Smoke Signals: Open data & analytics for preventing fire deaths

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Enigma: “Today we are launching Smoke Signals, an open source civic analytics tool that helps local communities determine which city blocks are at the highest risk of not having a smoke alarm.

25,000 people are killed or injured in 1 million fires across the United States each year. With over 130 million housing units across the country, 4.5 million of them do not have smoke detectors, placing their inhabitants at substantial risk. Driving this number down is the single most important factor for saving lives put at risk by fire.

Organizations like the Red Cross are investing a lot of resources to buy and install smoke alarms in people’s homes. But a big challenge remains: in a city of millions, what doors should you knock on first when conducting an outreach effort?

We began working on the problem of targeting the blocks at highest risk of not having a smoke alarm with the City of New Orleans last spring. (You can read about this work here.) Over the past few months, with collaboration from the Red Cross and DataKind, we’ve built out a generalized model and a set of tools to offer the same analytics potential to 178 American cities, all in a way that is simple to use and sensitive to how on-the-ground operations are organized.

We believe that Smoke Signals is more a collection of tools and collaborations than it is a slick piece of software that can somehow act as a panacea to the problem of fire fatalities. Core to its purpose and mission are a set of commitments:

  • an ongoing collaboration with the Red Cross wherein our smoke alarm work informs their on-the-ground outreach
  • a collaboration with DataKind to continue applying volunteer work to the improvement of the underlying models and data that drive the risk analysis
  • a working relationship with major American cities to help integrate our prediction models into their outreach programs

and tools:

  • a downloadable CSV for 178 American municipalities that associate city streets to risk scores
  • an interactive map for an immediate bird’s eye assessment of at-risk city blocks
  • an API endpoint to which users can upload a CSV of local fire incidents in order to improve scores for their area

We believe this is an important contribution to public safety and the better delivery of government services. However, we also consider it a work in progress, a demonstration of how civic analytic solutions can be shared and generalized across the country. We are open sourcing all of the components that went into it and invite anyone with an interest in making it better to get involved….(More)”

Data Collaboratives: Sharing Public Data in Private Hands for Social Good

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Beth Simone Noveck (The GovLab) in Forbes: “Sensor-rich consumer electronics such as mobile phones, wearable devices, commercial cameras and even cars are collecting zettabytes of data about the environment and about us. According to one McKinsey study, the volume of data is growing at fifty percent a year. No one needs convincing that these private storehouses of information represent a goldmine for business, but these data can do double duty as rich social assets—if they are shared wisely.

Think about a couple of recent examples: Sharing data held by businesses and corporations (i.e. public data in private hands) can help to improve policy interventions. California planners make water allocation decisions based upon expertise, data and analytical tools from public and private sources, including Intel, the Earth Research Institute at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the World Food Center at the University of California at Davis.

In Europe, several phone companies have made anonymized datasets available, making it possible for researchers to track calling and commuting patterns and gain better insight into social problems from unemployment to mental health. In the United States, LinkedIn is providing free data about demand for IT jobs in different markets which, when combined with open data from the Department of Labor, helps communities target efforts around training….

Despite the promise of data sharing, these kind of data collaboratives remain relatively new. There is a need toaccelerate their use by giving companies strong tax incentives for sharing data for public good. There’s a need for more study to identify models for data sharing in ways that respect personal privacy and security and enable companies to do well by doing good. My colleagues at The GovLab together with UN Global Pulse and the University of Leiden, for example, published this initial analysis of terms and conditions used when exchanging data as part of a prize-backed challenge. We also need philanthropy to start putting money into “meta research;” it’s not going to be enough to just open up databases: we need to know if the data is good.

