Yesterday, the World Bank brought together leading technologists, data gurus and development practitioners for a whirlwind group brainstorming activity about their soon to be open Apps for Development contest. The contest aims to find the best application of the data sets released by the bank as part of their Open Data initiative. Along with group sessions to identify potential uses across a number of sectors, participants had the opportunity to hear from technology “Obi-Wan” Tim O’Reilly, Health and Human Services CTO Todd Park, and World Bank Africa Region Chief Economist Shantayanan Devarajan.
/>The competition is part of a broader movement at the bank to share the research they collect with policy makers in and out of government as well as social entrepreneurs. Tim O’Reilly took aim at the trend of using data for visualization, calling it “useful for data wonks” but saying the need was to “build for a real person who is trying to solve a problem.” Visualization works for aggregate level analysis but for the individual user the important issue is accessing “the smallest unit of data” that can help improve their life.
Category: Blog
There are no ATMs, the countries currency is unrecognized without an official exchange rate, and every American dollar translates into 17, 000 Somaliland Shillings. With all of this, Somaliland is on track to become a cashless society. Some may argue this is out of necessity and others argue it’s because of ingenuity; most likely it’s both. (more…)
Back to the books, assignments and test — back to what students do best.
In my neck of the Canadian woods, students went back to school yesterday. Watching the yellow buses drive by, I couldn’t help but wonder how many Eggo Waffles were toasted and brown bag lunches — equip with Dunkaroos — were packed and shipped off.
Expanding wireless coverages to the more remote areas of the world is the obvious first step in enabling individuals to benefit from the myriad mobile tools under development by social entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, for a traditional network provider building a base station requires too much capital investment to be cost effective in sparsely populated areas. As is often the case when commercial interests aren’t aligned with what is socially desirable the open source community has stepped up to design a system capable of bringing low-cost connectivity. The foundation has been the development of the OpenBTS system by Harvind Samra and David Burgess.
In international development, as with so many other fields, information is everything. OK, that’s kind of a broad statement, and a bit of a “no duh” to boot. But our ultimate goal is capacity building writ large, and so a failure of information exchange is in some ways a failure of the development industry as a whole. The reality is far too many projects reinvent the wheel with each iteration: Programs don’t scale. people don’t build on one another’s successes. It is to respond to this issue that Tony Barclay, ex-CEO of DAI, started the Development Practitioners Forum, after retiring from DAI as CEO for many years. But this post is less about our organization (the curious can read more at our website), and more about a different way of looking at audiences and the mechanics of knowledge sharing.
To the billion individuals who lack access to electricity, the promise of new technologies for development pales in comparison to the more immediate challenge of keeping their home lit and phone charged. I recently spoke with Roey Rosenblith, Director of Village Energy Uganda, about his work expanding access to safe solar energy in a locally sustainable manner.
In a city “famous for its snarled traffic and infamous for its unruly drivers,” Facebook is aiding the authorities in New Delhi—”5,000 traffic officers in this city of 12 million people”—in keeping a digital eye on reckless road users. Citizen monitoring and the new Facebook page Delhi Traffic Police is holding drivers and cyclists accountable for their committed traffic violations. This digital venture partners Satyendra Garg—Joint Commissioner of Delhi Traffic Police—and his team with “Facebook to open a two-way channel for instant communication with road-users.”
The Delhi Traffic Police Facebook page was inspired by the need to more closely monitor traffic, in the onset of the Commonwealth Games of 2010, being held in Delhi from October 3rd – 14th. On Twitter, @dtptraffic recognized first and foremost that “management of Traffic in Delhi, during Commonwealth Games, will be a big challenge as well as a great opportunity.”
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Earlier this month I sat down with Dr. Craig Zelizer, Associate Director of the Conflict Resolution MA Program at Georgetown University and TechChange Advisor, to talk about the online professional network that he created in 2008 called the Peace and Collaborative Development Network (PCDN). PCDN has grown to over 16,000 members, 250,000 hits a month and is one of the most well respected and utilized sites in the field of peace and conflict studies. The aim of the site is “to foster dialogue and sharing of resources in international development, conflict resolution, gender mainstreaming, human rights, social entrepreneurship and related fields.” I was eager to learn about the network’s origins, successes, challenges and future plans. Highlights from our conversation are featured below.
Before getting too carried away with Facbeook’s Places app, look into how smartphones are locating and coordinate relief efforts in Pakistan’s natural disaster, via crowdsourcing.
On August 18th 2010, Facebook enabled the Places app, introducing a 3D human element to the traditional status update, allowing you to “immediately tell people about that favorite spot.” Places is similar to FourSquare, a smartphone app that lists thousands of places for you to check in at, based on your GPS location. According to Michael Sharon, product manager for Places: “the next time you head off on vacation or go to a show, check in with Places to find out which friends are there,” either via your iPhone or touch.facebook.com.
“In the twenty-first century, the United States’ exceptional capacity for connection, rather than splendid isolation or hegemonic domination, will renew its power and restore its global purpose.”
This excerpt is from the Foreign Affair article America’s Edge, which has been called the “intellectual foundation” for the State Department’s 21st Century Statecraft. The piece, held by many at the State Department as its guiding philosophy, is even given to all new United States Ambassadors. However, it is important to understand how the rhetoric of 21st Century Statecraft is actually being implemented and achieved through the use of social media, “TechDels” and mobile phones.