CrisisMappers

Board Announcements: PeaceGeeks and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

The journey to grow digital technology communities has taken a number of forms in my career. I’ve had the great pleasure to work with some amazing leaders, partners and communities both in a professional and volunteer capacity. I am pleased to share that I have been re-elected to the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Board of Directors (3rd year) with the role of President of the Board and elected to the PeaceGeeks Board of Directors (1st year). These map and technical communities are part of a larger Digital Humanitarian Network. For both boards, my priorities are strategy,fundraising and community building. I look forward to helping both organizations and communities grow their missions while supporting the beautiful engagement of helping people make a technical difference in this great world.

About Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team

The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team [HOT] applies the principles of open source and open data sharing for humanitarian response and economic development.

This is my 3rd year as a member of the HOT Board. As a crisismapper and digital humanitarian, HOT is really a community home for me. I remain in awe of HOT’s potential. The community membership and board have honoured me with the role of President of HOT. As mentioned in my candidate statement, I see this as a critical year for HOT to grow local communities and build infrastructure to support organizational development. The community is so inspiring. This results in my contributing volunteer time beyond the suggested five – ten hours a month. In the coming months, I will speak at the State of the Map – US about “Your Neighbour is Mapping” with my colleague from Medicine Sans Frontieres. We aim to share some thoughts on implementation of local communities.

The HOT Board position is elected by the community membership.

To learn more about HOT, see our wiki page.

About PeaceGeeks

PeaceGeeks empowers grassroots organizations by building technology partnerships to significantly improve or transform their efforts to promote peace and human rights in developing and conflict-affected areas. We see a world where every NGO can leverage technology to achieve lasting peace.

I’m most excited about PeaceGeek’s mission to work with small local NGOs on long-term sustainable projects. They aim to connect the global community to the local one stitching together offline and online techniques. There is so much potential to connect technical company corporate social responsibility programmes to PeaceGeeks’ wider network. Stay tuned as I learn more about PeaceGeeks and explore how I can connect them.

The Board of Director’s position is elected. I had a number of interviews by the team to be sure it was a good fit.

5Apr

Seeking Arabic Resources for Digital Humanitarians

We are only global if we learn and share. Imagine yourself standing in a classroom. The students are earnest, you have some translation help, and the host humanitarian organization is very supportive. You are there sharing big new concepts inviting participation. At Qatar Red Crescent 6th Annual Disaster Management Camp there are people from all the Middle East/North Africa region, they have varied skills with a range of some to no field experience. Often I ask how can we get the next 1 Million people involved in their world using digital skills. How will their digital training curriculum function? How do we share the skills and ideas in ways that are easy to learn and remix? And, how can we do this in a way that is inclusive and respectful of local language, local knowledge and local cultures?

There is an opportunity to create a community of Digital Qataris or inspire more Digital Humanitarians in the MENA region, including within the humanitarian organizations. As the World Humanitarian Summit approaches, there are many regional consultation meetings and reports. In reading the World Humanitarian Summit MENA reports, I was struck with how much opportunity there is to encourage youth engagement and to consider technology. This can only happen if there are sponsoring humanitarian organizations, long term training strategies and shared resources. The Qatar Red Crescent is incredibly focused on how they can make a difference. This event includes people training from all over the MENA region. In between trainings and scenarios, we talk about the future and learn about each other’s common goals.

In my conversations with participants and staff at the Qatar Red Crescent Disaster Management Camp (DMC), we determined a gap in the knowledge transfer to support Digital Humanitarian work in the MENA region. Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) has a mission to use our tools and innovation techniques in Qatar. Experience at the DMC identified a deep willingness of both staff and participants to learn and incorporate these tools and techniques into their work and volunteer workflows. However, there are knowledge gaps and language barriers. Successful programs for QCRI and our Digital Humanitarian partners will be greatly aided if we can get some core documents into Arabic. This means a prioritization and translation effort.

