Text on Techs

Nairobi, Kenya

Since I arrived in Kenya at the beginning of January, I’ve been deep in Uchaguzi (Kenya Elections 2013) Planning. There has been deep dives in crisismapping strategy, local political ecosystem and, of course, many community events. It is a pleasure to host events bringing like minds together for a common purpose.

I’m blogging on the Ushahidi blog about the project.

Uchaguzi Community Meetups

(Picture by Jonathan Kalan)

(Picture by Jonathan Kalan)

I organized a community map word exercise during the meetup. Kenyans described the regions of their country based on perceptions. It was great to get people interacting and thinking about location:

(Picture by Jonathan Kalan)

(Picture by Nekesa Were)

(Picture by Nekesa Were)

(Patrick Muniy created this infographic from the session)

Also, I did take a break to visit the elephants:

Swahili Lessons

Random Hacks of Kindness season is here again! RHOK’s mission is to make the world a better place through a global community of innovation developing practical open technology. We are a global hackathon community holding events on December 1 – 2, 2012 in over 30 cities. (Personally, I’m very excited to see Sydney, Australia join us again. I had the honour of leading their first event in June 2010).

Canada has two cities participating: Toronto’s 6th event and Vancouver’s first. (Montreal previously held an event in December 2011 and June 2012.) TechVibes did a great post about the impact of RHOK and plans for December 2012.

RHOK is a truly special event connecting cities, subject matter experts and hackers. It started in November 2009 and has grown to a global community and movement. We all aim to use our tech and knowledge for good.

RHOK Toronto: Design Jam

On Saturday, November 24th, a few of us met to hammer out the problem set. The key is to have a subject matter owner in the house to help guide the hacks.

Stephen Sauder will be leading the charge on a Sanitation Hackathon - Toilet hack. Don’t laugh. Water issues are one of the top development needs worldwide. If we all hacked our toilets more, who knows how we might be able to help others. The plan is to collaborate with the Southhampton UK team on a Sanitation Dashboard.

Another hack will be the Invstg8.net: Micro-tasking Tool for Journalists. Saleem Khan has been leading the charge for this effort. What if Internet access did not preclude your access to information to be a journalist? This hack was brained on at the June 2012 RHOKTO and was also featured at the African News Innovation Challenge.

We are still working out the final 3 – 4 problem sets. Watch rhokto.ca for more details.

Support our Hackers

We have raised some kind funds and are being hosted by our friends at Mozilla. But, we need some last mile help to feed our hackers. There are over 49 folks registered.

How to help:
Buy the hackers lunch - approximately $500.00 (even in part)
Contribute some prizes – we’d love gift cards for tech or music
Snacks – homemade and healthy things are most welcome

To contribute, please drop us a line at rhokto at gmail dot com. Or, contact me: Hleson at ushahidi dot com.

RHOK Vancouver

Renee Black and the Peace Geeks team have been working for months to plan the first ever RHOK Vancouver. She is Rhoking the community with her excellent local sponsors and problem sets. Go Vancouver!!!

Come Hack with us, you don’t have to be a tech

Registration for RHOK Toronto

Registration for RHOK Vancouver

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Here’s to a great event.

Sadly, I am going to miss half of RHOK due to a prior work engagement. This will be the first time since June 2010 that I’ve missed a part of a RHOK Global event. Go RHOKstars!

Heather

What do Salmon Fishing and hackathons have to do with each other? I just watched Salmon Fishing in the Yemen tonight. It turns out that the movie had the best quote to represent those who RHOK:

“For Fishermen, the only virtues are patience, tolerance and humility.”

These are special people out to change the world. To RHOK means to spend a whole weekend braining on a prototype, often with new strangers. The essence of a hackathon like RHOK is to take those moments of crazy focus and big dreams, then distill them into high speed agile development. This selfless act of a global hackathon now has the opportunity to keep building with the Geeks Without Bounds and Social Coding 4 Good’s Sustainability programs.

Over the RHOK weekend, I wrote a number of blog posts on Rhokto.ca:

Rhok Projects and Participants

To show the spirit of RHOK Toronto, I created a series of short videos about the RHOK Toronto projects and RHOK Toronto participants.

