New report by Meghan Benton for the Migration Policy Institute: “The spread of smartphones—cellphones with high-speed Internet access and geolocation technology—is transforming urban life. While many smartphone apps are largely about convenience, policymakers are beginning to explore their potential to address social challenges from disaster response to public health. And cities, in North America and Europe alike, are in the vanguard in exploring creative uses for these apps, including how to improve engagement.
For disadvantaged and diverse populations, accessing city services through a smartphone can help overcome language or literacy barriers and thus increase interactions with city officials. For those with language needs, smartphones allow language training to be accessed anywhere and at any time. More broadly, cities have begun mining the rich datasets that smartphones collect, to help attune services to the needs of their whole population. A new crop of social and civic apps offer new tools to penetrate hard-to-reach populations, including newly arrived and transient groups.
While these digital developments offer promising opportunities for immigrant integration efforts, smartphone apps’ potential to address social problems should not be overstated. In spite of potential shortcomings, since immigrant integration requires a multipronged policy response, any additional tools—especially inexpensive ones—should be examined.
This report explores the kinds of opportunities smartphones and apps are creating for the immigrant integration field. It provides a first look at the opportunities and tradeoffs that smartphones and emerging technologies offer for immigrant integration, and how they might deepen—or weaken—city residents’ sense of belonging…” (Download Report)
Prizes for Saving: The Social Mobility Case
Stuart Butler at Brookings: “The American Savings Promotion Act (H.R. 3374), a bipartisan bill passed by the House of Representatives this week (yes, it does sometimes happen) could lift economic mobility in America by boosting savings, especially in lower income neighborhoods. The bill removes legal impediments to banks and thrift institutions offering “prize-linked savings” products (PLS). There’s a companion bill awaiting action in the Senate.
Building personal savings is a critical element in moving up the economic ladder. A cushion of capital can tide a household over a setback, such as unexpected health costs, and help mobility in a positive way, such as moving across town for a better job. Developing the habit of saving, even in a small scale, is connected to other positive behaviors, such as completing college….
All Should Seek Prizes (For Saving)
Prize-linked savings (PLS) accounts aim to entice people into saving more. Unlike traditional savings accounts, which now pay out a fraction of one percent interest, institutions offering PLS pool the interest from all accounts, hold a drawing and distribute the accumulated interest as “prizes”, from a few dollars to a million or more. It appeals to the gambler’s instinct, like a lottery. But unlike a lottery, a “loser” still ends up with a bundle of savings.
PLS accounts have a long history and there are versions in several countries. The United Kingdom has been a leader, establishing national premium bonds in 1957, dubbed “savings with a thrill.” The bonds pay no interest, but each year bond-holders have chances of winning from the equivalent of a few dollars to about $1.5 million. Roughly one-third of Britons own the bonds, with a disproportionate number of modest-income individuals and first-time savers as bondholders.
Moving to Prize-Linked Savings
Some U.S. states have opened the door through state laws that permit credit unions to open PLS accounts. For instance, in 2009 a group of Michigan credit unions established “Save to Win” accounts, with monthly prizes ranging up to thousands of dollars, that successfully attracted non-traditional savers. Federally-charted financial institutions have so far been prevented from offering PLS accounts by unduly wide statutes and regulations, aimed mainly at organized crime. The new bill would curb the impact of those laws and enable PLS accounts to flourish. Let’s hope the Senate follows suit.”
The measurable me: the influence of self-quantification on the online user's decision-making process
Paper by Mimmi Sjöklint for the 2014 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers: “The advancement of information technology, online accessibility and wearable computing is fostering a new playground for users to engage with quantified data sets. On one hand, the online user is continuously yet passively exposed to different types of quantified data in online interfaces and mobile apps. On the other hand, the user may actively and knowingly be gathering quantified data through ubiquitous sensory devices, such as wearable technology, e.g. the Jawbone UP and Fitbit. In both instances, the user is exposed to versions of self-quantified measures, namely the aggregation and transformation of personally attributed activity into quantified data. This study approaches the adoption of wearables by looking at active and passive self-quantification online and explores how it may influence and support the user’s cognitive processes and subsequent decision-making process.”
