The Urban Computing Foundation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

About: “The Urban Computing Foundation is a neutral forum for accelerating open source and community development that improves mobility, safety, road infrastructure, traffic congestion and energy consumption in connected cities.

As cities and transportation networks evolve into ever-more complicated systems, urban computing is emerging as an important field to bridge the divide between engineering, visualization, and traditional transportation systems analysis. These advancements are dependent on compatibility among many technologies across different public and private organizations. The Foundation provides the forum to collaborate on a common set of open source tools for developers building autonomous vehicles and smart infrastructure.

The Urban Computing Foundation’s mission is to enable developers, data scientists, visualization specialists and engineers to improve urban environments, human life quality, and city operation systems.build connected urban infrastructure. We do this through an open governance model that encourages participation and technical contribution, and by providing a framework for long term stewardship by companies and individuals invested in open urban computing’s success….(More)”.

Leveraging Private Data for Public Good: A Descriptive Analysis and Typology of Existing Practices

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

New report by Stefaan Verhulst, Andrew Young, Michelle Winowatan. and Andrew J. Zahuranec: “To address the challenges of our times, we need both new solutions and new ways to develop those solutions. The responsible use of data will be key toward that end. Since pioneering the concept of “data collaboratives” in 2015, The GovLab has studied and experimented with innovative ways to leverage private-sector data to tackle various societal challenges, such as urban mobility, public health, and climate change.

While we have seen an uptake in normative discussions on how data should be shared, little analysis exists of the actual practice. This paper seeks to address that gap and seeks to answer the following question: What are the variables and models that determine functional access to private sector data for public good? In Leveraging Private Data for Public Good: A Descriptive Analysis and Typology of Existing Practices, we describe the emerging universe of data collaboratives and develop a typology of six practice areas. Our goal is to provide insight into current applications to accelerate the creation of new data collaboratives. The report outlines dozens of examples, as well as a set of recommendations to enable more systematic, sustainable, and responsible data collaboration….(More)”

City Innovation

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Report and interactive map by CityLab, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the OECD: “New Innovation helps local governments create an ecosystem that promotes experimentation and creativity to improve the public welfare of residents in cities around the world.

City governments are ushering in a new era of local public sector innovation that promotes experimentation and flexibility, and also takes into account the social needs of citizens to manage evolving urban systems. The goal of this report is to understand how municipalities can enhance their ability to use innovation to deliver better results for their residents….

This site identifies and shares how cities around the world are investing in innovation, to ensure they’re constantly assessing and improving how they’re tackling problems and improving the lives of residents. This map is based on an initial survey of cities in OECD and non-OECD countries. The city information reflects data gathered from the city administration at the time of the survey….(More)”

Democratising decisions about technology: a toolkit

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

The RSA: “As decisions are increasingly automated or made with the help of artificial intelligence, machines are becoming more influential in our lives. These machines are generating a range of predictions, such as the likelihood of a defendant reoffending or the job performance of a candidate based on video interview. In some cases, these predictions could lead to positive outcomes, such as less biased decisions or greater political engagement, but there are also risks that come with ceding power or outsourcing human judgment to a machine.

The RSA’s Forum for Ethical AI ran a citizens’ jury to explore the use of AI in decision-making. We convened participants to grapple with the ethical issues raised by this application of AI under different circumstances and enter into a deliberative dialogue about how companies, organisations, and public institutions should respond.

This report presents a toolkit for organisations seeking to deploy their own ethical processes around the proliferation of AI….(More)”.

Internet of Water

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

About: “Water is the essence of life and vital to the well-being of every person, economy, and ecosystem on the planet. But around the globe and here in the United States, water challenges are mounting as climate change, population growth, and other drivers of water stress increase. Many of these challenges are regional in scope and larger than any one organization (or even states), such as the depletion of multi-state aquifers, basin-scale flooding, or the wide-spread accumulation of nutrients leading to dead zones. Much of the infrastructure built to address these problems decades ago, including our data infrastructure, are struggling to meet these challenges. Much of our water data exists in paper formats unique to the organization collecting the data. Often, these organizations existed long before the personal computer was created (1975) or the internet became mainstream (mid 1990’s). As organizations adopted data infrastructure in the late 1990’s, it was with the mindset of “normal infrastructure” at the time. It was built to last for decades, rather than adapt with rapid technological changes. 

New water data infrastructure with new technologies that enable data to flow seamlessly between users and generate information for real-time management are needed to meet our growing water challenges. Decision-makers need accurate, timely data to understand current conditions, identify sustainability problems, illuminate possible solutions, track progress, and adapt along the way. Stakeholders need easy-to-understand metrics of water conditions so they can make sure managers and policymakers protect the environment and the public’s water supplies. The water community needs to continually improve how they manage this complex resource by using data and communicating information to support decision-making. In short, a sustained effort is required to accelerate the development of open data and information systems to support sustainable water resources management. The Internet of Water (IoW) is designed to be just such an effort….(More)”.