While I think all the participant teams and hacks are winners, special kudos goes to first place RHOK Toronto winner:
Mobile Ultrasound in Remote Nepalese Villages

I truly enjoyed watching the participants go through the phases of possibility. We had between 60 – 83 participants at RHOK Toronto. I cannot say enough about the amazing braining by the participants and volunteers. You inspire me. Thanks to all the sponsors for again supporting Toronto’s efforts.

The movie Salmon Fishing in the Yemen has a premise of dreaming big and building a plan to try out crazy ideas. RHOK is that type of testing ground, without the large budgets and sweeping movie stars. Instead, RHOKStars each contribute in small, iterative ways. The crux for organizations is to be sure that the best models continue to be fostered with mentorship and funding.

*****

Why does RHoK matter to the world?

Recently, I had the honour of being featured on the RHOK blog. This excerpt is my own take on how RHOK evolves with participants

RHoK is taste test of tech for social good. If RHoK inspires one person’s view of why their knowledge could affect change in their world and community, then it is successful. It matters because we need to figure out how to connect the right participant action to the real world issues. This is not something that can be perfect overnight. We are inventing the potential as we go. It is worth every single attempt, no matter hard it is.

I like to think of it as the OSI hackathon or RHoK OSI model:

• Discover: “I can do this”
• Encounter: Connect with people from a wide array of disciplines from technical to design to subject matter experts
• Build a common language
• Create and collaborate sprint-like to prototype
• Join the movement of possibilities to remix and hack this model for local, national and global issues.
• Mentor and train others to RHoK the planet

Here’s to more adventures, salmon fishing and hackathons!

Two pods in one week! Valerie Sticher of ISN: International Relations and Security Network interviewed me for the ISN podcast on “Crowdsourcing for Change“. And, I’ll host a Podcamp Toronto 2012 session on Sunday, February 26, 2012 focused on “Dispatches of Disruption“.

ISN podcast: Crowdsourcing for Change

In this 12 minute chat, we discuss Crisismapping, CrisisMappers Network, Ushahidi, Security and Hackathons (specifically Random Hacks of Kindness).

“In today’s podcast, Ushahidi’s Heather Leson discusses her organization’s use of crisis mapping techniques and outlines how non-state actors are increasingly collaborating online to tackle issues traditionally managed by governments.”

I highly recommend that you follow the full podcast.

Podcamp Toronto 2012: Dispatches of Disruption

Sunday morning early sessions at Podcamp Toronto are sometimes quiet. Here’s to having a good discussion about Digital Activism and the power of the Internet.

Description

Date: Sunday, February 26, 2012 11:00 ET
Location: Ryerson RCC203 (map)
Every day someone uses the power of the Internet to change their world. What does it mean to be a disrupter? an innovator? a volunteer? What lessons can you activate at home? at work?

I’ll share some examples of disruption aimed at corruption, elections, violence, potholes, agriculture, burgers, #futurewewant, and emergency response.

Some additional thoughts:

• Digital activism from volunteering to hacking to mapping is changing institutions and governments.
• We are just a mouse click away from change. Or, are we?

Hope you can join this chat. If you are only attending on Saturday, look for me at the registration desk.

[Cross-posted from MediaShift: Idea Lab]

One spark and it happens: An individual or a team of people create a deployment using Ushahidi or Crowdmap. Their motivation and the inspiration are telling tales. These citizens, diaspora and a global community collaborate near and far to make change happen. Motivated often by the simple act of giving voice and building momentum for their ideas, most do so without payment.

Who are these deployers? One thing connects all of them irrespective of location or topic: They want to do more in their communities and world.

Ushahidi gives us a window into many varying disruptive movements, large or small: community members, from Syrian Tracker to Moroccan Elections Elections to Open Nuclear Iran mappers to Maps4aid.

Even children are trying to activate change outside the traditional methods or institutional structures: Amrita of Bangalore, India (8.5 years old) is a Trusted Food Reporter for the Cost of Chicken Project; kids from around the world are collecting data on local food conditions, from grade 8 students in San Francisco to grade 3 students in India; students are mapping to learn and collaborate about food production and food sustainability.

Olga Werby, Mapster and President of Pipspeak Productions.

Software Centre, the Morocco-based team led by Tarik Nesh-Nash, started with election monitoring with Marsad.ma and is now mapping corruption. Boyan Yurukov created the Bulgarian award-winning 2011 crime.bg. He also developed and installed Fairelections.eu election mapping, which was moderated by the Institute for Public Environment Development.

