White House Press Release: “My hope is this continues to encourage a culture of public service among our innovators, and tech entrepreneurs, so that we can keep building a government that’s as modern, as innovative, and as engaging as our incredible tech sector is. To all the Fellows who’ve served so far – thank you. I encourage all Americans with bold ideas to apply. And I can’t wait to see what those future classes will accomplish on behalf of the American people.” –- President Barack Obama Today, President Obama signed an executive order that makes the Presidential Innovation Fellows... (More >)
What factors influence transparency in US local government?
Grichawat Lowatcharin and Charles Menifield at LSE Impact Blog: “The Internet has opened a new arena for interaction between governments and citizens, as it not only provides more efficient and cooperative ways of interacting, but also more efficient service delivery, and more efficient transaction activities. …But to what extent does increased Internet access lead to higher levels of government transparency? …While we found Internet access to be a significant predictor of Internet-enabled transparency in our simplest model, this finding did not hold true in our most extensive model. This does not negate that fact that the variable is an... (More >)
IBM using Watson to build a “SIRI for Cities”
Daniel Terdiman at FastCompany: “A new app that incorporates IBM’s Watson cognitive computing platform is like Siri for ordering city services. IBM said today that the city of Surrey, in British Columbia, Canada, has rolled out the new app, which leverages Watson’s sophisticated language and data analysis system to allow residents to make requests for things like finding out why their trash wasn’t picked up or how to find a lost cat using natural language. Watson is best known as the computer system that autonomously vanquished the world’s best Jeopardy players during a highly publicized competition in 2011. In... (More >)
Setting High and Compatible Standards
Laura Bacon at Omidyar Network: “…Standards enable interoperability, replicability, and efficiency. Airplane travel would be chaotic at best and deadly at worst if flights and air traffic control did not use common codes for call signs, flight numbers, location, date, and time. Trains that cross national borders need tracks built to a standard gauge as evidenced by Spain’s experience in making its trains interoperable with the rest of the continent’s. Standards matter in data collection and publication as well. This is especially true for those datasets that matter most to people’s lives, such as health, education, agriculture, and water.... (More >)
Innovation Experiments: Researching Technical Advance, Knowledge Production and the Design of Supporting Institutions
Paper by Kevin J. Boudreau and Karim Lakhani: “This paper discusses several challenges in designing field experiments to better understand how organizational and institutional design shapes innovation outcomes and the production of knowledge. We proceed to describe the field experimental research program carried out by our Crowd Innovation Laboratory at Harvard University to clarify how we have attempted to address these research design challenges. This program has simultaneously solved important practical innovation problems for partner organizations, like NASA and Harvard Medical School, while contributing research advances, particularly in relation to innovation contests and tournaments….(More)“ ... (More >)
The digital revolution liberating Latin American people
Luis Alberto Moreno in the Financial Times: “Imagine a place where citizens can deal with the state entirely online, where all health records are electronic and the wait for emergency care is just seven minutes. Singapore? Switzerland? Try Colima, Mexico. Pessimists fear the digital revolution will only widen social and economic disparities in the developing world — particularly in Latin America, the world’s most unequal region. But Colima, though small and relatively prosperous, shows how some of the region’s governments are harnessing these tools to modernise services, improve quality of life and share the benefits of technology more equitably.... (More >)
The data or the hunch
Ian Leslie at Intelligent Life: “THE GIFT FOR talent-spotting is mysterious, highly prized and celebrated. We love to hear stories about the baseball coach who can spot the raw ability of an erratic young pitcher, the boss who sees potential in the guy in the post room, the director who picks a soloist out of the chorus line. Talent shows are a staple of the TV schedules. We like to believe that certain people—sometimes ourselves—can just sense when a person has something special. But there is another method of spotting talent which doesn’t rely on hunches. In place of... (More >)
Democratising the Data Revolution
Jonathan Gray at Open Knowledge: “What will the “data revolution” do? What will it be about? What will it count? What kinds of risks and harms might it bring? Whom and what will it serve? And who will get to decide? Today we are launching a new discussion paper on “Democratising the Data Revolution”, which is intended to advance thinking and action around civil society engagement with the data revolution. It looks beyond the disclosure of existing information, towards more ambitious and substantive forms of democratic engagement with data infrastructures.1 It concludes with a series of questions about what... (More >)
Government at a Glance 2015
New report and dataset by the OECD: “Government at a Glance provides readers with a dashboard of key indicators assembled with the goal of contributing to the analysis and international comparison of public sector performance. Indicators on government revenues, expenditures, and employment are provided alongside key output and outcome data in the sectors of education, health and justice. Government at a Glance also includes indicators on key governance and public management issues, such as transparency in governance, regulatory governance, public procurement and the implementation of employment and remuneration reforms since 2008. While measuring government performance has long been recognized... (More >)
The science prize that’s making waves
Gillian Tett at the Financial Times: “The Ocean Health XPrize reveals a new fashion among philanthropists’…There is another reason why the Ocean Health XPrize fascinates me: what it reveals about the new fashion among philanthropists for handing out big scientific prizes. The idea is not a new one: wealthy people and governments have been giving prizes for centuries. In 1714, for example, the British government passed the Longitude Act, establishing a board to offer reward money for innovation in navigation — the most money was won by John Harrison, a clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer. But a fascinating... (More >)