After years of growing disenchantment with closed-door institutions, the push for greater use of data in governing can be seen as both a response and as a mirror to the Big Data revolution in business. Although more than 1,000,000 government datasets about everything from air quality to farmers markets are openly available online in downloadable formats, much of the data about environmental, biometric, epidemiological, and physical conditions rest in private hands. Governing better requires a new empiricism for developing solutions together. That will depend on access to these private, not just public data….(More)”

Openness an Essential Building Block for Inclusive Societies

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

 (Mexico) in the Huffington Post: “The international community faces a complex environment that requires transforming the way we govern. In that sense, 2015 marks a historic milestone, as 193 Member States of the United Nations will come together to agree on the adoption of the 2030 Agenda. With the definition of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we will set an ambitious course toward a better and more inclusive world for the next 15 years.

The SDGs will be established just when governments deal with new and more defiant challenges, which require increased collaboration with multiple stakeholders to deliver innovative solutions. For that reason, cutting-edge technologies, fueled by vast amounts of data, provide an efficient platform to foster a global transformation and consolidate more responsive, collaborative and open governments.

Goal 16 seeks to promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies by ensuring access to public information, strengthening the rule of law, as well as building stronger and more accountable institutions. By doing so, we will contribute to successfully achieve the rest of the 2030 Agenda objectives.

During the 70th United Nations General Assembly, the 11 countries of the Steering Committee of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), along with civil-society leaders, will gather to acknowledge Goal 16 as a common target through a Joint Declaration: Open Government for the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As the Global Summit of OGP convenes this year in Mexico City, on October 28th and 29th, my government will call on all 65 members to subscribe to this fundamental declaration.

The SDGs will be reached only through trustworthy, effective and inclusive institutions. This is why Mexico, as current chair of the OGP, has committed to promote citizen participation, innovative policies, transparency and accountability.

Furthermore, we have worked with a global community of key players to develop the international Open Data Charter (ODC), which sets the founding principles for a greater coherence and increased use of open data across the world. We seek to recognize the value of having timely, comprehensive, accessible, and comparable data to improve governance and citizen engagement, as well as to foster inclusive development and innovation….(More)”

Open data is not just for startups

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Mike Altendorf at CIO: “…Surely open data is just for start-ups, market research companies and people that want to save the world? Well there are two reasons why I wanted to dedicate a bit of time to the subject of open data. First, one of the major barriers to internal innovation that I hear about all the time is the inability to use internal data to inform that innovation. This is usually because data is deemed too sensitive, too complex, too siloed or too difficult to make usable. Leaving aside the issues that any of those problems are going to cause for the organisation more generally, it is easy to see how this can create a problem. So why not use someone else’s data?

The point of creating internal labs and innovation centres is to explore the art of the possible. I quite agree that insight from your own data is a good place to start but it isn’t the only place. You could also argue that by using your own data you are restricting your thinking because you are only looking at information that already relates to your business. If the point of a lab is to explore ideas for supporting the business then you may be better off looking outwards at what is happening in the world around you rather than inwards into the constrained world of the industry you already inhabit….

The fact is there is vast amounts of data sets that are freely available that can be made to work for you if you can just apply the creativity and technical smarts to them.

My second point is less about open data than about opening up data. Organisations collect information on their business operations, customers and suppliers all the time. The smart ones know how to use it to build competitive advantage but the really smart ones also know that there is significant extra value to be gained from sharing that data with the customer or supplier that it relates to. The customer or supplier can then use it to make informed decisions themselves. Some organisations have been doing this for a while. Customers of First Direct have been able to analyse their own spending patterns for years (although the data has been somewhat limited). The benefit to the customer is that they can make informed decisions based on actual data about their past behaviours and so adapt their spending habits accordingly (or put their head firmly in the sand and carry on as before in my case!). The benefit to the bank is that they are able to suggest ideas for how to improve a customer’s financial health alongside the data. Others have looked at how they can help customers by sharing (anonymised) information about what people with similar lifestyles/needs are doing/buying so customers can learn from each other. Trials have shown that customers welcomed the insight….(More)”

 