Five Cities Selected As Winners in Bloomberg Philanthropies 2014 Mayors Challenge
Bloomberg Philanthropies: “Grand Prize Winner Barcelona Aims to Create Digital and Community ‘Trust Network’ for Each of its At-Risk Elderly Residents
Athens, Greece; Kirklees in Yorkshire, UK; Stockholm, Sweden; and Warsaw, Poland Also Win Funds for Innovative Solutions to Pressing Urban Challenges
Bloomberg Philanthropies today announced the winners in its 2014 Mayors Challenge, an ideas competition that encourages cities to generate innovative ideas that solve major challenges and improve city life – and that have the potential to spread to other cities.
Barcelona will receive the Mayors Challenge Grand Prize for Innovation and €5 million toward its proposal to create a digital and community ‘trust network’ for each of its at-risk elderly residents. Mayors Challenge innovation prizes also were awarded to Athens, Greece, Kirklees in Yorkshire, UK, Stockholm in Sweden, and Warsaw in Poland. Each of which will receive €1 million to support implementation of their unique ideas. The winners proposed solutions that address some of Europe’s most critical issue areas: unemployment, energy efficiency, obesity, aging and improving the overall effectiveness and efficiency of government. The ideas are further described below.
“To meet the biggest challenges of the 21st century, city leaders must think creatively and be unafraid to try new things – and the Mayors Challenge is designed to help them do that,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies. “We received great proposals from all over Europe, and the competition over the past year has been fierce. The decision for our selection committee was not easy, but the five winning ideas we announced today represent the best of the best, and all have the potential to improve lives. Cities are shaping the future of our planet, and Bloomberg Philanthropies is committed to helping mayors pioneer new innovations – and to helping their most promising ideas spread around the world.”…
Barcelona, Spain: Collaborative Care Networks for Better Aging
More than one in five Barcelona residents is over 65, and by 2040, one in four will be. As lives grow longer, Barcelona – like many cities globally – is grappling with new health problems and debilitating social isolation. To address this growing problem, Barcelona will use digital and low-tech strategies to create a network of family members, friends, neighbors, social workers, and volunteers who together make up a “trust network” for each at-risk elderly resident. This will help identify gaps in care, enable coordination of support, and promote quality of life….
Further detail and related elements for this year’s Mayors Challenge can be found here. “
Goodbye, Organization Man
David Brooks in the New York Times:”…The result, right now, is unnecessary deaths from the Ebola virus in Africa. …. At root, this is a governance failure. The disease spreads fastest in places where the health care infrastructure is lacking or nonexistent. Liberia, for example, is being overrun while Ivory Coast has put in a series of policies to prevent an outbreak. The few doctors and nurses in the affected places have trouble acquiring the safety basics: gloves and body bags. More than 100, so far, have died fighting the outbreak.
But it’s not just a failure of governance in Africa. It’s a failure of governance around the world. I wonder if we are looking at the results of a cultural shift.
A few generations ago, people grew up in and were comfortable with big organizations — the army, corporations and agencies. They organized huge construction projects in the 1930s, gigantic industrial mobilization during World War II, highway construction and corporate growth during the 1950s. Institutional stewardship, the care and reform of big organizations, was more prestigious.
Now nobody wants to be an Organization Man. We like start-ups, disrupters and rebels. Creativity is honored more than the administrative execution. Post-Internet, many people assume that big problems can be solved by swarms of small, loosely networked nonprofits and social entrepreneurs. Big hierarchical organizations are dinosaurs.
The Ebola crisis is another example that shows that this is misguided. The big, stolid agencies — the health ministries, the infrastructure builders, the procurement agencies — are the bulwarks of the civil and global order. Public and nonprofit management, the stuff that gets derided as “overhead,” really matters. It’s as important to attract talent to health ministries as it is to spend money on specific medicines.
As recent books by Francis Fukuyama and Philip Howard have detailed, this is an era of general institutional decay. New, mobile institutions languish on the drawing broad, while old ones are not reformed and tended. Executives at public agencies are robbed of discretionary power. Their hands are bound by court judgments and regulations.
