Lant Pritchett at the Center for Global Development: “On June 1, 2009 Air France flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean killing all 228 people on board. While the Airbus 330 was flying on auto-pilot, the different speed indicators received by the on-board navigation computers started to give conflicting speeds, almost certainly because the pitot tubes responsible for measuring air speed had iced over. Since the auto-pilot could not resolve conflicting signals and hence did not know how fast the plane was actually going, it turned control of the plane over to the... (More >)
Technology, Activism, and Social Justice in a Digital Age
Book edited by John G. McNutt: “…offers a close look at both the present nature and future prospects for social change. In particular, the text explores the cutting edge of technology and social change, while discussing developments in social media, civic technology, and leaderless organizations — as well as more traditional approaches to social change. It effectively assembles a rich variety of perspectives to the issue of technology and social change; the featured authors are academics and practitioners (representing both new voices and experienced researchers) who share a common devotion to a future that is just, fair, and supportive... (More >)
What’s Wrong with Public Policy Education
Francis Fukuyama at the American Interest: “Most programs train students to become capable policy analysts, but with no understanding of how to implement those policies in the real world…Public policy education is ripe for an overhaul… Public policy education in most American universities today reflects a broader problem in the social sciences, which is the dominance of economics. Most programs center on teaching students a battery of quantitative methods that are useful in policy analysis: applied econometrics, cost-benefit analysis, decision analysis, and, most recently, use of randomized experiments for program evaluation. Many schools build their curricula around these methods... (More >)
This surprising, everyday tool might hold the key to changing human behavior
Annabelle Timsit at Quartz: “To be a person in the modern world is to worry about your relationship with your phone. According to critics, smartphones are making us ill-mannered and sore-necked, dragging parents’ attention away from their kids, and destroying an entire generation. But phones don’t have to be bad. With 4.68 billion people forecast to become mobile phone users by 2019, nonprofits and social science researchers are exploring new ways to turn our love of screens into a force for good. One increasingly popular option: Using texting to help change human behavior. Texting: A unique tool The short... (More >)
Big Data Is Getting Bigger. So Are the Privacy and Ethical Questions.
Goldie Blumenstyk at The Chronicle of Higher Education: “…The next step in using “big data” for student success is upon us. It’s a little cool. And also kind of creepy. This new approach goes beyond the tactics now used by hundreds of colleges, which depend on data collected from sources like classroom teaching platforms and student-information systems. It not only makes a technological leap; it also raises issues around ethics and privacy. Here’s how it works: Whenever you log on to a wireless network with your cellphone or computer, you leave a digital footprint. Move from one building to... (More >)
How games can help craft better policy
Shrabonti Bagchi at LiveMint: “I have never seen economists having fun!” Anantha K. Duraiappah, director of Unesco-MGIEP (Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development), was heard exclaiming during a recent conference. The academics in question were a group of environmental economists at an Indian Society for Ecological Economics conference in Thrissur, Kerala, and they were playing a game called Cantor’s World, in which each player assumes the role of the supreme leader of a country and gets to decide the fate of his or her nation. Well, it’s not quite as simple as that (this is... (More >)
Introducing CitizENGAGE – How Citizens Get Things Done
Open Gov Partnership: “In a world full of autocracy, bureaucracy, and opacity, it can be easy to feel like you’re fighting an uphill battle against these trends. Trust in government is at historic lows. Autocratic leaders have taken the reins in countries once thought bastions of democracy. Voter engagement has been declining around the globe for years. Despite this reality, there is another, powerful truth: citizens are using open government to engage in their communities in innovative, exciting ways, bringing government closer and creating a more inclusive system. These citizens are everywhere. In Costa Rica, they are lobbying the... (More >)
Health Insurers Are Vacuuming Up Details About You — And It Could Raise Your Rates
Marshall Allen at ProPublica: “With little public scrutiny, the health insurance industry has joined forces with data brokers to vacuum up personal details about hundreds of millions of Americans, including, odds are, many readers of this story. The companies are tracking your race, education level, TV habits, marital status, net worth. They’re collecting what you post on social media, whether you’re behind on your bills, what you order online. Then they feed this information into complicated computer algorithms that spit out predictions about how much your health care could cost them. Are you a woman who recently changed your... (More >)
Bad Governance and Corruption
Textbook by Richard Rose and Caryn Peiffer: “This book explains why the role of corruption varies greatly between public services, between people, between national systems of governance, and between measures of corruption. More than 1.8 billion people pay the price of bad government each year, by sending a bribe to a public official. In developing countries, corruption affects social services, such as health care and education, and law enforcement institutions, such as the police. When public officials do not act as bureaucrats delivering services by the book, people can try to get them by hook or by crook. The... (More >)
Blockchain Ethical Design Framework
Report by Cara LaPointe and Lara Fishbane: “There are dramatic predictions about the potential of blockchain to “revolutionize” everything from worldwide financial markets and the distribution of humanitarian assistance to the very way that we outright recognize human identity for billions of people around the globe. Some dismiss these claims as excessive technology hype by citing flaws in the technology or robustness of incumbent solutions and infrastructure. The reality will likely fall somewhere between these two extremes across multiple sectors. Where initial applications of blockchain were focused on the financial industry, current applications have rapidly expanded to address a... (More >)
