if Amazon can forecast what consumers will buy and prestock items in their warehouses to meet the expected demand, why can’t colleges do the same thing when planning their curricula, using predictive analytics to make sure new degree or certificates programs are started just in time for expanding job opportunities?
That’s the argument made by Gordon Freedman, president of the nonprofit National Laboratory for Education Transformation. He’s part of a new center that will do just that, by building a data warehouse that brings together up-to-date information on what skills employers need and what colleges currently offer—and then applying artificial intelligence to attempt to predict when sectors or certain employment needs might be expanding.
He calls the approach “opportunity engineering,” and the center boasts some heavy-hitting players to assist in the efforts, including the University of Chicago, the San Diego Supercomputing Center and Argonne National Laboratory. It’s called the National Center for Opportunity Engineering & Analysis.
Ian Roark, vice president of workforce development at Pima Community College in Arizona, is among those eager for this kind of “opportunity engineering” to emerge.
He explains when colleges want to start new programs, they face a long haul—it takes time to develop a new curriculum, put it through an internal review, and then send it through an accreditor….
Other players are already trying to translate the job market into a giant data set to spot trends. LinkedIn sits on one of the biggest troves of data, with hundreds of millions of job profiles, and ambitions to create what it calls the “economic graph” of the economy. But not everyone is on LinkedIn, which attracts mainly those in white-collar jobs. And companies such as Burning Glass Technologies have scanned hundreds of thousands of job listings and attempt to provide real-time intelligence on what employers say they’re looking for. Those still don’t paint the full picture, Freedman argues, such as what jobs are forming at companies.
“We need better information from the employer, better information from the job seeker and better information from the college, and that’s what we’re going after,” Freedman says…(More)”.
Tech is moving beyond cities to focus on civic engagement in every U.S. county
Hollie Russon Gilman at TechCrunch: “While gridlock has taken hold in a paralyzed Washington, D.C. mayors across the country are taking a pragmatic approach to solving local problems and its time for tech to reach out to them….
The United States has 3,0007 counties. And all of them have an appetite to shift the momentum from the federal government to the communities where people live and work. This can’t just involve coastal cities or urban areas within states. Rather, after Trump’s election, now is the moment to redouble policy efforts in communities across the country from states to rural counties.
Cities from Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, to New York have been leading the way to think about how to provide better services and engagement opportunities. They’ve been exciting places where rich networks of talent from academia to philanthropy have been helping foster ecosystems to catalyze new policy solutions….
There are a host of illustrative experiments occurring across communities that are leveraging policy innovation, data, and technology for more responsive and inclusive governance. The engagements that work focus on process to ensure that diverse stakeholders are a part of decision making….
Wisconsin:
In Eau Claire, Wisconsin a local organization called Clear Vision is teaming up with stakeholders on a poverty summit to reduce the number of people living poverty in income insecurity and build more resilient and inclusive communities. Citizen action groups will work on key issues they identify as part of the engagement process.
A key component of this poverty summit is to bring in traditionally marginalized communities into the process including low-income households, rural poor, youth and black and Hispanic communities. There is even a community-supported, nonprofit journalism site to support the local work in Eau Claire, Chippewa, and Dunn counties….
Oregon:
In Oregon, a “Kitchen Table” is enabling residents from across the state to contribute ideas, resources, and feedback to inform public policy. The Kitchen Table enables public officials to consult with representatives about key policy areas, crowdfund, and micro-lend for local startups and community businesses….
Another practice in Oregon is the Citizens Initiative Review, where a representative sampling of citizens convenes for deliberations over several days to discuss state ballot measures. After being established by the state’s bipartisan legislature in 2009, there have been six random representative samples of citizens for multi-day deliberations to draft voting guides written for the people, by their neighbors….
This requires tapping into existing networks and civic organizations, leveraging data, technology and policy innovations, and re-shifting our focus from federal policy towards building an infrastructure of governance that is durable through collective development and buy-in from people…(More)”
How The Tech Community Mobilized To Help Refugees
Steven Melendez at FastCompany: “Thousands of techies the world over have banded together to help refugees flooding Europe to stay connected.
The needs of the waves of migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, and other points—more than a million in 2015—go beyond just shelter, safety, and sustenance.
“You can imagine, crossing to a border or coming to a place you don’t know. Information needs are massive,” says Alyoscia D’Onofrio, senior director at the governance technical unit of the International Rescue Committee, which assists refugees and displaced people around the world.
“One of the big differences between this crisis response and many that have gone before is that you’re got probably a much tech-savvier population on the move and probably much better access to handsets and networks.”
Helping to connect those newcomers to information—and each other—is a group of 15,000 digital volunteers who call themselves the Techfugees.