Sustainable Value of Open Government Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Phd Thesis from Thorhildur Jetzek: “The impact of the digital revolution on our societies can be compared to the ripples caused by a stone thrown in water: spreading outwards and affecting a larger and larger part of our lives with every year that passes. One of the many effects of this revolution is the emergence of an already unprecedented amount of digital data that is accumulating exponentially. Moreover, a central affordance of digitization is the ability to distribute, share and collaborate, and we have thus seen an “open theme” gaining currency in recent years. These trends are reflected in the explosion of Open Data Initiatives (ODIs) around the world. However, while hundreds of national and local governments have established open data portals, there is a general feeling that these ODIs have not yet lived up to their true potential. This feeling is not without good reason; the recent Open Data Barometer report highlights that strong evidence on the impacts of open government data is almost universally lacking (Davies, 2013). This lack of evidence is disconcerting for government organizations that have already expended money on opening data, and might even result in the termination of some ODIs. This lack of evidence also raises some relevant questions regarding the nature of value generation in the context of free data and sharing of information over networks. Do we have the right methods, the right intellectual tools, to understand and reflect the value that is generated in such ecosystems?

This PhD study addresses the question of How is value generated from open data? through a mixed methods, macro-level approach. For the qualitative analysis, I have conducted two longitudinal case studies in two different contexts. The first is the case of the Basic Data Program (BDP), which is a Danish ODI. For this case, I studied the supply-side of open data publication, from the creation of open data strategy towards the dissemination and use of data. The second case is a demand-side study on the energy tech company Opower. Opower has been an open data user for many years and have used open data to create and disseminate personalized information on energy use. This information has already contributed to a measurable world-wide reduction in CO2 emissions as well as monetary savings. Furthermore, to complement the insights from these two cases I analyzed quantitative data from 76 countries over the years 2012 and 2013. I have used these diverse sources of data to uncover the most important relationships or mechanisms, that can explain how open data are used to generate sustainable value….(More)”

Revolution Delayed: The Impact of Open Data on the Fight against Corruption

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by RiSSC – Research Centre on Security and Crime (Italy): “In the recent years, the demand for Open Data picked up stream among stakeholders to increasing transparency and accountability of the Public Sector. Governments are supporting Open Data supply, to achieve social and economic benefits, return on investments, and political consensus.

While it is self-evident that Open Data contributes to greater transparency – as it makes data more available and easy to use by the public and governments, its impact on fighting corruption largely depends on the ability to analyse it and develop initiatives that trigger both social accountability mechanisms, and government responsiveness against illicit or inappropriate behaviours.

To date, Open Data Revolution against corruption is delayed. The impact of Open Data on the prevention and repression of corruption, and on the development of anti- corruption tools, appears to be limited, and the return on investments not yet forthcoming. Evidence remains anecdotal, and a better understanding on the mechanisms and dynamics of using Open Data against corruption is needed.

The overall objective of this exploratory study is to provide evidence on the results achieved by Open Data, and recommendations for the European Commission and Member States’ authorities, for the implementation of effective anti-corruption strategies based on transparency and openness, to unlock the potential impact of “Open Data revolution” against Corruption.

The project has explored the legal framework and the status of implementation of Open Data policies in four EU Countries – Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, and Austria. TACOD project has searched for evidence on Open Data role on law enforcement cooperation, anti-corruption initiatives, public campaigns, and investigative journalism against corruption.

RiSSC – Research Centre on Security and Crime (Italy), the University of Oxford and the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom), Transparency International (Italy and United Kingdom), the Institute for Conflict Resolution (Austria), and Blomeyer&Sanz (Spain), have carried out the research between January 2014 and February 2015, under an agreement with the European Commission – DH Migration and Home Affairs. The project has been coordinated by RiSSC, with the support of a European Working Group of Experts, chaired by prof. Richard Rose, and an external evaluator, Mr. Andrea Menapace, and it has benefited from the contribution of many experts, activists, representatives of Institutions in the four Countries….(More)

What should governments require for their open data portals?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Luke Fretwell at GovFresh: “Johns Hopkins University’s new Center for Government Excellence is developing a much-needed open data portal requirements resource to serve as a “set of sample requirements to help governments evaluate, develop (or procure), deploy, and launch an open data web site (portal).”

As many governments ramp up their open data initiatives, this is an important project in that we often see open data platform decisions being made without a holistic approach and awareness of what government should purchase (or have the flexibility to develop on its own).