When the boring tasks of governance are not performed, infrastructures don’t get built. Then, when epidemics strike, people die.”
Citizen Science: The Law and Ethics of Public Access to Medical Big Data
New Paper by Sharona Hoffman: “Patient-related medical information is becoming increasingly available on the Internet, spurred by government open data policies and private sector data sharing initiatives. Websites such as HealthData.gov, GenBank, and PatientsLikeMe allow members of the public to access a wealth of health information. As the medical information terrain quickly changes, the legal system must not lag behind. This Article provides a base on which to build a coherent data policy. It canvasses emergent data troves and wrestles with their legal and ethical ramifications.
Publicly accessible medical data have the potential to yield numerous benefits, including scientific discoveries, cost savings, the development of patient support tools, healthcare quality improvement, greater government transparency, public education, and positive changes in healthcare policy. At the same time, the availability of electronic personal health information that can be mined by any Internet user raises concerns related to privacy, discrimination, erroneous research findings, and litigation. This Article analyzes the benefits and risks of health data sharing and proposes balanced legislative, regulatory, and policy modifications to guide data disclosure and use.”
5 great apps backed with open data
Jeanne Holm at OpenSource.com: “Data.gov has taken open source to heart. Beyond just providing open data and open source code, the entire process involves open civic engagement. All team ideas, public interactions, and new ideas (from any interaction) are cross-posted and entered in Github. These are tracked openly and completed to milestones for full transparency. We also recently redesigned the website at Data.gov through usability testing and open engagement on Github.
Today, I want to share with you just five of the hundreds of applications that have been developed by the public using open government data. These are examples of the kind of apps, visualizations, and analyses that are created from working with developers, educators, and businesses on a specific challenge at events that pull the community together, like data jams, meetups, and conferences.
Archimedes
Archimedes makes tools that give quantitative models to doctors and patients so that they can find effective interventions, predict how interventions will affect an individual’s health risk, and help decision-makers analyze health outcomes….
Trulia
Trulia provides insights into neighborhoods where you might be interested in moving. Looking at the homes and apartments for sale and rent, trends and prices in real estate, and neighborhood characteristics, Trulia gives you the data to make decisions about buying, selling, renting, and moving….
HelloWallet
HelloWallet helps people to manage their money, and to learn about and start making investments. Some of the subjects for individuals include retirement readiness, debt levels, emergency savings, and health savings….
SaferCar
Consumers looking for a new car, can find a safer car by using the SaferCar app from the Department of Transportation. Powered by data on five-star safety ratings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, consumers can look at new and used car ratings, recalls and complaints, and information about installing child seats….
Red Cross Hurricane
The Safety.Data.gov community of Data.gov held a Safety Datapalooza and brought together developers, businesses, NGOs, and government participants to brainstorm ways to put government data to use to improve the lives of citizens in America. A 90-day challenge was issued to create some of these apps and concepts, and one was with the Red Cross to create an app that would help people find safe ways to move around during a natural disaster. This included rail, roads, buses, and airports–which were open and what schedules they were running on. These data were provided by the Department of Transportation. As Hurricane Sandy descended on the east coast, we accelerated the development of the Red Cross Hurricane app and launched the app as the Hurricane touched ground…”
Open Payments Database: Despite Criticism, Still On Track To Let The Sunshine In
Shefali Luthra at Kaiser Health News: “Despite technical glitches, the federal “Open Payments” database – which tracks pharmaceutical company contributions to doctors and teaching hospitals – remains on track for its scheduled Sept. 30 launch, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services confirmed.
It was mandated by a sunshine act included in the federal health law seeking to ease concerns that pharmaceutical interests could wield excessive influence over health providers. The database includes payments for research, gifts, meals or speaker fees. Consumer advocates have long called for the public display of such information, arguing that it is key to ensuring doctors don’t prescribe certain drugs out of financial incentives or loyalty.
As planned, the initial site will contain five months’ worth of payment information, spanning August 2013 through December 2013. But after a series of fits and starts, about one-third of the payment information for that period won’t be included because of questions that recently surfaced about its accuracy.
