#govlab

AI technologies are some of the most sophisticated and powerful we’ve seen in our lifetimes. With data at the center, this … source

Citizen Engagement: Two Learning Opportunities

For those willing to learn more about citizen engagement, here are two opportunities worth checking out.

The first one is the World Bank’s MOOC on Citizen Engagement. Even though the course has already started it is still possible to enroll. Here’s a brief description of the course:

The 4-week course brings together a diverse range of experts to provide students with a comprehensive overview of…

The NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering has a new lab that is focused on helping people use technology to improve government. The Governance Lab, better known as GovLab, brings together organizations, researchers, technologists and students to solve complex issues in government and society with a special focus is on using government open data to improve people’s lives.

“We live in a time when the kinds of problems that governments of all levels face are becoming more and more complicated. There are no simple one off solutions,” said Alan Kantrow, GovLab’s Chief Learning and Communications Officer. 

Researchers, technologists and students inside and outside of NYU are encouraged to team up with the GovLab to help improve “things that affect real people," including healthcare, food systems, transportation and social welfare. Here’s how!

1: Check Out An Event (Tonight!)

Check out this event at the GovLab happening this evening.

Additionally, the GovLab regularly hosts events, conferences and luncheons like the AFRINIC21, GovMaker Conference and Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government.

2: Participate in the Open Data 500 Project

The GovLab has several projects open to student and faculty involvement, including Open Data 500. Founded by Beth Noveck, Open Data 500 is the first comprehensive study of U.S. companies that use open government data to generate new business and develop new products and services in order to assess the economic value of government open data and encourage the development of new open data companies.

"Goal of Open Data 500 was to facilitate dialogue between data providers & data users" - @RobynCaplan #riseconf14 http://t.co/mFtu32zinQ

— Technical.ly (@Technical_ly) October 24, 2014

3: Take a GovLab Academy Class

The GovLab Academy offers workshops, clinics, free online classes as well as credit courses at NYU and MIT "for students who have an interest in being involved outside the classroom” according to Kantrow.

4: Become a Research Fellow

Faculty and graduate students with specific research interests are encouraged to apply for GovLab collaboration fellowships like Nikki Zeichner, an Integrated Digital Media student and current GovLab fellow, did with her Parole Hearing Data Project.

5: Apply for Internships

“We bring in interns that get deployed on a range of things we do,” said Kantrow. To qualify for an internship, students must be working on their masters full-time and able to work 20 hours a week. Students can apply on a rolling-basis by sending an email to the GovLab team. 

6: Write for the GovLab Blog

GovLab is always looking for writers for their blog and the GovLab Digest. Interested students can submit posts for review by the GovLab staff.

“You can come talk with us and see what successful contributions need to look like. We will be happy to explain that, run clinics or [have] practice sessions to help get it right,” said Kantrow.

The GovLab Digest is out! This week: digital badges, leaders in the civic space and @NASA's citizen science website: http://t.co/HUZe5T3huX

— The GovLab (@TheGovLab) November 7, 2014 

Kantrow expressed his gratitude about the NYU community’s excitement about the lab, “we are eager to do more good stuff and reach more folks.”

Here's my theory of change: emergency preparedness needs to be people oriented. I believe that if people are given a set of tools, it will empower them to self organize. Because each neighborhood and community is different, this tool kit should be modular and exist in both the physical and digital realm. Once given a set of preparedness tools, people can choose what resilience means for their community. 

Self-organizing isn't something that will figure itself out. The first step is big and requires heavy outreach to community boards, organizations, and cultural institutions. In this stage, I will focus my solutions specifically on how I imagine convening and outreach can begin. 

Resilience Residency

This residency idea would essentially be an extension of what I'm already doing as a student in GovLab. A residency would allow me to refine and revise my ideas with other artists, innovators, and social change makers. The upside with a residency is that it would allow me to reach a greater audience with an organization to pilot, test and refine my idea. The output or "product" for this residency would be a multi-stakeholder convening for improving community outreach on emergency preparedness.  The idea is to gain a higher understanding of how community outreach can be improved by getting artists, urban planners, community organizations, and city officials collaborating on the issue of resiliency. At the end of the residency, I will come out with several outreach models to pitch emergency preparedness to community organizers, city officials, and private firms like NextDoor.