“The idea here is that any interested city can use this as a baseline and make their own adjustments before proceeding,” said GovEx Director of Open Data Andrew Nicklin via email. “Perhaps with this we can create some common denominators amongst open data portals and eventually push the whole movement forwards.”

My fundamental suggestion is that government-run open data platforms be fully open source. There are a number of technical and financial reasons for this, which I will address in the future, but I believe strongly that if the platform you’re hosting data on doesn’t adhere to the same licensing standards you hold for your data, you’re only doing open data half right.

With both CKAN and DKAN continuing to grow in adoption, we’re seeing an emergence of reliable solutions that adequately meet the same technical and procurement requirements as propriety options (full disclosure: I work with NuCivic on DKAN and NuCivic Data).

Learn more about the GovEx open data portal standards project”

Towards decision support for disclosing data: Closed or open data?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Zuiderwijk , Anneke and Janssen , Marijn in Information Polity: “The disclosure of open government data is a complex activity that may create public value yet might also encounter risks, such as the misinterpretation and misuse of data. While politicians support data release and assume that the positive value of open data will dominate, many governmental organizations are reluctant to open their data, as they are afraid of the dark side. The objective of this paper is to provide a decision-making model that assists in trade-offs between the pros and cons of open data. Data disclosure is dependent on the type of data (e.g. its sensitivity, structure and quality) and the context (e.g. organizational policies, legislation and the political influences). Based on the literature and fifteen in-depth interviews with public sector officials and data archivists, this paper identifies contextual and dataset-related variables which influence a trade-off. A decision-making model is presented capturing trade-offs, and in this way providing guidance for weighing the creation of public value and the risks. The model can be used for decision-making to open or not to open data. It is likely that the decision regarding which data should be opened or closed will shift over time….(More)”

The impact of Open Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

GovLab/Omidyar Network: “…share insights gained from our current collaboration with Omidyar Network on a series of open data case studies. These case studies – 19, in total – are designed to provide a detailed examination of the various ways open data is being used around the world, across geographies and sectors, and to draw some over-arching lessons. The case studies are built from extensive research, including in-depth interviews with key participants in the various open data projects under study….

Ways in which open data impacts lives

Broadly, we have identified four main ways in which open data is transforming economic, social, cultural and political life, and hence improving people’s lives.

  • First, open data is improving government, primarily by helping tackle corruption, improving transparency, and enhancing public services and resource allocation.
  • Open data is also empowering citizens to take control of their lives and demand change; this dimension of impact is mediated by more informed decision making and new forms of social mobilization, both facilitated by new ways of communicating and accessing information.
  • Open data is also creating new opportunities for citizens and groups, by stimulating innovation and promoting economic growth and development.
  • Finally, open data is playing an increasingly important role insolving big public problems, primarily by allowing citizens and policymakers to engage in new forms of data-driven assessment and data-driven engagement.

 

Enabling Conditions

While these are the four main ways in which open data is driving change, we have seen wide variability in the amount and nature of impact across our case studies. Put simply, some projects are more successful than others; or some projects might be more successful in a particular dimension of impact, and less successful in others.

As part of our research, we have therefore tried to identify some enabling conditions that maximize the positive impact of open data projects. These four stand out:

  • Open data projects are most successful when they are built not from the efforts of single organizations or government agencies, but when they emerge from partnerships across sectors (and even borders). The role of intermediaries (e.g., the media and civil society groups) and “data collaboratives” are particularly important.
  • Several of the projects we have seen have emerged on the back of what we might think of as an open data public infrastructure– i.e., the technical backend and organizational processes necessary to enable the regular release of potentially impactful data to the public.
  • Clear open data policies, including well-defined performance metrics, are also essential; policymakers and political leaders have an important role in creating an enabling (yet flexible) legal environment that includes mechanisms for project assessments and accountability, as well as providing the type high-level political buy-in that can empower practitioners to work with open data.
  • We have also seen that the most successful open data projects tend to be those that target a well-defined problem or issue. In other words, projects with maximum impact often meet a genuine citizen need.