Over the coming weeks, I will work with my Qatar Red Crescent colleague to make a list of the resources and tools that need to be in Arabic. Then, we will work on plan for how to support

Curate a list of Digital Humanitarian Resources to be translated

There are a few core documents that need translation into Arabic. I’ve identified these based on my conversations with the staff and participants at the Qatar Red Crescent. After the Disaster Management Camp, we will coordinate with the authors, organizations and communities. I’ll be working with my team at QCRI to get our tools and resources translated soon. (It seems to me that if we have a strong list, it would be great to have these translated into many languages.)

Some key resources:

Verification was a big topic of discussion in our sessions. It was great to see that Meedan has translated the Verification Handbook into Arabic.

This is where your help is needed. Which digital resources do you recommend for Humanitarian work? Simply add your items into this document in the 2nd section of the document below.

HELP WANTED: Curated list of Digital Humanitarian Resources to be translated into Arabic

Thanks so much for your help! More on this project as we keep learning.

(Photo by Hannen Suliman, April 5, 2015)

3Apr

Dispatch: Qatar Red Crescent Disaster Management Camp

On behalf of Qatar Computing Research Institute, I have the honour to be a guest trainer at the 6th Annual Qatar Red Crescent Disaster Management Camp. This 10-day event (March 31 – April 9, 2015) includes training, scenarios and humanitarian keynotes. Participants are from all over the MENA region including students, staff of the QRCS, partner Red Crescent members, UNHCR, IFRC, ICRC, civil defense (various) and special guests.

Over 6 days, I will train small groups on social media, new technology, digital humanitarians and how QCRI is working to make a difference. These slides contain my talking points and extensive notes. As the camp is in Arabic, Ali Moustafa El-Sebai El Gamal of QRCS provided translation. Together we are providing an interactive session. Yesterday due to the sandstorm, there was a power outage. This is a perfect example of always be prepared. I delivered the training without slides. Truly it is always fun to train folks, but it is especially powerful to collaborate with humanitarians. This is my first full Disaster Management Camp. I’ve participated in many digital simulations but this is a great way to learn and share.

Learning by doing

The second reason that I am at Disaster Management Camp is to analyze how participants and staff use software and social media. At QCRI, we are very interested in taking the lessons we learn internationally and supporting Qatar. The Qatar Red Crescent team has been very welcoming. Over the coming months, I will be sharing my embedded research outputs.

Meta Level action

I’m a digital storyteller. Every event, I curate photos, quick vignettes and try to capture the mission and spirit. Together with my colleagues we are using Storify:

Thanks again to Qatar Red Crescent Society for the kind support of Qatar Computing Research Institute.

(photo credit: Amara-photos.com)

11Mar

You Verify, All the time

We are all human magnifying glasses and zoom features. Every day our task as humans is to discern, detect and distill. In Doha, this means things like self-protection: “Is it safe to cross this street and will the cars stop?” I’ve been super adept at the squint and run carefully looking for fast moving SVUs that appear out of nowhere. Online we are even more critical observers. We’ve been subject to hoaxes, photoshop fantasies and curious statements that are too good to be true.

Over at Jump2Spot, my colleague, Chung Wong is a member of the Manhattan before 1990 GeoSleuthing Facebook community. I’ve been monitoring their work for a few months and am in awe of their digital detective work in a crowdsourced community effort. They inspire me about the future of online verification. Geosleuthers are the future of online verification. While there is a bit of a hierarchy from journalism to digital humanitarians, what binds us all is our curiousity and our drive to find accuracy.

How can we know if an image or a comment is true and verified? During times of crisis and emergency, this massive volume of True and Untrue unfolds at a fast pace. Humanitarians, NGOs and citizens want to know asap what is verified and actionable in order to make critical decisions. Veri.lyconnects you via global crowdsourcing challenges for evidence collection and verification. Our goal is to build this open source software and community to unravel these puzzles in real time.

Meet Veri.ly

In this 30 minute conversation, I interview the Veri.ly team with our special guest, Craig Silverman, a co-author of the Verification Handbook.

Thanks to our guests, participants and team for this great conversation. There were some questions as well.

1. Could Veri.ly be used in conflict prevention?
Answer: As with any software, it is about the programme around the tool. The key would be to apply the tool while safeguarding the privacy and security of individuals? We would be happy to continue this discussion. Join our mailing list to ask other Digital Detectives.