“We are here not to solve the biggest problems of hygiene, water, clean energy because these are sectors that need a lot of expertise,” says Joséphine Goube, the CEO of the nonprofit that quickly came together last year.
Instead, often with the aid of smartphones many migrants and asylum seekers bring with them, the continent’s tech community aids refugees and asylum seekers in getting back online to find their footing in unfamiliar places….
The IRC has received substantial funding from tech companies to support its efforts, and individual tech workers have flocked to dozens of conferences and hackathons organized by Techfugees around the world since an initial conference in London last October.
“We were actually overwhelmed by the response to our conference,” says Goube, “It just went viral.”
Affiliates of the group have since helped provide infrastructure for refugees to connect to Wi-Fi—even in places with limited electricity—and energize their phones through solar-powered charging hubs. They’ve also developed websites and apps to teach new arrivals everything from basic coding skills that could help them earn a living to how to navigate government bureaucracies in their new countries.
“Things that seem very trivial to us can actually be very complicated,” says Vincent Olislagers, a member of a team developing an interactive chatbot called HealthIntelligence, which is designed to provide refugees in Norway with information about using the country’s health care system. The tool was developed after the team met with a recent arrival to the country who had difficulty arranging hospital transportation for his pregnant wife due to language barriers and financial constraints.
“He had to call, for his wife, his caretaker at the refugee center,” Olislagers says. “The caretaker had to send an ambulance at the right location.”
The team is working with Norwegian health officials and refugee aid groups to ultimately make the chatbot available as part of a standard package of materials provided to refugees entering the country. The project was a finalist in an October hackathon organized by Techfugees in Oslo. The hackathon’s ultimate winner was a group called KomInn, which pairs families fluent in Norwegian with newcomers who come to their homes to practice the language over dinner. That group developed a digital tool to streamline finding matches, which had previously been a laborious process, says Goube….(More)”
Data Does Good
FastCoExist: “If you don’t have extra money or time to give to charity, a new startup suggests donating something else: yourself. More specifically, your (anonymized) shopping data.
Data Does Good, a benefit corporation, lets users choose a nonprofit to support and link up their Amazon shopping history. The startup’s system automatically strips away personal information, then aggregates it with other data for sale. Each year, your chosen nonprofit gets a $15 donation.
“We both had experience working with consumer data and knew how valuable online shopping information had become,” says Scott Steinberg, who co-founded Data Does Good with fellow Stanford Graduate School of Business grad Eric Peter.
“We also noticed that most consumers weren’t aware they owned this information or that it could be used to their benefit,” he says. “So, we started talking about finding ways to help people take ownership over their data and help them see their shopping data as a valuable resource, rather than something to be feared.”
You “own” your digital shopping data the same way that you own traditional paper receipts from physical stores, but since online data can easily be aggregated, it has more value. Virtually any app or website you use collects data about you—for better or worse—but Amazon, as the largest online retailer, has particularly valuable data for any company that wants to sell anything….
With mass participation, the model could dramatically increase funding for nonprofits while donors’ bank accounts remain unchanged….(More)”
The Government Isn’t Doing Enough to Solve Big Problems with AI
Mike Orcutt at MIT Technology Review: “The government should play a bigger role in developing new tools based on artificial intelligence, or we could miss out on revolutionary applications because they don’t have obvious commercial upside.
That was the message from prominent AI technologists and researchers at a Senate committee hearing last week. They agreed that AI is in a crucial developmental moment, and that government has a unique opportunity to shape its future. They also said that the government is in a better position than technology companies to invest in AI applications aimed at broad societal problems.
Today just a few companies, led by Google and Facebook, account for the lion’s share of AI R&D in the U.S. But Eric Horvitz, technical fellow and managing director of Microsoft Research, told the committee members that there are important areas that are rich and ripe for AI innovation, such as homelessness and addiction, where the industry isn’t making big investments. The government could help support those pursuits, Horvitz said.
For a more specific example, take the plight of a veteran seeking information online about medical options, says Andrew Moore, dean of the school of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. If an application that could respond to freeform questions, search multiple government data sets at once, and provide helpful information about a veteran’s health care options were commercially attractive, it might be available already, he says.
There is a “real hunger for basic research” says Greg Brockman, cofounder and chief technology officer of the nonprofit research company OpenAI, because technologists understand that they haven’t made the most important advances yet. If we continue to leave the bulk of it to industry, not only could we miss out on useful applications, but also on the chance to adequately explore urgent scientific questions about ethics, safety, and security while the technology is still young, says Brockman. Since the field of AI is growing “exponentially,” it’s important to study these things now, he says, and the government could make that a “top line thing that they are trying to get done.”….(More)”.