How tech is forcing firms to be better global citizens

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Catherine Lawson at the BBC: “…technology is forcing companies to up their game and interact with communities more directly and effectively….

Platforms such as Kritical Mass have certainly given a fillip to the idea of crowd-supported philanthropy, attracting individuals and corporate sponsors to its projects, whether that’s saving vultures in Kenya or bringing solar power to rural communities in west Africa.

Sponsors can offer funding, volunteers, expertise or marketing. So rather than imposing corporate ideas of “do-gooding” on communities in a patronising manner, firms can simply respond to demand.

HelpfulPeeps has pushed its volunteering platform into more than 40 countries worldwide, connecting people who want to share their time, knowledge and skills with each other for free.

In the UK, online platform Neighbourly connects community projects and charities with companies and people willing to volunteer their resources. For example, Starbucks has pledged 2,500 days of volunteering and has so far backed 70 community projects….

Judging by the strong public appetite for supporting good causes and campaigning against injustice on sites such as Change.org, Avaaz.org, JustGiving andGoFundMe, his assessment appears to be correct.

And LinkedIn says millions of members have signalled on their profiles that they want to serve on a non-profit board or use their skills to volunteer….

Tech companies in particular are offering expertise and skills to good causes as way of making a tangible difference.

For example, in January, Microsoft announced that through its new organisation,Microsoft Philanthropies, it will donate $1bn-worth (£700m) of cloud computing resources to serve non-profits and university researchers over the next three years…

And data analytics specialist Applied Predictive Technologies (APT) has offered its data-crunching skills to help the Capital Area Food Bank charity distribute food more efficiently to hungry people around the Washington DC area.

APT used data to develop a “hunger heat map” to help CAFB target resources and plan for future demand better.

In another project, APT helped The Cara Program – a Chicago-based charity providing training and job placements to people affected by homelessness or poverty – evaluate what made its students more employable….

And Launch, an open platform jointly founded by Nasa, Nike, the US Agency for International Development, and the US Department of State aims to provide support for start-ups and “inspire innovation”.

In the age of internet transparency, it seems corporates no longer have anywhere to hide – a spot of CSR whitewashing is not going to cut it anymore….(More)”.

Ideas Help No One on a Shelf. Take Them to the World

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Tina Rosenberg at The New York Times: “Have you thought of a clever product to mitigate climate change? Did you invent an ingenious gadget to light African villages at night? Have you come up with a new kind of school, or new ideas for lowering the rate of urban shootings?

Thanks, but we have lots of those.

Whatever problem possesses you, we already have plenty of ways to solve it. Many have been rigorously tested and have a lot of evidence behind them — and yet they’re sitting on a shelf.

So don’t invent something new. If you want to make a contribution, choose one of those ideas — and spread it.

Spreading an idea can mean two different things. One is to take something that’s working in one place and introduce it somewhere else. If you want to reduce infant mortality in Cleveland, why not try what’s working in Baltimore?

Well, you might not know about what’s working because there’s no quick system for finding it.

Even when a few people do search out the answer, innovative ideas don’t spread by themselves. To become well known, they require effort from their originators. For example, a Bogotá, Colombia, maternity hospital invented Kangaroo Care — a method of keeping premature babies warm by strapping them 24/7 to Mom’s chest. It saved a lot of lives in Bogotá. But what allowed it to save lives around the world was a campaign to spread it to other countries.

The Colombians established Fundación Canguro and got grants from wealthy countries to bring groups of doctors and nurses from all over to visit Bogotá for two or three weeks.  Once the visitors had gone back and set up a program in their hospital, the foundation loaned them a doctor and nurse to help get them started. Save the Children now leads a global partnership to spread Kangaroo Care, with the goal of reaching half the world.

In short, this work requires dedicated organizations, a smart program and lots of money.

The other meaning of spreading an idea is creating ways to get new inventions out to people who need them.