Communal Intelligence

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A Talk By Seth Lloyd at The Edge: “We haven’t talked about the socialization of intelligence very much. We talked a lot about intelligence as being individual human things, yet the thing that distinguishes humans from other animals is our possession of human language, which allows us both to think and communicate in ways that other animals don’t appear to be able to. This gives us a cooperative power as a global organism, which is causing lots of trouble. If I were another species, I’d be pretty damn pissed off right now. What makes human beings effective is not their individual intelligences, though there are many very intelligent people in this room, but their communal intelligence….(More)”.

GovTech: a new driver of citizen participation?

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Digital Future Society: “At a time when public trust in institutions is low, governments worldwide are seeking new ways to involve citizens in policymaking. But does technology help or hinder when it comes to participation?

GovTech refers to an emerging public innovation ecosystem in which startups and SMEs provide tech-based products and services to public sector clients.

In this third Digital Future Society report, discover the challenges and opportunities of applying GovTech to transform government-citizen relationships.

The report features 4 in-depth case studies of tech-based participation tools that show how a thriving GovTech ecosystem can facilitate collective problem solving and drive citizen participation at all levels of government….(More)”.

Toolkit to Help Community Leaders Drive Sustainable, Inclusive Growth

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The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth: “… is unveiling a groundbreaking suite of tools that will provide local leaders with timely data-driven insights on the current state of and potential for inclusive growth in their communities. The announcement comes as private and public sector leaders gather in Washington for the inaugural Global Inclusive Growth Summit.

For the first time the new Inclusive Growth Toolkit brings together a clear, simple view of social and economic growth in underserved communities across the U.S., at the census-tract level. This was created in response to growing demand from community leaders for more evidence-based insights, to help them steer impact investment dollars to locally-led economic development initiatives, unlock the potential of neighborhoods, and improve quality of life for all.    

The initial design of the toolkit is focused on driving sustainable growth for the 37+ million people living in the 8700+ QOZs throughout the United States. This comprehensive picture reveals that neighborhoods can look very different and may require different types of interventions to achieve successful and sustainable growth.

The Inclusive Growth Toolkit includes:

  • The Inclusive Growth Score – an interactive online map where users can view measures of inclusion and growth and then download a PDF Scorecard for any of the QOZs at census tract level.

A deep-dive analytics consultancy service that provides community leaders with customized insights to inform policy decisions, prospectus development, and impact investor discussions….(More)”.

Data Ownership: Exploring Implications for Data Privacy Rights and Data Valuation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Hearing by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs:”…As a result of an increasingly digital economy, more personal information is available to companies than ever before.
Private companies are collecting, processing, analyzing and sharing considerable data on individuals for all kinds of purposes.

There have been many questions about what personal data is being collected, how it is being collected, with whom it is being shared and how it is being used, including in ways that affect individuals’ financial lives.

Given the vast amount of personal information flowing through the economy, individuals need real control over their personal data. This Committee has held a series of data privacy hearings exploring possible
frameworks for facilitating privacy rights to consumers. Nearly all have included references to data as a new currency or commodity.

The next question, then, is who owns it? There has been much debate about the concept of data ownership, the monetary value of personal information and its potential role in data privacy…..The witnesses will be: 

  1. Mr. Jeffrey Ritter Founding Chair, American Bar Association Committee on Cyberspace Law, External Lecturer
  2. Mr. Chad Marlow Senior Advocacy And Policy Counsel American Civil Liberties Union
  3. Mr. Will Rinehart Director Of Technology And Innovation Policy American Action Forum
  4. Ms. Michelle Dennedy Chief Executive Officer DrumWave Inc.

The Public-Data Opportunity: Why Governments Should Share More

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Press Release: “The Lisbon Council launches The Public-Data Opportunity: Why Governments Should Share More, a new discussion paper that looks at the state of play for public-sector data sharing – and calls for better protocols and procedures to deliver data-driven service to all Europeans. The paper analyses the importance of data-sharing between European Union public agencies, identifies the barriers and proposes seven policy recommendations that will help lift them. It builds on the research conducted by the “Understanding Value Co-Creation in Public Services for Transforming European Public Administrations” project, or Co-VAL, a 12-partner research consortium, co-funded by the European Union. And was launched at The 2019 Digital Government Conference convened by the Presidency of the European Council of Finland in Helsinki….(More)”