 

Challenges

Impact is also determined by the obstacles and challenges that a project confronts. Some regions and some projects face a greater number of hurdles. These also vary, but we have found four challenges that appear most often in our case studies:

  • Projects in countries or regions with low capacity or “readiness”(indicated, for instance by low Internet penetration rates or hostile political environments) typically fare less well.
  • Projects that are unresponsive to feedback and user needs are less likely to succeed than those that are flexible and able to adapt to what their users want.
  • Open data often exists in tension with risks such as privacy and security; often, the impact of a project is limited or harmed when it fails to take into account and mitigate these risks.
  • Although open data projects are often “hackable” and cheap to get off the ground, the most successful do require investments – of time and money – after their launch; inadequate resource allocation is one of the most common reasons for a project to fail.

These lists of impacts, enabling factors and challenges are, of course, preliminary. We continue to refine our research and will include a final set of findings along with our final report….(More)

5 tech trends that will transform governments

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Zac Bookman at the World Economic Forum: “…The public sector today looks a bit like the consumer industry of 1995 and the enterprise space in 2005: it is at the beginning of a large-scale digital metamorphosis. The net result will be years of saved time, better decisions and stronger communities.

Here are five trends that will define this transformation in the coming decade:

  1. Real-time operations

Many industries in the global economy already operate in real time. ….

Governments are different. They often access accurate data only on a monthly or quarterly basis, even though they make critical decisions every day. This will change with software deployments that help governments unleash and use current data to make more informed decisions about how they can allocate public resources effectively.

  1. Smarter cities  

Studies on human migration patterns indicate that more people are moving to cities. By 2025, an estimated 60% of the world’s population will live in an urban centre. High rates of urbanization will force cities to use their existing resources more efficiently. Networked infrastructures – including roads, phone lines, cable networks, satellites and the internet – will be important parts of the solution to this challenge….For example, MIT and Copenhagen recently collaborated on an electric-hybrid bike wheel that monitors pollution, road conditions and traffic. The wheel allows cities to monitor their environments at a level that was previously unfeasible with cheap sensors and manual labour, offering a quantum leap in networking capability without using further human or capital resources.

  1. Increased citizen engagement

Smart networks are wonderful things, but cities need to guard themselves against making efficiency a sacred cow. There is inherent tension between the ideals of democracy and efficiency, between the openness of platforms that encourage engagement and centralized systems. Rather than focus solely on making everything smart, cities will have to focus on slowing down and improving the quality of life.

These considerations will cause cities to increase citizen engagement. Transparency is a subset of this goal. Open data platforms, such as data.gov and data.gov.uk, host troves of machine-readable government information that allow communities to target and solve problems for which governments do not have the bandwidth. Crowdfunding platforms, such as neighbor.ly, allow citizens to participate in the civic process by enabling them to invest in local capital projects. These types of civic tech platforms will continue to grow, and they will be vital to the health of future democracies.

  1. 21st-century reporting software for governments

The information technology that powers government is notoriously antiquated. …

New reporting technology, such as the system from OpenGov, will automatically pull and display data from governments’ accounting systems. These capabilities empower employees to find information in seconds that would have previously taken hours, days or even weeks to find. They will expand inter-departmental collaboration on core functions, such as budgeting. And they will also allow governments to compare themselves with other governments. In the next decade, advanced reporting software will save billions of dollars by streamlining processes, improving decisions and offering intelligent insights across the expenditure spectrum.

  1. Inter-governmental communication

The internet was conceived as a knowledge-sharing platform. Over the past few decades, technologists have developed tools such as Google and Wikipedia to aid the flow of information on the web and enable ever greater knowledge sharing. Today, you can find nearly any piece of information in a matter of seconds. Governments, however, have not benefited from the rapid development of such tools for their industry, and most information sharing still occurs offline, over email, or on small chat forums. Tools designed specifically for government data will allow governments to embrace the inherent knowledge-sharing infrastructure of the internet….(More)”