2. Where lies the automation in the process? Can we see the platform live? How are users onboarded?
Veri.ly can be found on our website. See our Digital Detective Verification guides and involved in building the programme and tools.

Next Steps

In the coming weeks, we will be planning more online conversations, share our development and programme plans. Stay tuned!

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Veri.ly is a collaboration between University of Southampton (Agents, Interaction and Complexity Research Group), Qatar Computing Research Institute (Social Computing), and Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (Social Computing and Artificial Intelligence Lab). Server space is provided by the generous support from ORCHID Project.
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(Icon credit: Alexandria Eddings, Noun Project CCBY)

4Mar

Opportunity Knocks: Maps and Data Jobs

What if your work day involved creating software and programmes that could make a difference? I often refer people to ICT4D Career Network that Wayan Vota and crew curate or Relief Web or Liberation Tech jobs list. [Edit: A friend shared these resources too: Social Enterprise Jobs and ReWork Please share these with your network as they are amazing resources.]

In the past 5 years, there has been a growth in jobs in the technology for change/humanitarian space. I’ve been very fortunate to work with some of these organizations. Truly, the number of consultant and full-time jobs is growing, so if you are ready to join the Tech for Change career track, do keep in touch. People often send me jobs as I network frequently. I really defer to Wayan’s list often, but sometimes groups hire less formally or just need a short-term person.

There are two opportunities that I wanted to give a big shout out.

MicroMappers Consultancy

At Qatar Computing Research Institute, we sometimes hire technical and research consultants via odesk. These are often very short directed items. My colleagues seek your help. You will work on a mapping interface for the MicroMappers project. While you won’t report to me, I work with this team. (code), (context).

Experience in Google Map, Google Map Engine, OSM, OSM plugins, Mapbox, CartoDB, css, html5, jquery, mysql, geotif, geojson
Familiar with push notification technology. e.g. pusher, SNS
Familiar with web optimization
good sense of WEB UI/UX
Should be able to install java spring web application for testing. The application is built with java spring mvc, spring integration, spring bus

If you are keen, please contact Senior Software Engineer, Ji Lucas (jikimlucas AT gmail dot com)
(Note: While we are not hiring full-time developers right now. Please do review our work at QCRI Social Innovation and get in touch if you are interested so that I can share with proper channels when the time is right.)

Datakind is your future

What can I say? I am a big fan of Datakind’s team and strategy. Want to work with top notch data scientists and partners making a difference int he world?They work on real data science with non-profits. Their projects are fantastic because they spend substantial time really digging into the problem set. The one role that I think is super plum is the Director of Global Communities. Community Management and Partnership building is a really niche area. I think it is a fantastic opportunity to support data scientists around the world. Please do get in touch directly with Jake and his team.

(Image credits: Map icon is by Mister Pixel and the Data Scientist icon is by Thibault Geoffroy. CCBY via Noun Project)

8Jan

Fractual Matter

Matter. One of my core life goals is to help people get involved in their world with technology. Along journey, I am often struck by the participant’s desire to make a difference and to matter. Many of us research and write about how to get to the next million contributors in a healthy and quality way. But are we building communities and spaces that make this possible to matter without fracturing?

It has been 5 years since the earthquake struck Haiti. Last night I attended the Canadian Red Cross photo exhibition of Johan Hallberg-Campbell’s Photos called Haiti Five Years On: An Fom! One of the speakers asked us to reflect on why we do this work and consider each person we help. Rarely do I focus on why or how I got involved, because the mission is bigger than one individual, one organization. But, since asked here is my answer: My sister is a medical professional who once volunteered in Haiti before the earthquake. On January 12, 2010, we spoke on the phone both in tears. What struck me from this conversation was that she has these ‘immediate skills’ which could help someone recover. My brother-in-law, as an engineer, also has strong ‘immediately applicable skills’ with his expertise in water and sanitation. My sense of helplessness was fleeting as I found others like myself who also felt like our technical and digital skills could maybe help a humanitarian and an affected population. Asking what can I do is the first step on a beautiful, complex journey. While the contributions we apply may not make an ‘immediate’ difference, it could be a applied like a layer cake of information insights. Maybe someday our diligence, our time and skills would ‘get to matter’. This tenacity drives many of us. We trial, we error, we get back up and we keep seeking ways to apply technology.