These deployments are aimed at giving voice to fair democratic practices. Each of these deployers mentor new mappers sharing best practices or create additional tools, like Boyan’s Facebook app. By sharing their story, they’re beginning to inspire others to map elections or corruption.

Why Storytelling Matters

Persistent outreach and storytelling are key to successful deployments. The Syria Tracker team is a collective of partnerships and volunteers, including some of our friends within the Crisismapping Network and the Standby Task Force. Over the past 286 days, they’ve mapped more than 6,300 deaths.

Melissa Elliot, left, is the Reports Coordinator for the StandBy Task Force.

Shemeer Babu is one mapper in India focused on highlighting the issue of violence against women with Maps4Aid. His next project is building out Blogs4Aid. His plan will be focused on using SMS (short message service) and maybe IVR (interactive voice response) since 90% of rural women in India don’t have smartphones. Both @maps4aid and @syriatracker use Twitter on a daily basis to keep their map story alive and in the minds of their followers, using free online resources to augment their story.

Melissa Elliot is a core team member and reports coordinator of the StandBy Task Force. This week she attended a Canadian government event to share the story of Crisismapping and volunteers. Her constant drive to make a difference in the world inspired officials to consider their first-ever Crisismapping Simulation. As a leader in a growing community that often uses Ushahidi, she is one of over 750 volunteers who map information for emergencies.

We’re delighted that these talented volunteers often assist other Ushahidi community members with their non-crisis related maps.

How can you help?

Every day deployers need support to build their projects. For example, Open Nuclear Iran needs a banner for its Crowdmap; Shemeer needs a hand determining how to grow his local project to a larger sustainable Blogs4Aid initiative; the Corruption Tracker and the Harassmap teams are looking for more volunteers to support their long-term projects.

Requests for assistance can include help with storytelling, project management, technical assistance, design customization and security concerns.

These people often use Ushahidi’s software in their spare time with no to low funding. They are the so-called “do-more disrupters.” Mentoring and help matchmaking are core to these deployers’ ongoing efforts.

We’re launching a new wiki space to assist our existing Community Connect with people who may be able to help. To find out more about this, join our community site or follow our Ushahidi blog. Who knows how you will inspire and be inspired to actively do more in your community and the world!

RHoK 3.0: Toronto Projects

Random Hacks of Kindness 3.0 – Toronto was a success due to the volunteers, participants, sponsors, judges and supporters. I am always amazed to see a room full of strangers meet, design and build prototypes for social good. Here’s their great work:

1. Message Carrier
2. Data over Amateur Radio (radio to Ushahidi interface)
3. Wound Classification
4. Not far from the Tree
5. Kit Tracker
6. Bacon – Finding People
7. A Patient reporting app for Drug side effects

The Collaborative Risk Assessment Tool was conceptualized by David Black, a University of Toronto Emergency Manager and RHoK TO volunteer lead). While it was not part of Toronto’s hackathon, a team in Trento, Italy picked up the project and continues to hack on it.

The winner, Message Carrier, went on to present at NetChangeWeek’s GovCamp. The Data over Amateur Radio team set up a Google Group to explore communications with Ham radios during crisis. Yaser Alyounes, Wound Classification, and Aaron McGowan, Not Far from the Tree, teams are also investigating options with their initial RHoK projects.

Event Media and Participant Blog Posts

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/06/03/hackers.fight.climate.change/index.html”>CNN: Hackers Fight Climate Change and ‘Brains Collide’ during Hackathon for Climate Change, Disaster Relief
C’est la vie!: Random Hacks of Kindness
Rock on, Toronto
Humanitarian Innovation and United Nations
RHoK 3.0, A Marvelous Model to Replicate
Ushahidi: My thoughts, suggestions and recommendations
Syncapse Developers Hack for Good
Port 25: Random Hacks of Kindness

Competitors build life-saving apps for disasters and emergencies in global weekend challenge

Teams at Random Hacks of Kindness Toronto “hackathon” create new mobile and online tools

WHAT: Hackathon to solve humanitarian problems & pitch competition
WHEN: Pitch competition & judging: Sun., June 5 from 3 to 5 p.m.
Hackathon: Ends Sun., June 5 at 3 p.m.
WHERE: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), 5th floor, 252 Bloor St. W., Toronto
WHO: Experts in climate, disaster, crisis; software, design, Internet, media, more (see below).