“When I talk to college students or anyone who’s thinking about entrepreneurship or targeting global poverty, the gadget is where 99 percent of people start thinking,” said Nicholas Fusso, the director of D-Prize (its slogan: “Distribution is development”).  “That’s important — but the biggest problems in the poverty world aren’t a lack of gadgets or new products. It’s figuring out how people can have access to them.” So D-Prize gives seed money, in chunks of $10,000 to $20,000, to tiny new organizations that have good ideas for how to distribute useful things.

This analysis may be familiar to regular readers of Fixes. Indeed, the first Fixes column, more than five years ago, focused on distribution: getting health care to people in rural Africa by putting health care workers on motorcycles and keeping the bikes running….

Philanthropists and government aid agencies are only starting to get interested in the challenges of distribution — one new philanthropy that does have this focus is Good Ventures. As for academia, it still rewards invention almost exclusively. “There’s a lot of attention and award-giving and prize-giving and credit to people who come up with fancy new ideas instead of reaching people and having impact,” said Brodbar. “The incentives aren’t aligned. The culture of social entrepreneurship needs to change.”

Recognizing the true value of spreading an idea would also allow people who aren’t inventors (which is most of us) to get involved in social change. “The notion that if you want to engage in [social entrepreneurship] you have to have the big idea does a disservice to this space and people who want to play a role in it,” said Brodbar. “It’s a much wider front door.”…(More)

Ebola: A Big Data Disaster

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Study by Sean Martin McDonald: “…undertaken with support from the Open Society Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Media Democracy Fund, explores the use of Big Data in the form of Call Detail Record (CDR) data in humanitarian crisis.

It discusses the challenges of digital humanitarian coordination in health emergencies like the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and the marked tension in the debate around experimentation with humanitarian technologies and the impact on privacy. McDonald’s research focuses on the two primary legal and human rights frameworks, privacy and property, to question the impact of unregulated use of CDR’s on human rights. It also highlights how the diffusion of data science to the realm of international development constitutes a genuine opportunity to bring powerful new tools to fight crisis and emergencies.

Analysing the risks of using CDRs to perform migration analysis and contact tracing without user consent, as well as the application of big data to disease surveillance is an important entry point into the debate around use of Big Data for development and humanitarian aid. The paper also raises crucial questions of legal significance about the access to information, the limitation of data sharing, and the concept of proportionality in privacy invasion in the public good. These issues hold great relevance in today’s time where big data and its emerging role for development, involving its actual and potential uses as well as harms is under consideration across the world.

The paper highlights the absence of a dialogue around the significant legal risks posed by the collection, use, and international transfer of personally identifiable data and humanitarian information, and the grey areas around assumptions of public good. The paper calls for a critical discussion around the experimental nature of data modelling in emergency response due to mismanagement of information has been largely emphasized to protect the contours of human rights….

See Sean Martin McDonald – “Ebola: A Big Data Disaster” (PDF).

 

The 4 Types of Cities and How to Prepare Them for the Future

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

John D. Macomber at Harvard Business Review: “The prospect of urban innovation excites the imagination. But dreaming up what a “smart city” will look like in some gleaming future is, by its nature, a utopian exercise. The messy truth is that cities are not the same, and even the most innovative approach can never achieve universal impact. What’s appealing for intellectuals in Copenhagen or Amsterdam is unlikely to help millions of workers in Jakarta or Lagos. To really make a difference, private entrepreneurs and civic entrepreneurs need to match projects to specific circumstances. An effective starting point is to break cities into four segments across two distinctions: legacy vs. new cities, and developed vs. emerging economies. The opportunities to innovate will differ greatly by segment.

Segment 1: Developed Economy, Legacy City
Examples: London, Detroit, Tokyo, Singapore

Characteristics: Any intervention in a legacy city has to dismantle something that existed before — a road or building, or even a regulatory authority or an entrenched service business. Slow demographic growth in developed economies creates a zero-sum situation (which is part of why the licensed cabs vs Uber/Lyft contest is so heated). Elites live in these cities, so solutions arise that primarily help users spend their excess cash. Yelp, Zillow, and Trip Advisor are examples of innovations in this context.
Implications for city leaders: Leaders should try to establish a setting where entrepreneurs can create solutions that improve quality of life — without added government expense. …

Implications for entrepreneurs: Denizens of developed legacy cities have discretionary income. …

Segment 2: Emerging Economy, Legacy City
Examples: Mumbai, São Paolo, Jakarta

Characteristics: Most physical and institutional structures are already in place in these megacities, but with fast-growing populations and severe congestion, there is an opportunity to create value by improving efficiency and livability, and there is a market of customers with cash to pay for these benefits.