This type of change does not happen over night. Years and hours of brainpower continue strive to solve this problem set: How can we help people get involved and use technology/digital skills to make a difference? At Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), I am working with researchers and computer scientists on human and machine computing solutions. In my spare time, I’m on the Board of Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and am one of the organizers of the International Conference of CrisisMapping. Truly, I am fortunate to spend my career and personal time focused on “matter”.

Why are you a Digital Volunteer or Humanitarian (quick survey)?

Fractured and Fractal Matter

Fractals fascinate me. The nuances of shapes surprise the viewer. I often think that communities really are like fractals, all the varieties with complexity and beauty. As Digital volunteers (Humanitarians, FOSS or HFOSS), we aim to put the people and the mission ahead of our story and our needs. But, this where our sense of “matter” becomes very fractured. This year I hope to do more research and writing around digital volunteers and humanitarians in addition to the Community Builder’s Toolkit. How can we grow communities globally and help people get involved? Well, we need to be mindful and address the problem of fractured matter. It really comes down to: How we see ourselves in a community and in our own lives. And, how a community is a place where we can thrive no matter the level of our contribution. In a recent article “Decelerate to Accelerate“, Michel Bachmann and Roshan Paul wrote:

It’s ironic that the people who seek to create a more sustainable world often live the most unsustainable lives of all, sacrificing their finances, their relationships, and sometimes even their health to pursue a broader social mission.

So I am starting the year with some questions:

How can we better support our digital communities to not fracture their “matter”?
What can we do to build large, healthy sustainable programmes and communities?

Recently, I am focused on allocating my time and energy to “matter” on many levels. It has greatly improved my quality of life and mind. This is not an overnight sensation for me personally. In the various communities I belong, I constantly see how fractured matter can actually do more harm to the individual and the community. While we are changing the world and ourselves, it is super important to teach ourselves breathing lessons. I think that the change we are trying to build will take substantial time with some great bright spots and some lows. We should be ready for a long journey and traverse in a more healthy way. Honestly, I think that the communities and goals we are trying to achieve will be all the richer.

Matter to yourself. Matter to your communities. This is how we get to more people involved and how we get to “matter“.

(Photo of Romanesco broccoli, Union Square Market, November 2014)

3Dec

Get Involved: MicroMappers Coconut Expedition

What are you doing this weekend? What if you could spend 5 minutes, 30 minutes or an 1 hour on a Digital Humanitarian Project? As noted before, it is one of my life goals is to build spaces and community activities to inspire people to get involved in their world. As my colleague, Patrick Meier, wrote – How can we get to the next million people. It is up to organizations and communities to make it easy for you to fit these small Tasks into your busy lives. This is why I am excited to collaborate on the MicroMappers Coconut Expedition. Our collective contribution will be used to assess food security in post-disaster zones. Time well spent.

On December 5 – 7, 2014 MicroMappers from around the world will participate on the Coconut Expedition. Join us.

About the Coconut Expedition

The SkyEye Project (based in the Philippines) used Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) technology to take 1000s of digital photos. The Qatar Computing Research Institute processed these images, then inserted them into our MicroMapper tool: AerialClicker. MicroMapper tools enable digital humanitarians to interact with text or images. MicroMappers (that’s you!) make decisions about the content. In this case, you will draw or trace lines indicating healthy and damaged trees. Each image will be reviewed by at least 5 different MicroMappers. All the data will be tabulated and given to researchers at Simon Fraser University Computing. This team will create an algorithm to assess damaged coconut trees. In the future, this type of machine computing could be used to assess damage in post-disaster zones. We will also share results with you over on the MicroMappers blog.

Coconuts are the “tree of life” and a key part of the Philippines’ economy. Discover all the ways that these trees are used:

coconut uses infographic

How am I involved?

I am delighted to officially join the Qatar Computing Research Institute, Social Innovation Team to support projects like MicroMappers. You can join this MicroMappers project simply be joining our mailing list and waiting for instructions on December 5, 2014.