TORONTO, June 5, 2011 /CNW/ – Disaster professionals working with volunteer software makers in Toronto yesterday began building a set of mobile and online emergency aid tools whose prototypes they aim to complete today. This evening, competing teams will vie for prizes in a pitch competition judged by a panel of experts.

The teams at Random Hacks of Kindness Toronto (RHoK Toronto) are among some 1,000 people in 18 cities across 6 continents participating in a global weekend-long hacking marathon, or “hackathon,” that unites technologists and humanitarian experts in an effort to solve pressing problems.

“It’s unbelievable that the teams are able to create these mobile apps and online tools in less than 48 hours,” said Heather Leson, lead organizer of RHoK Toronto. “By dinner time last night, one team here had already programmed a working prototype!”

Projects

Competitors at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in downtown Toronto are working on six projects:

The Random Hacks of Kindness volunteer community — founded in 2009 by Google, Microsoft, NASA, Yahoo and the World Bank — has produced mobile and online software tools that were deployed after disasters in Chile, Haiti and Japan.

Pitch competition Sunday afternoon

“This afternoon’s pitch competition will let the teams in Toronto show off their work — and give the most innovative ones bragging rights,” said RHoK Toronto manager Melanie Gorka. “The best pitches will also win prizes that include a private lunch with leaders at Mozilla, which makes the Firefox Web browser; high speed computer networking equipment from Linksys by Cisco, security software from Symantec, and more.”

The Toronto teams will also be able to receive coaching to develop and enhance their pitch and presentation skills, and consult with special guests who are experts in crisis and emergency aid, before they showcase their projects in front of the pitch competition judges:

Special guests:

“The best part of Random Hacks of Kindness is that no matter which teams win Toronto’s pitch competition, all the participants learn, mentor and share in their world. Plus, some projects will continue and maybe become fully built,” Heather Leson said.

ABOUT RANDOM HACKS OF KINDNESS TORONTO:

RHoK Toronto is an ad hoc committee of civic-minded citizens with professional expertise across a broad range of industry sectors. The first Random Hacks of Kindness hackathon in Toronto was held in December 2010.

Community partners new and old have donated space, food, funds, prizes, services and tools to help make the event a success. Donations may be made through the RHoK.org Toronto site or by contacting the organizers. Current sponsors include: Camaraderie, Centre for Social Innovation, CIRA, Cisco, GlobalNews.ca, Jonah Group, Lady Atelier, Marketcrashers, MaRS Discovery District, Aaron McGowan, Microsoft Canada, Net Change Week, Nitido Inc., Rightsleeve, Symantec, Syncapse, Tropo, Tucows Inc., University of Toronto and Yahoo Canada.

RHoK Toronto is online at: www.rhok.org/event/toronto

RHoK Toronto on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RHoKTO

RHoK Toronto hashtag: #RHoKTO

ABOUT RANDOM HACKS OF KINDNESS:

Random Hacks of Kindness was founded in 2009 by Google, Microsoft, NASA, Yahoo and the World Bank. The worldwide innovation community has seen thousands of volunteers work on 120 open source software projects, including tools used in the Haiti and Chile earthquakes in 2010, the recent Japan quake and tsunami, and landslide-prone parts of the Caribbean. “Open source” means the computer code is available for anyone to use and build upon.

Global Random Hacks of Kindness community: www.rhok.org

On Twitter: www.twitter.com/randomhacks

Twitter hashtag: #RHoK

For further information:

OR TO SCHEDULE INTERVIEWS:

Melanie Gorka or Heather Leson
melanie.gorka AT gmail DOT com heatherleson AT gmail DOT com
Twitter: @melgorka Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/leftbutton

Only 3 more sleeps until Random Hacks of Kindness Toronto.

I prepared this to help our 90 (!) local participants get acquainted with RHoK and how to make the most out of the event.

Our RHoK Toronto team is working hard to get all the details prepared. We are talking to folks in Nairobi, Seattle, Bangalore and Melbourne to see if we can have Ustream dates to meet each other

Global collaboration for a hackathon is a mash-up. More tonight after our pre-RhoK meet-up.