Implications for city leaders: Leaders should loosen restrictions so that private finance can invest in improvements to physical infrastructure, to better use what already exists. …

Implications for entrepreneurs: Focus on public-private partnerships (PPP). …

Segment 3: Emerging Economy, New City
Examples: Phu My Hung, Vietnam; Suzhou, China; Astana, Kazakhstan; Singapore (historically)

Characteristics: These cities tend to have high population growth and high growth rates in GDP per capita, demographic and economic tailwinds that help to boost returns. The urban areas have few existing physical or social structures to dismantle as they grow, hence fewer entrenched obstacles to new offerings. There is also immediate ROI for investments in basic services as population moves in, because they capture new revenues from new users. Finally, in these cities there is an important chance to build it right the first time, notably with respect to the roads, bridges, water, and power that will determine both economic competitiveness and quality of life for decades. The downside? If this chance is missed, new urban agglomerations will be characterized by informal sprawl and new settlements will be hard to reach after the fact with power, roads, and sanitation.
Implications for city leaders: Leaders should first focus on building hard infrastructure that will support services such as schools, hospitals, and parks. …

Implications for entrepreneurs: In these cities, it’s too soon to think about optimizing existing infrastructure or establishing amusing ways for wealthy people to spend their disposable income. …

Segment 4: Developed Economy, New City
Examples and characteristics: Such cities are very rare. All the moment, almost all self-proclaimed “new cities” in the developed world are in fact large, integrated real-estate developments with an urban theme, usually in close proximity to a true municipality. Examples of these initiatives include New Songdo City in South Korea, Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, and Hafen City Hamburg in Germany.

Implications for city leaders: These satellites of existing metropolises compete for jobs and to attract talented participants in the creative economy. ….

Implications for entrepreneurs: Align with city leaders on services that are important to knowledge workers, and help build the cities’ brand. ….

Cities are different. So are solutions….(More)

The impact of a move towards Open Data in West Africa

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

 at the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs:  “The concept of “open data” is not new, but its definition is quite recent. Since computers began communicating through networks, engineers have been developing standards to share data. The open data philosophy holds that some data should be freely available for use, reuse, distribute and publish without copyright and patent controls. Several mechanisms can also limit access to data like restricted database access, use of proprietary technologies or encryption. Ultimately, open data buttresses government initiatives to boost innovation, support transparency, empower citizens, encourage accountability, and fight corruption.

West Africa is primed for open data. The region experienced a 6% growth in 2014, according to the Africa Development Bank. Its Internet user network is also growing: 17% of the sub-Saharan population owned a unique smartphone in 2013, a number projected to grow to 37% by 2020 according to the GSMA. To improve the quality of governance and services in the digital age, the region must develop new infrastructures, revise digital strategies, simplify procurement procedures, adapt legal frameworks, and allow access to public data. Open data can enhance local economies and the standard of living.

This paper speaks towards the impact of open data in West Africa. First it assesses open data as a positive tool for governance and civil society. Then, it analyzes the current situation of open data across the region. Finally, it highlights specific best practices for enhancing impact in the future….(More)”

New #ODimpact Release: How is Open Data Creating Economic Opportunities and Solving Public Problems?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Andrew Young at The GovLab: “Last month, the GovLab and Omidyar Network launched Open Data’s Impact (odimpact.org), a custom-built repository offering a range of in-depth case studies on global open data projects. The initial launch of theproject featured the release of 13 open data impact case studies – ten undertaken by the GovLab, as well asthree case studies from Becky Hogge (@barefoot_techie), an independent researcher collaborating withOmidyar Network. Today, we are releasing a second batch of 12 case studies – nine case studies from theGovLab and three from Hogge…

The batch of case studies being revealed today examines two additional dimensions of impact. They find that:

  • Open data is creating new opportunities for citizens and organizations, by fostering innovation and promoting economic growth and job creation.
  • Open data is playing a role in solving public problems, primarily by allowing citizens and policymakers access to new forms of data-driven assessment of the problems at hand. It also enables data-driven engagement, producing more targeted interventions and enhanced collaboration.

