New portal managed and developed by IOM’s Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC)“…aims to serve as a unique access point to timely, comprehensive migration statistics and reliable information about migration data globally. The site is designed to help policy makers, national statistics officers, journalists and the general public interested in the field of migration to navigate the increasingly complex landscape of international migration data, currently scattered across different organisations and agencies. Especially in critical times, such as those faced today, it is essential to ensure that responses to migration are based on sound facts and accurate analysis. By making... (More >)
Business Models For Sustainable Research Data Repositories
OECD Report: “In 2007, the OECD Principles and Guidelines for Access to Research Data from Public Funding were published and in the intervening period there has been an increasing emphasis on open science. At the same time, the quantity and breadth of research data has massively expanded. So called “Big Data” is no longer limited to areas such as particle physics and astronomy, but is ubiquitous across almost all fields of research. This is generating exciting new opportunities, but also challenges. The promise of open research data is that they will not only accelerate scientific discovery and improve reproducibility,... (More >)
A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative, and Distributed Governance
Book by Stephen Goldsmith and Neil Kleiman: “At a time when trust is dropping precipitously and American government at the national level has fallen into a state of long-term, partisan-based gridlock, local government can still be effective—indeed more effective and even more responsive to the needs of its citizens. Based on decades of direct experience and years studying successful models around the world, the authors of this intriguing book propose a new operating system (O/S) for cities. Former mayor and Harvard professor Stephen Goldsmith and New York University professor Neil Kleiman suggest building on the giant leaps that have... (More >)
Scientists can now figure out detailed, accurate neighborhood demographics using Google Street View photos
Christopher Ingraham at the Washington Post: “A team of computer scientists has derived accurate, neighborhood-level estimates of the racial, economic and political characteristics of 200 U.S. cities using an unlikely data source — Google Street View images of people’s cars. Published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the report details how the scientists extracted 50 million photographs of street scenes captured by Google’s Street View cars in 2013 and 2014. They then trained a computer algorithm to identify the make, model and year of 22 million automobiles appearing in neighborhoods in those images, parked... (More >)
SAM, the first A.I. politician on Messenger
Lulu Chang at Digital Trends: “It’s said that all politicians are the same, but it seems safe to assume that you’ve never seen a politician quite like this. Meet SAM, heralded as the politician of the future. Unfortunately, you can’t exactly shake this politician’s hand, or have her kiss your baby. Rather, SAM is the world’s first Virtual Politician (and a female presence at that), “driven by the desire to close the gap between what voters want and what politicians promise, and what they actually achieve.” The artificially intelligent chat bot is currently live on Facebook Messenger, though she... (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... (More >)
The frontiers of data interoperability for sustainable development
Report from the Joined-Up Data Standards [JUDS] project: “…explores where progress has been made, what challenges still remain, and how the new Collaborative on SDG Data Interoperability will play a critical role in moving forward the agenda for interoperability policy. There is an ever-growing need for a more holistic picture of development processes worldwide and interoperability solutions that can be scaled, driven by global development agendas such as the 2030 Agenda and the Open Data movement. This requires the ability to join up data across multiple data sources and standards to create actionable information. Solutions that create value for... (More >)
Crowd.Law
New project by The GovLab: “With rates of trust in government at historic lows, the legitimacy of traditional representative models of lawmaking — often conducted by professional staff and politicians working behind closed doors and distorted by political party agendas–is called into question. New forms of public participation could help to improve both legitimacy and effectiveness by introducing more data and diverse viewpoints at each stage of the lawmaking process. CrowdLaw is the practice of using technology to tap the intelligence and expertise of the public in order to improve the quality of lawmaking. Around the world, there are... (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... (More >)
Most of the public doesn’t know what open data is or how to use it
Jason Shueh at Statescoop: “New survey results show that despite the aggressive growth of open data, there is a drastic need for greater awareness and accessibility. Results of a global survey published last month by Singapore’s Government Technology agency (GovTech) and the Economist Intelligence Unit, a British forecasting and advisory firm, show that open data is not being utilized as effectively as it could be. Researchers surveyed more than 1,000 residents in the U.S. and nine other leading open data counties and found that “an overwhelming” number of respondents say the primary barrier to open data’s use and effectiveness... (More >)