Here’s what happened. CMS made information about specific physicians and teaching hospitals available to those individual providers earlier this summer so that they could confirm or contest payments and contributions listed. But at least one doctor saw payments that corresponded to a different provider, an error attributed to payment information that had been incorrectly submitted.
The mistake, found at the beginning of August, prompted an investigation by CMS that uncovered multiple inaccuracies, leading the agency to take down the database for more than a week. Since then, one third of the payment data included in the system has been removed, although a CMS spokesperson said corrected information will be reviewed and published next year. CMS would not specify what the flaws were with the removed information.
CMS has downplayed critics’ concerns that the problems indicate the database is not ready for public view and pledged all data will be posted to the site in June 2015. The agency has suggested the inaccuracies come from incorrectly submitted drug company reports. Pharmaceutical interests, though, argue their companies submitted the data correctly – and that the fault lies in the technology behind the database.
ProPublica reported Aug. 28 that the database wouldn’t include payments pharmaceutical companies may have made to doctors through third-party organizations, because of potential inaccuracies. Pharmaceutical companies could have given payments to contract research organizations, for instance – which perform tasks such as clinical trials – but any payments those companies then made to doctors haven’t been appropriately reviewed by doctors, according to the news organization…”
Developing Public Policy To Advance The Use Of Big Data In Health Care
Paper by Axel Heitmueller et al in Health Affairs: “The vast amount of health data generated and stored around the world each day offers significant opportunities for advances such as the real-time tracking of diseases, predicting disease outbreaks, and developing health care that is truly personalized. However, capturing, analyzing, and sharing health data is difficult, expensive, and controversial. This article explores four central questions that policy makers should consider when developing public policy for the use of “big data” in health care. We discuss what aspects of big data are most relevant for health care and present a taxonomy of data types and levels of access. We suggest that successful policies require clear objectives and provide examples, discuss barriers to achieving policy objectives based on a recent policy experiment in the United Kingdom, and propose levers that policy makers should consider using to advance data sharing. We argue that the case for data sharing can be won only by providing real-life examples of the ways in which it can improve health care.”
How Open Data Is Transforming City Life
Joel Gurin, The GovLab, at Techonomy: “Start a business. Manage your power use. Find cheap rents, or avoid crime-ridden neighborhoods. Cities and their citizens worldwide are discovering the power of “open data”—public data and information available from government and other sources that can help solve civic problems and create new business opportunities. By opening up data about transportation, education, health care, and more, municipal governments are helping app developers, civil society organizations, and others to find innovative ways to tackle urban problems. For any city that wants to promote entrepreneurship and economic development, open data can be a valuable new resource.
The urban open data movement has been growing for several years, with American cities including New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington in the forefront. Now an increasing number of government officials, entrepreneurs, and civic hackers are recognizing the potential of open data. The results have included applications that can be used across many cities as well as those tailored to an individual city’s needs.
At first, the open data movement was driven by a commitment to transparency and accountability. City, state, and local governments have all released data about their finances and operations in the interest of good government and citizen participation. Now some tech companies are providing platforms to make this kind of city data more accessible, useful, and comparable. Companies like OpenGov and Govini make it possible for city managers and residents to examine finances, assess police department overtime, and monitor other factors that let them compare their city’s performance to neighboring municipalities.
Other new businesses are tapping city data to provide residents with useful, practical information. One of the best examples is NextBus, which uses metropolitan transportation data to tell commuters when to expect a bus along their route. Commuter apps like this have become common in cities in the U.S. and around the world. Another website, SpotCrime, collects, analyzes, and maps crime statistics to tell city dwellers which areas are safest or most dangerous and to offer crime alerts. And the Chicago-based Purple Binder helps people in need find city healthcare services. Many companies in the Open Data 500, the study of open data companies that I direct at the GovLab at NYU, use data from cities as well as other sources….
Some of the most ambitious uses of city data—with some of the greatest potential—focus on improving education. In Washington, the nonprofit Learn DC has made data about public schools available through a portal that state agencies, community organizations, and civic hackers can all use. They’re using it for collaborative research and action that, they say, has “empowered every DC parent to participate in shaping the future of the public education system.”…”