On November 9, TechChange President Nick Martin and the TechChange team were invited to participate in a roundtable discussion co-hosted by the International Peace Institute and the UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery on crowdsourcing for conflict prevention.

The discussion covered the policy challenges associated with crowdsourcing at a national level, as well as discussions about tools and human factors.  The UNDP’s Ozonnia Ojielo expertly explained the Amani 108 process in Kenya, Nick Martin and Google’s Beth Liebert spoke about communication and mapping tools involved in the process of crowdsourcing, and William Tsuma of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict talked about the human side of crowdsourcing, including the risks people face when participating.

Ozonnia Ojielo gave the audience an in-depth analysis of why the Amani 108 program, co-managed by the UNDP and Kenyan Government, was so effective for preventing significant outbreaks of violence during the referendum vote in 2010.  He explained the level of buy-in across all levels of society, and that there was both information gathering capacity and the ability to respond when needed.

Moving off this case study, Nick Martin, with the help of Jordan Hosmer-Henner, talked about  the social tools for crowdsourcing, including FrontlineSMS, Twitter, and Freedom Fone.  Since  these systems can provide a data analyst with geographic information, the TechChange team  had put together a crowdmap and provided the audience with information to text into a  FrontlineSMS platform.  Jordan then demonstrated how the texts are received in the  crowdmap, and how to map them.  This was a nice interactive touch, and allowed participants  who may not have seen mapping platforms to interact briefly with the software from their  seats.

Beth Liebert expanded on Nick and Jordan’s presentation, giving a detailed explanation of Google’s mapping products.  She demonstrated how the maps incorporated layering technology that could be easily used by non-technical practitioners, demonstrating the platform with a map that was designed during the London riots to provide information on police activity, safe spaces and different types of events.  This information is all crowdsourced using the tools that Nick and Jordan discussed, and Beth provided a superb explanation of the depth and capacity Google mapping products have for bringing data to life.

William Tsuma brought the conversation back to the operational side, speaking about the challenges of organizing crowdsourcing operations in environments where security was a problem and the issues surrounding data sharing with governments and security agencies.  His suggestions demonstrated practical examples of how to work around these challenges, as well as methods that professionals could employ while working on crowdsourcing at the community level.

The discussion covered the range of issues at the policy level, covered tools and technical needs for crowdsourcing, and brought the conversation back to the core issue, that we are trying to improve the lives of people affected by conflict and instability.  Roundtables like these, hosted by organizations doing good work in the field and supporting critical research on conflict prevention, provide a space to discuss the intersection of tools, policy and human challenges of crowdsourcing while giving a variety of experts the opportunity to ask questions and share their insights.

In the fall of 2011, TechChange facilitated its first series of online courses.  The courses were each three weeks long and covered the following topics (we will also be running these courses again in the Spring):

Participant Demographics

In total, we had 170 participants from 43 countries and the response has been remarkably positive. Participants came from a range of organizations, including:

Voice of America World Bank IREX
USAID World Pulse Media Mercy Corps
Plan International Freedom House UNDP
World Vision Concern Notre Dame
International Rescue Committee International Youth Foundation Teachers Without Borders
International Red Cross Office of the First Lady of the Dominican Republic Radio Station in Haiti (Minustah FM)

(more…)

This post is contributed by a guest author and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of TechChange or the TechChange staff

The development of a robust state is almost always tied to education. The mode of education that has been in fashion since colonialism favors the privileged teacher entering an underprivileged area and bestowing light upon the children, or adults as it may be. There are a few problems with this, not least the fact that really good teachers don’t often go to the places they are needed most.

Two interesting experiments suggest that those teachers aren’t needed; if the tools are given to children in developing areas, they will naturally teach themselves.

Suguta Mitra has recently developed what he calls Self Organized Learning Environments (or, SOLEs), which are designed for children in groups to utilize technology (e.g. high speed Internet, video calling, etc.) for self-teaching. The SOLEs stem from smaller experiments he conducted throughout the world with children being given nothing but the tool – no instruction on how to use it, no goal – to see just how much they could learn.

The first experiment sees a computer with a broadband connection placed into a slum of India. Within weeks, the children of the town are using the computer to teach themselves…well, anything. Some use it to record music and play it back. Others download games and teach friends how to play them. In one eye-opening example, Mitra places computers in a classroom, tells Tamil-speaking 12-year old children in a South Indian village to learn biotechnology in English, on their own. He explains:

“I called in 26 children… I told them that ‘there’s some really difficult stuff on this computer, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t understand anything. It’s all in English and uh, I’m going.”

He returned two months later to see just what the children had learned and one girl responds, “Apart from the fact that improper replication of the DNA molecule causes genetic disease, we’ve understood nothing else.”

The idea that such a small catalyst — the introduction of a computer to a group with no prior experience/instruction — could blossom into the development of intellectual societies driven by a preternatural instinct to learn is reminiscent of emergence theory, which maintains that simple actions lead to complex systems.

Another such example of emergence theory in education comes in Neil Gershenfeld’s Fab Labs.  His project deals in relatively low-cost labs – about $20,000 each – that allow people to build the things they need using digital and analog tools. The idea is that rather than using technology as a top down equalizer, giving people the technology will allow them to create solutions for themselves.

This is beginning to rattle the foundations of emerging economies who often depend on the aid – financial or otherwise – given by established countries. Now, rather than wait for someone to offer help, they can literally create their own. It’s particularly important in places where outsiders fail to understand the cultural dynamics of an area. Mitra’s SOLEs and Gershenfeld’s Fab Labs allow local economies to create local solutions, thereby empowering themselves.

Global technology is advancing swiftly. Software and information are becoming cheaper through cloud computing, which pushes the costs down further and simultaneously creates a wireless resource that people can tap into. As the cloud broadens and the technology revolution continues, so too will the revolution in education and the way we think about developing nations.

Thomas Stone is a freelance writer and frequent contributing author at gospel(s).