Priscilla Guo, Danielle Kehl, and Sam Kessler at Responsive Communities (Harvard): “In the summer of 2016, some unusual headlines began appearing in news outlets across the United States. “Secret Algorithms That Predict Future Criminals Get a Thumbs Up From the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” read one. Another declared: “There’s software used across the country to predict future criminals. And it’s biased against blacks.” These news stories (and others like them) drew attention to a previously obscure but fast-growing area in the field of criminal justice: the use of risk assessment software, powered by sophisticated and sometimes proprietary algorithms, to predict... (More >)
Where’s the ‘Civic’ in CivicTech?
Blog by Pius Enywaru: “The ideology of community participation and development is a crucial topic for any nation or community seeking to attain sustainable development. Here in Uganda, oftentimes when the opportunity for public participation either in local planning or in holding local politicians to account — the ‘don’t care’ attitude reigns…. What works? Some of these tools include Ask Your Government Uganda, a platform built to help members of the public get the information they want about from 106 public agencies in Uganda. U-Report developed by UNICEF provides an SMS-based social monitoring tool designed to address issues affecting... (More >)
E-residency and blockchain
Clare Sullivan and Eric Burger in Computer Law & Security Review: “In December 2014, Estonia became the first nation to open its digital borders to enable anyone, anywhere in the world to apply to become an e-Resident. Estonian e-Residency is essentially a commercial initiative. The e-ID issued to Estonian e-Residents enables commercial activities with the public and private sectors. It does not provide citizenship in its traditional sense, and the e-ID provided to e-Residents is not a travel document. However, in many ways it is an international ‘passport’ to the virtual world. E-Residency is a profound change and the... (More >)
Africa’s open data revolution hampered by challenges
Gilbert Nakweya at SciDevNet: “According to the inaugural Africa Data Revolution Report (ADRR), there is minimal or non-existent collaborations among data communities regarding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Africa’s Agenda 2063. …The report cites issues such as legal and policy frameworks, infrastructure, technology and interactions among key actors as challenges that confront data ecosystems of ten African countries studied: Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland and Tanzania. The ADRR was jointly published by the Economic Commission for Africa, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Wide Web Foundation and Open Data for Development Network... (More >)
Building Digital Government Strategies
Book by Rodrigo Sandoval-Almazan et al: “This book provides key strategic principles and best practices to guide the design and implementation of digital government strategies. It provides a series of recommendations and findings to think about IT applications in government as a platform for information, services and collaboration, and strategies to avoid identified pitfalls. Digital government research suggests that information technologies have the potential to generate immense public value and transform the relationships between governments, citizens, businesses and other stakeholders. However, developing innovative and high impact solutions for citizens hinges on the development of strategic institutional, organizational and technical... (More >)
How data can heal our oceans
Nishan Degnarain and Steve Adler at WEF: “We have collected more data on our oceans in the past two years than in the history of the planet. There has been a proliferation of remote and near sensors above, on, and beneath the oceans. New low-cost micro satellites ring the earth and can record what happens below daily. Thousands of tidal buoys follow currents transmitting ocean temperature, salinity, acidity and current speed every minute. Undersea autonomous drones photograph and map the continental shelf and seabed, explore deep sea volcanic vents, and can help discover mineral and rare earth deposits. The... (More >)
Smart or dumb? The real impact of India’s proposal to build 100 smart cities
Hugh Byrd in The Conversation: “In 2014, the new Indian government declared its intention to achieve 100 smart cities. In promoting this objective, it gave the example of a large development in the island city of Mumbai, Bhendi Bazaar. There, 3-5 storey housing would be replaced with towers of between 40 to 60 storeys to increase density. This has come to be known as “vertical with a vengeance”. We have obtained details of the proposed project from the developer and the municipal authorities. Using an extended urban metabolism model, which measures the impacts of the built environment, we have... (More >)
The hidden costs of open data
Sara Friedman at GCN: “As more local governments open their data for public use, the emphasis is often on “free” — using open source tools to freely share already-created government datasets, often with pro bono help from outside groups. But according to a new report, there are unforeseen costs when it comes pushing government datasets out of public-facing platforms — especially when geospatial data is involved. The research, led by University of Waterloo professor Peter A. Johnson and McGill University professor Renee Sieber, was based on work as part of Geothink.ca partnership research grant and exploration of the direct... (More >)
Data Africa
“Data Africa is an open data platform designed to provide information on key themes for research and development such as: agriculture, climate, poverty and child health across Sub-Saharan Africa at the sub-national level. The main goal of the online tool is to present the themes to a wide, even non-technical audience through easily accessible visual narratives. In its first stage, the platform is focused on national and sub-national level data for 13 countries: Burkina Faso Ethiopia Ghana Kenya Malawi Mali Mozambique Nigeria Rwanda Senegal Tanzania Uganda Zambia Over time, we anticipate expanding the coverage of the platform with additional... (More >)
The Implementation of Open Data in Indonesia
Paper by Dani Gunawan and Amalia Amalia: “Nowadays, public demands easy access to nonconfidential government data, such as public digital information on health, industry, and culture that can be accessed on the Internet. This will lead departments within government to be efficient and more transparent. As the results, rapid development of applications will solve citizens’ problems in many sectors. One Data Initiatives is the prove that the Government of Indonesia supports data transparency. This research investigates the implementation of open data in Indonesia based on Tim BernersLee five-star rating and open stage model by Kalampokis. The result shows that... (More >)