We are almost at 3rd RHoK from the Sun!

Heather

With just over a week to go, Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) Toronto is gearing up. We have some updates for participants, potential sponsors and supporters.

What is RHoK?

Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) is a joint initiative between Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, NASA, and the World Bank, with the objective of creating solutions that have an impact in disaster management and crisis response. Together they hold semi-annual simultaneous global hackathons (marathon coding events) over one weekend. The event brings together subject matter experts from all over the world in software development, open data, project management, graphic design, videography, emergency management, technology, research, knowledge translation, logistics, just to name a few. Also, see the RHoK global press release.

Before RHoK

RHoK Toronto has 50 participants registered. Won’t you Join us?

Pre-RHoK event for participants:

We invite you to attend our RHoK Warm-up

Date: Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Time: 19:00 – 21:00 ET
Location: Camaraderie
Address: 102 Adelaide St E.

Meet your fellow hackers, ask questions about the event and brainstorm on the problem definitions.

Recruiting Sponsors:

Our amazing sponsors are providing food and prizes. We are happy to announce CIRA, Jonah Group, Syncapse, University of Toronto and Camaraderie are joining us as sponsors for the second year. Thanks! And, to Marketcrashers/Hackernest for joining us with a prize donation.

If you are a potential sponsor willing to contribute prizes or donate funds for food, please drop us a line at rhokto at Gmail dot com or contact heather at textontechs dot com for more details. We commit to account and use all funds for the event. As per RHoK Global guidelines, we will donate any unused funds to the Canadian Red Cross.

In return for your kindness, we can add your organizational name and logo to the RHoK website, include your name in our media outreach, add postings to our job board and provide you with post event blog content.

Share a Problem Definition:

The RHoK Global team and our local curation team are working on problem definitions. You can submit ideas on the RHoK site or for either of these two call-to-actions:

Calling all Health2.0 Enthusiasts for RHoK, June 4th & 5th

Calling all Climate Change and Open Data Enthusiasts

RHoK Main Event Schedule: June 4 – 5, 2011

RHoK Toronto Location:
University of Toronto
OISE
252 Bloor Street West, 5th floor
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V5

Schedule:

Saturday, June 4, 2011
8:00 – 9:00am Arrive and enjoy breakfast
9:00 -9:30 Introductions and Questions
9:30 – 11:30 Pick your problem definitions and teams. Start brainstorming
11:30 – 1:00 Lunch
1:00 – 5:00 Coding, doing, brainstorming
5:00 – 6:00 Stand-up – Quick Discussion about your team’s work
6:00 – 7:00 pm Dinner
7:00 – ongoing (Optional to stay late. Otherwise, we’ll see you the next day)
Midnight – home

Sunday, June 5, 2011
8:00 – 9:00 am Arrive and enjoy breakfast
9-11:30 More coding
11:30 – 12:30 Lunch
12:30 – 3:00 Go teams!
3:00 – 5:30 Demos and Prizes
6:00pm End of event

What to bring:
laptop, electrical power bar, headphones, phone and charger, video camera, camera, webcam, demo equipment, coffee mug, a smile and an open mind.

How to prepare:
Review the problem definitions on the RHoK website. The definitions are still being created, so keep checking back. Please take a moment and familiarize yourself with all the tools available to you online before the main event. Some of the tools we might use to collaborate are: IRC, Skype, Github, Wiki, Google Docs, Ustream, Twitter, Facebook and Piratepad. All hacks created are open source.

RHoK Toronto needs some help:

Volunteer run community events always need many hands to make it successful. Here are some ways you can help:

• There will be errands for food and supplies. Can you help on Friday evening or Saturday for logistics (registration, food delivery, etc.)?
• We seek a sponsor or volunteer who can provide standard equipment for demos (including mobile devices), a video camera and microphones. This includes some onsite support and set-up. We want the hackers to be heard and to shine. You could really make a difference by lending your expertise.

The RHoK Toronto team:

RHoK Toronto is a collective of talented folks working hard to make this happen:

David Black, Melanie Gorka, Brian Chick, Christine Crowley, Amy Coulterman, Jessica Hazen, James Walker, Aaron McGowan and myself.

Also, we are thankful for all our supporters who are sending outreach for participants and sponsors. A special thanks to Greg Wilson for everything he does.

See you soon,

Heather