The specific impacts revealed by today’s release of case studies are wide-ranging, and include both positive and negative transformations. We have found that open data has enabled:

  • The creation of new industries built on open weather data released by the United States NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
  • The generation of billions of dollars of economic activity as a result of the Global Positioning System(GPS) being opened to the global public in the 1980s, and the United Kingdom’s Ordnance Survey geospatial offerings.
  • A more level playing field for small businesses in New York City seeking market research data.
  • The coordinated sharing of data among government and international actors during the response to theEbola outbreak in Sierra Leone.
  • The identification of discriminatory water access decisions in the case Kennedy v the City of Zanesville, resulting in a $10.9 million settlement for the African-American plaintiffs.
  • Increased awareness among Singaporeans about the location of hotspots for dengue fever transmission.
  • Improved, data-driven emergency response following earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand.
  • Troubling privacy violations on Eightmaps related to Californians’ political donation activity….(More)”

All case studies available at odimpact.org.

 

Letting the people decide … but will government listen?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

 in The Mandarin: “If we now have the technology to allow citizens to vote directly on all issues, what job remains for public servants?

While new technology may provide new options to contribute, the really important thing is governmental willingness to actually listen, says Maria Katsonis, the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet’s director of equality.

The balance between citizen consultation and public service expertise in decision-making remains a hot debate, with South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill warning last year that while expertise in policy is important, overzealous bureaucrats and politicians can disenfranchise citizens.

The internet is assisting government to attain opinions from people more easily than ever before. SA, for example, has embraced the use of citizen juries in policy formation through its youSAy portal — though as yet on only some issues. Finland has experimented with digitally crowdsourcing input into the policymaking process.

The Victorian government, meanwhile, has received blowback around claims its recent announcement for a “skyrail” in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs went ahead with very little consultation…

Indeed, even a direct vote doesn’t mean the government is really listening to the people. A notable example of a government using a poorly designed popular vote to rubber stamp its own intentions was an online poll in Queensland on whether to cut public transport fares which was worded to suit the government’s own predilections.

Giving citizens the tools to contribute

Katsonis said she didn’t want to “diss crowdsourcing”; governments should think about where using it might be appropriate, and where it might not. Directly crowdsourcing legislation is perhaps not the best way to use the “wisdom of the crowd”, she suggested….The use of people’s panels to inform policy and budgeting — for example at the City of Melbourne — shows some promise as one tool to improve engagement. Participants of people’s panels — which see groups of ordinary citizens being given background information about the task at hand and then asked to come up with a proposal for what to do — tend to report a higher trust in governmental processes after they’ve gained some experience of the difficulty of making those decisions.

One of the benefits of that system is the chance to give participants the tools to understand those processes for themselves, rather than going in cold, as some other direct participation tools do….

Despite the risks, processes such as citizens’ panels are still a more nuanced approach than calls for frequent referenda or the new breed of internet-based political parties, such as Australia’s Online Direct Democracy, that promise their members of parliament will vote however a majority of voters tell them to….(More)”

Sticky-note strategy: How federal innovation labs borrow from Silicon Valley

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Carten Cordell in the Federal Times: “The framework for an integrated security solution in the Philippines is built on a bedrock of sticky notes. So is the strategy for combating piracy in East Africa and a handful of other plans that Zvika Krieger is crafting in a cauldron of collaboration within the State Department.

More specifically, Krieger, a senior adviser for strategy within the department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, is working in the bureau’s Strategy Lab, just one pocket of federal government where a Silicon Valley-playbook for innovation is being used to develop policy solutions….