Here's my short list of relevant residency programs

- Eyebeam 5-Month On the Move Residency

- Laundromat Project Creative Change Residency

- MakeShift Society in Brooklyn

Later today, the Center for Data Innovation is due to hold an event at which the GovLab's Open Data 500 list will be unveiled. A draft version of the list has been available for a while, and it's interesting to see the range of organisations and use cases for which reuse of Open Data makes sound commercial sense.

by Stefaan Verhulst

Zoe Smith in the Guardian on the open data and development in 2013: “The clarion call for a “data revolution” made in the post-2015 high level panel report is a sign of a growing commitment to see freely flowing data become a tool for social change.

Web-based technology continued to offer increasing numbers of people the ability to share standardised data and statistics to demand better governance and strengthen accountability. 2013 seemed to herald the moment that the open data/transparency movement entered the mainstream.

What do you think?

Yet for those who have long campaigned on the issue, the call was more than just a catchphrase, it was a unique opportunity. “If we do get a global drive towards open data in relation to development or anything else, that would be really transformative and it’s quite rare to see such bold statements at such an early stage of the process. I think it set the tone for a year in which transparency was front and centre of many people’s agendas,” says David Hall Matthews, of Publish What You Fund.

This year saw high level discussions translated into commitments at the policy level. David Cameron used the UK’s presidency of the G8 to trigger international action on the three Ts (tax, trade and transparency) through the IF campaign. The pledge at Lough Erne, in Scotland, reaffirmed the commitment to the Busan open data standard as well as the specific undertaking that all G8 members would implement International Aid Transparency Index (IATI) standards by the end of 2015.

2013 was a particularly good year for the US Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC) which topped the aid transparency index. While at the very top MCC and UK’s DfID were examples of best practice, there was still much room for improvement. “There is a really long tail of agencies who are not really taking transparency at all, yet. This includes important donors, the whole of France and the whole of Japan who are not doing anything credible,” says Hall-Matthews.

Yet given the increasing number of emerging and ‘frontier‘ markets whose growth is driven in large part by wealth derived from natural resources, 2013 saw a growing sense of urgency for transparency to be applied to revenues from oil, gas and mineral resources that may far outstrip aid. In May, the new Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative standard (EITI) was adopted, which is said to be far broader and deeper than its previous incarnation.

Several countries have done much to ensure that transparency leads to accountability in their extractive industries. In Nigeria, for example, EITI reports are playing an important role in the debate about how resources should be managed in the country. “In countries such as Nigeria they’re taking their commitment to transparency and EITI seriously, and are going beyond disclosing information but also ensuring that those findings are acted upon and lead to accountability. For example, the tax collection agency has started to collect more of the revenues that were previously missing,” says Jonas Moberg, head of the EITI International Secretariat.

But just the extent to which transparency and open data can actually deliver on its revolutionary potential has also been called into question. Governments and donors agencies can release data but if the power structures within which this data is consumed and acted upon do not shift is there really any chance of significant social change?

The complexity of the challenge is illustrated by the case of Mexico which, in 2014, will succeed Indonesia as chair of the Open Government Partnership. At this year’s London summit, Mexico’s acting civil service minister, spoke of the great strides his country has made in opening up the public procurement process, which accounts for around 10% of GDP and is a key area in which transparency and accountability can help tackle corruption.

There is, however, a certain paradox. As SOAS professor, Leandro Vergara Camus, who has written extensively on peasant movements in Mexico, explains: “The NGO sector in Mexico has more of a positive view of these kinds of processes than the working class or peasant organisations. The process of transparency and accountability have gone further in urban areas then they have in rural areas.”…

With increasing numbers of organisations likely to jump on the transparency bandwagon in the coming yearthe greatest challenge is using it effectively and adequately addressing the underlying issues of power and politics.

Top 2013 transparency publications

Open data, transparency and international development, The North South Institute

Data for development: The new conflict resource?, Privacy International

The fix-rate: a key metric for transparency and accountability, Integrity Action

Making UK aid more open and transparent, DfID

Getting a seat at the table: Civil Society advocacy for budget transparency in “untransparent” countries, International Budget Partnership

The dates that mattered

23-24 May: New Extractive Industries Transparency Index standard adopted

30 May: Post 2015 high level report calling for a ‘data revolution’ is published

17-18 June: UK premier, David Cameron, campaigns for tax, trade and transparency during the G8

24 October: US Millenium Challenge Corporation tops the aid transparency index”