See you there!

6Nov

Crisismappers Pre-Conference Training 2014

Crisismappers are converging in New York City this week for the 6th Annual International Conference of CrisisMapping. The term “crisismapping” is fairly loose as the global community includes diversity in maps, data informatics, humanitarian technology and research. We are a collective of people who use maps, data and technology for humanitarian aid and international development. This year’s theme is: Affected Communities in the Spotlight.

More about ICCM

ICCM continues throughout the weekend. The main event is Friday, November 7, 2014 with keynotes and ignite talks. This will be livestreamed so that you can watch along from home or offices. Join the Crisismappers community to learn and build with us.

#iccmnyc

Follow us on the live stream: bit.ly/iccmnyclive

The ICCM 2014 Agenda

As the ICCM pre-conference training and field trips organizer is it my goal to unite the different disciplines in unique zones to build, learn and share. Our training offering is a community driven effort with 3 tracks: Maps, Knowledge and Mobile/Hardware. Sessions are ongoing all day today.

About Crisismappers:

The International Network of Crisis Mappers (Crisis Mappers Net) is the largest and most active international community of experts, practitioners, policymakers, technologists, researchers, journalists, scholars, hackers and skilled volunteers engaged at the intersection of humanitarian crises, new technology, crowd-sourcing, and crisis mapping. The Crisis Mappers Network was launched at the first International Conference on Crisis Mapping (ICCM) in 2009. As the world’s premier humanitarian technology forum, we engage 7,000+ members in over 160 countries, who are affiliated with over 3,000 different institutions, including more than 400 universities, 50 United Nations agencies & projects, first responders operating in both the civilian and military space, dozens of leading technology companies, several volunteer & technical community networks and global, national, and local humanitarian and disaster response and recovery organizations.

Pre-conference Training

The Maps track including many diverse map software organizations and communities. Sessions include Google (Christiaan Adams), CartoDB (Andy Eschbacher), Mapbox (Matthew Irwin, Aaron Lidman), Ushahidi (Sara-Jayne Terp), HOT/OSM/American Red Cross (Chris Daley, Dale Kunce) and ProPublica (Brian Jacobs sharinig about remote sensing verification).

Research/Knowledge: What is the impact of Crisismapping? What are some ways to monitor and evaluate projects? Which ethical scenarios do we encounter? How can design of a map or data collection tool change the data? Can we use human centered design? What is the current state of research in crisismapping?

There are two sessions in this ½ day Research/Knowlegde track:

1. Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI) (John Crowley)
Natural hazards with low frequency can lurk in history’s invisible depths. How do we use open data to help affected communities to map and see these risks? How can open data help governments and donors invest in building resilience in the areas which have the highest impact for affected communities? Learn the tools that the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery has built to use Open Data to drive Resilience.

2. Education project in Guatemala tracking mapping needs. (Colette Mazzucelli, NYU) introduces the Pre-Training Session. Kyle Matthews, Senior Deputy Director, Will to Intervene Project, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS), Concordia
University will begin the conversation. Kyle will introduce the Digital Mass Atrocity Prevention (DMAP) Lab at Concordia University as well as the ways in which MIGS Professional Training Programmes on the Prevention of Mass Atrocities have integrated analyses of mapping
technology projects. Cristian Silva, Director, IFIFT, will highlight our experiences in Guatemala participating in the Multidisciplinary Field School: Forensic Investigations. We will then respond to questions from those in attendance. This will be followed by a brainstorming session with NYU GIS Librarian Andrew Battista and NYU Senior Technology Specialist Him Mistry coordinated by Colette Mazzucelli and the ICCM 2014 Team.

Mobile and Hardware

Mobile and Hardware (eg. mobile apps, Google Glass, imagery, satellites, drones etc) are incorporated into many crisismapping projects. Crisismappers are exploring new technologies to collect data and map in the field. This session will highlight tools and techniques.

The following workshops will be provided:

Integrating inclusive technology (Valerie Oliphant, Social Impact Lab)
This workshop will explore the idea of inclusive technologies. What makes a particular technology accessible in a certain place and time? How can implementers assess their operating environment to choose technologies, channels and tools that best fit their needs?