Krieger and a host of other policy thinkers learned a new way to channel innovation for policy solutions called human-centered design, or design thinking. While arguably new in government, the framework has long been in use by the tech sector to design products that will serve the needs of their customers. The strategy of group thinking towards a policy — which is more what these innovation labs seek to achieve — has been used before as well….Where the government has started to use HCD is in developing new policy solutions within a multifaceted group of stakeholders that can contribute a well-rounded slate of expertise. The product is a strategy that is developed from the creative thoughts of a team of experts, rather than a single specialized source….

The core tenet of HCD is to establish a meritocracy of ideas that is both empathetic of thought and immune to hierarchy. In order to get innovative solutions for a complex problem, Krieger forms a team of experts and stakeholders. He then mixes in outside thought leaders he calls “wild cards” to give the group outside perspective.

The delicate balance opens discussion and the mix of ideas ultimately form a strategy for handling the problem. That strategy might involve a technology; but it could also be a new partnership, a new function within an office, or a new acquisition program. Because the team is comprised of multiple experts, it can navigate the complexity more thoroughly, and the wild cards can offer their expertise to provide solutions the stakeholders may not have considered….

Human-centered design has been working its way through pockets of the federal government for a few years now. The Office of Personnel Management opened its Innovation Lab in 2012 and was tasked with improving the USAJobs website. The Department of Health and Human Services opened the IDEA Lab in 2013 to address innovation in its mission. The Department of Veteran Affairs has a Center of Innovation to identify new approaches to meet the current and future needs of veterans, and the departments of Defense and State both have innovation labs tackling policy solutions.

The concept is gaining momentum. This fall, the Obama administration released a strategy report calling for a network of innovation labs throughout federal agencies to develop new policy solutions through HCD.

“I think the word is spreading. It’s kind of like a whisper campaign, in the most positive way,” said an administration official with knowledge of innovation labs and HCD strategies, who was not authorized to speak to the press. “I think, again, the only constraint here is that we don’t have enough of them to be able to imbue this knowledge across government. We need many more people.”

A March 2014 GAO report said that the OPM Innovation Lab had not developed consistent performance targets that would allow it to assess the success of its projects. The report recommended more consistent milestones to assess progress, which the agency addressed through a series of pilot programs….

In the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, an innovation lab called the Collaboratory is in its second year of existence, using HCD strategies to improve projects like the Fulbright program and other educational diplomacy efforts.

The Education Diplomacy initiative, for example, used HCD to devise ways to increase education access abroad using State resources. Defining U.S. embassies as the end user, the Collaboratory then analyzed the areas of need at the installations and began crafting policies.

“We identified a couple of area where we thought we could make substantial gains quite quickly and in a budget neutral way,” Collaboratory Deputy Director Paul Kruchoski said. The process allowed multiple stakeholders like the U.S. Agency for International Development, Peace Corps and the Department of Education to help craft the policy and create what Kruchoski called “feedback loops” to refine throughout the embassies…(More)”

 

Global fact-checking up 50% in past year

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Mark Stencel at Duke Reporters’ Lab: “The high volume of political truth-twisting is driving demand for political fact-checkers around the world, with the number of fact-checking sites up 50 percent since last year.

The Duke Reporters’ Lab annual census of international fact-checking currently counts 96 active projects in 37 countries. That’s up from 64 active fact-checkers in the 2015 count. (Map and List)

Active Fact-checkers 2016A bumper crop of new fact-checkers across the Western Hemisphere helped increase the ranks of journalists and government watchdogs who verify the accuracy of public statements and track political promises. The new sites include 14 in the United States, two in Canada as well as seven additional fact-checkers in Latin America.There also were new projects in 10 other countries, from North Africa to Central Europe to East Asia…..

The growing numbers have even spawned a new global association, the International Fact-Checking Network hosted by the Poynter Institute, a media training center in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Promises, Promises

Some of the growth has come in the form of promise-tracking. Since January 2015, fact-checkers launched six sites in five countries devoted to tracking the status of pledges candidates and party leaders made in political campaigns. In Tunisia, there are two new sites dedicated to promise-tracking — one devoted to the country’s president and the other to its prime minister.