We’ll be looking at how to determine the accessibility and usability of different initiatives for different projects and contexts. Do people own or have access to mobile phones? Do they use SMS? Which mobile networks have coverage? How can SMS empower community workers? We’ll also cover how to map out your project in a simple way that exposes risks and incentives.

PUNYA (Lalana Kagal, Fu-ming Shih, Andrew McKinney and Evan Patton MIT))
We have been working for the last two years in a system that allows anyone to quickly prototype and build mobile applications for crisis mapping and other humanitarian ends. The project name is PUNYA (http://air.csail.mit.edu/punya/), and it is completely free and open source.

Geothings (Kuo-Yu (Slayer) Chuang)
This session will be discussing and testing disaster responding scenarios with ICT tools (SMS).

http://geothings.tw/

Reality Check on Mobile Health (Michelle Hamilton-Page (Ushahidi))
In this workshop we will look at some examples of how health promotion is leveraging mobile – including near field communication, SMS and smartphone apps – to work with communities to build relevant, iterative tools for health. Let’s crowd-source some successes and failures in health and mobile tech and check in with where things are going from the local to the global context.

http://www.ushahidi.com/

ICCM Field Trips

From Balloon Mapping to oil testing kits, Public Lab is leading the way with environmental data collection. How can we have the earth talk to us and how can we collect environmental information around the world? We can build our own sensors and stitch our own maps. This workshop will teach you the skills in an urban setting.

Neighbourhood Resilience Field trip with Green Map: Hurricane Sandy Zone (Wendy Brawer)
Occupy Sandy and local communities built placemaking and infrastructure to communicate and support a community in need. Emergency managers are building programmes to make the region more resilient. How can crisismappers learn from this field experience?

http://www.greenmap.org/greenhouse/en/home

Office of Emergency Management - City of New York (Jim McConnell)New York City has one of the largest urban emergency ops centers. In this field trip, you will learn about their work and how they use crisismapping techniques.

Thank you to all the organizers, sponsors, participants and especially the Black Box Communications team for making this a success.

18Sep

Infusing Ethics into Data Projects

Education, assistance and enforcement are needed to build better, ethically balanced data-driven projects. The Ethics of Data workshop on the Data lifecycle discussed ethical scenarios and key aspects of a data-driven project. This lead to many sticky notes and attempts to create the big asks and some outputs. The participants came from many different disciplines, which helped us quality check and inform our review.

Our group together created 3 asks for further review:

Resources: This should be a center online for people and NGOs to share and find guides on building ethical data driven projects.
Tool/Template: There should be a data risk/benefits/costs template as part of every grant application to build better ethical projects from front to back.
Review: Could there be a non-profit assistance group that provides free, consultation on ethical questions? How would they enforce standards? Could it be like a review board for research projects?

Milestones for an Ethical Data Project:

We created over 100 ideas and grouped them into categories as milestones. There should be checklists for each milestone including key questions for the team. While the EoD team started on the mini-ethical checklists, this really needs more iteration. We also highlighted some milestones that are often overlooked or underfunded such as: a data collection checklist, pilot, quality control, verification, documentation, secondary use and impact/monitoring & evaluation. One other observation in our conversations was proper project management skills to scope many of the ethical minefields in advance of the project pilot.

*****
Without trying to influence the room, the key project milestones resemble the toolkits we created at Ushahidi. Toolkits, including the Ushahidi one, do need to include more ethical statements/checklists to improve the success of building better projects. But, toolkits are only as useful as those who use and enforce them.

Infuse with Ethical Checklists

We gifted the Responsible Data Forum with a list of 70 questions, terms and ideas for the key milestones. If all the various milestones of a data-driven project are infused with ethical questions, checklists, and recommendations, this resource would be incredibly useful. Participants suggested that the checklists start with very generic items, but be broken out into topical domain recommendations/checklist items. This is to ensure adoption and remix in diverse fields from human rights to health to science. Some of the questions that really drove conversations included:
Data analysis: What do you do when your data analysis provides negative results (from your hypothesis)? Quality Control: Can the data be re-identified? Resourcing: Who can collect the data and why? Secondary data: What is the time horizon on the data and future use criteria?

Ethics of Data – Resource Center / Review Board:

One of the outputs of our first day of brainstorming was the need to have an Ethical Resource and Review Board. The team split off to debate the pros and cons of this idea. They even determined some of the needed services such as legal referral.

More resources:

The EofD team recreated a list of additional Ethics reading. It might keep you up all night with worry, but better to be ‘in the know’.

As well, here is a compilation on Domain-specific digital ethics, practices, and conventions. The one that really opened my mind was the Bellagio Framework: “Big Data, Communities and Ethical Resilience: A Framework for Action.” They provided criteria to consider: Governance, Place, Socio-Cultural Context, Science, and Technology.

Thank you

Thanks to our hosts at Stanford Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society (Kim Meredith, Lucy Bernholz, Rob Reich and Sam Spiewak) for making the Ethics of Data event possible. Thanks to my co-host Patrick Vinck of Harvard Humanitarian Initiative for great conversations. As always, Aspiration (Gunner and Misty) supported us with facilitation that inspired a collaborative and productive event for all. And, lastly, thank you to all the participants for being so thoughtful and inspiring teachers as we all trundle down this journey to bring better decision-making to all of our work.

(Note: It is my hope that we can infuse HOT with some of this work and trial some ideas in our work. I’ll be sharing it with my fellow Board members and the HOT Community.)

15Sep

Data Cycling: From Choices to Consent

Stanford University has convened the Ethics of Data conference this week bringing leaders from industry, humanitarian, research and civil society together to discuss and build plans for data ethics in all our work. I’m participating by co-leading a workshop on the redefining the Data Lifecycle with my colleague, Patrick Vinck of Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.

The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and the wider Crisismappers community are discussing and using drones and satellites to capture imagery of land changes, displaced camps and post-disaster areas. Some of the topics we are discussing within these communities include how to include local NGOs and the government. In times of crisis, humanitarians and technologists are moving very fast. We need to have more guidance, research and best practices. At the Ethics of Data event, we will use HOT as an example data project in our conversations.

The HOT community is incredibly committed to helping humanitarians and affected communities with maps. We are frequency discussing how and what types of aerial imagery be shared. What kind of training do we provide for review and use of aerial imagery? What happens to the data after the emergency? What kind of ethical code should we provide for all Digital Humanitarians? As HOT builds Open Aerial Map and groups like the UAViators come to existence, we need to consider data education and use beyond text and include video, photos and drone/satellite imagery. In the US, Mapbox is educating use of drones by creating a map of where not to fly. This work is moving faster than the research. It is my hope from the Ethics of Data event that I will be able to convene conversations within HOT to determine our next steps. Keeping in mind that every humanitarian situation is different as are the jurisdictions in which global, local and remote contributors participate.

What about the Data Pipeline?

Data Storytelling via Infogr.am

All around the world journalists, civil society groups and governments are working on open data projects. HOT is just one of many projects aimed at using open data to affect change. Determining the new data pipeline could be informed by HOT’s experiences. In the past year, I have been at countless events where people talk about the importance of open data, the importance of the data pipeline and the impact of data storytelling. I also believe that data needs to be open, when appropriate. But, I am wary about preaching about open data without including a clear ethical compass. One of the main reasons that data is not open is that people do not trust how the data will be used. And, frankly, it is very unclear what constitutes a clean dataset. Over the past years, I have worked with Geeks without Bounds, Ushahidi and Data Science for Social Good to try and solve this challenge with checklists or tools. Every dataset begets new questions. All of our work needs to be infused with questions about data accuracy and data ethics. It is misplaced as an afterthought.

Processing the Data Pipeline

This is a Data pipeline via OKFN:

We need to create communities and tools with the data ethics checklists embedded into every aspect of projects from inception to funding to creation to education to analysis and to impact assessments. I’m truly looking forward to rethinking data project lifecycles and sharing the outputs with various communities to discover and remix together.

How would you rebuild the Data Lifecycle?

(Thanks to Nika Aleksejeva from Infogr.am for the Data Storytelling diagram.)

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