There are another 20 active fact-checkers elsewhere that track promises,…

Nearly two-thirds of the active fact-checkers (61 of 96, or 64 percent) are directly affiliated with a new organization. However this breakdown reflects the dominant business structure in the United States, where 90 percent of fact-checkers are part of a news organization. That includes nine of 11 national projects and 28 of 30 state/local fact-checkers…The story is different outside the United States, where less than half of the active fact-checking projects (24 of 55, or 44 percent) are affiliated with news organizations.

The other fact-checkers are typically associated with non-governmental, non-profit and activist groups focused on civic engagement, government transparency and accountability. A handful are partisan, especially in conflict zones and in countries where the lines between independent media, activists and opposition parties are often blurry and where those groups are aligned against state-controlled media or other governmental and partisan entities….(More)“

Improving government effectiveness: lessons from Germany

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Tom Gash at Global Government Forum: “All countries face their own unique challenges but advanced democracies also have much in common: the global economic downturn, aging populations, increasingly expensive health and pension spending, and citizens who remain as hard to please as ever.

At an event last week in Bavaria, attended by representatives of Bavaria’s governing party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) and their guests, it also became clear that there is a growing consensus that governments face another common problem. They have relied for too long on traditional legislation and regulation to drive change. The consensus was that simply prescribing in law what citizens and companies can and can’t do will not solve the complex problems governments are facing, that governments cannot legislate their way to improved citizen health, wealth and wellbeing….

…a number of developments …from which both UK and international policymakers and practitioners can learn to improve government effectiveness.

  1. Behavioural economics: The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), which span out of government in 2013 and is the subject of a new book by one of its founders and former IfG Director of Research, David Halpern, is being watched carefully by many countries abroad. Some are using its services, while others – including the New South Wales Government in Australia –are building their own skills in this area. BIT and others using similar principles have shown that using insights from social psychology – alongside an experimental approach – can help save money and improve outcomes. Well known successes include increasing the tax take through changing wording of reminder letters (work led by another IfG alumni Mike Hallsworth) and increasing pension take-up through auto-enrolment.
  2. Market design: There is an emerging field of study which is examining how algorithms can be used to match people better with services they need – particularly in cases where it is unfair or morally repugnant to let allow a free market to operate. Alvin Roth, the Harvard Professor and Nobel prize winner, writes about these ‘matching markets’ in his book Who Gets What and Why – in which he also explains how the approach can ensure that more kidneys reach compatible donors, and children find the right education.
  3. Big data: Large datasets can now be mined far more effectively, whether it is to analyse crime patterns to spot where police patrols might be useful or to understand crowd flows on public transport. The use of real-time information allows far more sophisticated deployment of public sector resources, better targeted at demand and need, and better tailored to individual preferences.
  4. Transparency: Transparency has the potential to enhance both the accountability and effectiveness of governments across the world – as shown in our latest Whitehall Monitor Annual Report. The UK government is considered a world-leader for its transparency – but there are still areas where progress has stalled, including in transparency over the costs and performance of privately provided public services.
  5. New management models: There is a growing realisation that new methods are best harnessed when supported by effective management. The Institute’s work on civil service reform highlights a range of success factors from past reforms in the UK – and the benefits of clear mechanisms for setting priorities and sticking to them, as is being attempted by governments new(ish) Implementation Taskforces and the Departmental Implementation Units currently cropping up across Whitehall. I looked overseas for a different model that clearly aligns government activities behind citizens’ concerns – in this case the example of the single non-emergency number system operating in New York City and elsewhere. This system supports a powerful, highly responsive, data-driven performance management regime. But like many performance management regimes it can risk a narrow and excessively short-term focus – so such tools must be combined with the mind-set of system stewardship that the Institute has long championed in its policymaking work.
  6. Investment in new capability: It is striking that all of these developments are supported by technological change and research insights developed outside government. But to embed new approaches in government, there appear to be benefits to incubating new capacity, either in specialist departmental teams or at the centre of government….(More)”