For the second year in a row, I had the pleasure of joining the International Space Apps Challenge. This year we were the largest global hackathon ever!
In addition to participating in the very successful Toronto SpaceApps event, I curated the global story. Here are some of the pieces on the SpaceApps Blog:
Timezone Dancing in Space
Gel n’ Sketch
Kicking it Globally
As well, I captured the best snippets about the community and the event using Storify:
So much fun!
CBCSpark’s Nora Young interviewed me about Ushahidi, Crisismapping and citizen activism. The episode #205 also includes an interview with Rebecca Chiao of Harassmap and my colleague, Daudi Were, Project Lead of Uchaguzi.
Download the CBC Spark podcast
I firmly believe that the lessons learned from crisismapping can be applied to every day important things. Maps have also been storytelling devices by sharing versions of history and location.
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There are a few maps in Canada that are truly indicate the future state potential:
Great Lakes Commons, based in Ontario and lead by Paul Baines, is keen to build a commons approach around Water Stewardship:
” A Commons perspective respects the waters as the heritage, sustenance, and inheritance of all peoples and species that live within this Great Lakes watershed. This map is yours to mark your connection and concern and share our collective desires to protect, improve, and sustain this home. “
YXEVoices, based in Saskatoon, SK and lead by Ushahidian Dale Zak, aims to connect citizens and their cities:
YXEvoices
Here’s to more growth in these areas.
h
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.
(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:
In December, I had the honour to present at the United Nations Spider meetings in Vienna. Here are those presentations with details notes:
Coining Global is a state of community for where Crisismapping and Digital Humanitarianism should grow:
Hurricane Sandy saw the rise of many Crisismapping projects, including the great Hot or Not test of satellite imagery. There was also a large number of Crowdmaps launched:
The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) is in election mode. I hope to become a member pending approval and am proposing to join the board. More on that in a bit.
HOT grew with the need to recognize emergency and crisis mapping. Over the past almost 3 years, I’ve watched the team grow, I’ve worked on projects that benefited from HOT contributions and I’ve been continuously amazing by their talent and strengths.
More about HOT
The process: You need to be nominated to be a HOT team member. (This window is closed now)
Current Membership
You can still join the mailing list and contribute.
Their HOT Tasking tool is one of the best micro-tasking tools I’ve seen in digital volunteering. You can get started here.
In the coming week, HOT members will be voting for a new Board.
I am proposing to join the HOT Board pending acceptance as a HOT member.
Here are some of the things I can offer
1. Fundraising, Outreach and Storytelling skills.
2. Advocacy: While I may not be an active OSM contributor, but I am a big advocate of HOT and OSM in most of the work and volunteering I do.
3. Mapping organizations like Ushahidi need OSM to have the free imagery just as much as OSM wants it. I would essentially be an end-user in your corner.
In my job at Ushahidi, we changed our base map to OSM this year. When I talk with deployers, especially those working in crisis or conflict areas, they advise that they can’t use OSM as a base layer because the map is empty. One most recent example was planning for the .ke Elections in 2013. I want to join the HOT team and be an active more formal supporter to fill this gap. There has got to be ways to get imagery and to match the HOT team to these citizen science mappers. The map should not be a deterrent but a benefit in their journey to share stories of what they see and what they hear.
Thank you
The Internet is our community garden, our public space and our workshop. Every day I work with people around the world who create maps and technology for good. A free and open Internet invites this collaboration beyond borders, religion, politics and societal barriers.
Crisismappers, particularly, conflict mappers do some of the bravest and scariest acts of Open Internet Activism. They take my breath away giving voice to the dispossessed, documenting atrocity and informing the world. Two such mapper groups are Syria Tracker and Women Under Siege Syria. Reports of a full communications shutdown in Syria takes away their voice. They should have the right to voice. We should protect their right to voice. What will the impact of this outage be on their important work?
Lauren Wolfe, Director of Women Under Siege, was interviewed a few months ago by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s The Current (audio) about this project and their verification process.
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The Syrian Internet shutdown was reported as I was writing this post about why the ITU and WCIT need to open their doors and not make decisions on behalf of the globe. More about this from the Mozilla andGoogle’s Take Action sites.
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At Mozilla Festival, we remixed video with Mozilla Popcorn. You can Make your own ITU activism video. There is something magical about being able to remix our web and amplify our voices. Webmaking is the kind of Internet that #freeandopen encourages and supports. It is the type of community space that allows for more voices to be heard and to interact. Creating the web is supporting it to exist.
Today the CBC posted an article: “Should the UN Govern the Internet“. They interviewed Citizen Lab’s Ron Deibert about his thoughts:
“the recurring push at the ITU to wield more control over the web is part of a bigger trend “towards greater state control of cyberspace and an older internationally governed system of telecommunications.””
I’ve been much inspired by the work of Citizen Lab over the past year. They fight the good fight with data and analysis about security. And, they’ve provided Ushahidi and myself some valuable help as I work to guide people through various security questions with technology. We need to be very mindful about What kind of Internet we are accepting and what kind of Internet exists. Ron’s TEDxToronto talk should be mandatory for any activist and Internet user.
Internet access is a growing human right. Attending Annenberg-Oxford’s Media Policy Summer Institute gave me an opportunity to meet citizens from around the world who study, work or are activists for media policy. Learning first hand about walled gardens and the advocacy of this type of “Internet” provided much framing for what kind of Internet other people might want. It was a rich discussion which could use a deeper study. Why do people support a closed internet? Who are they?
Working and volunteering in a space of Internet and mobile activism for technology and maps for social good, I’ve collected a number of maps that range from sentiment and demand for access, infrastructure reports, power outages and even how SMS campaigns are being used for ICT4D. Each is a unique project, but they collectively show how we could potentially map voices/stories and use this data to analyze with layers of hard data. We need to find new ways to use our technical might to show where access is and provide the qualitative feedback for “why”.
Launching an global map for stories about access and benefits of a free and open Internet would be a mighty task needing more than a few strong people. Perhaps not this time without a little help from friends. With Random Hacks of Kindness this weekend, it might even be feasible to consider? The question is: How can a map unite our common cause for the Internet we want or, even, open a dialogue about the different versions of an Internet?
Example Maps about Access, Voice and Infrastructure
Bring SuperFast Broadband to Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire (UK)
Reporting Mobile Coverage in Sweden
3G Fail in Brazil
SMS in action (Global)
Wimax Monitoring in Italy
Infrastructure issues after Hurricane Sandy (USA)
Powercuts (India)
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(At Ushahidi, I write frequently about our community of deployers who give voice around the world during times of crisis, for elections, and for civil society topics varied from corruption to environmental movements to human rights to violence against women. )
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.
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.
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.
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!!!
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
Anti-Corruption and Transparency activism is merging with hacks and maps. In the past year at Ushahidi, I’ve met a number of mappers who are using the open source tools to activate and organize around these topics.
As part of the 15th Annual International Anti-Corruption Conference in Brasilia, Brazil, I met these mappers and held an Online Tools Game Changers Session about their work. The Transparency Hackers movement in Brasil, lead by Daniela De Silva, held a simultaneous hackathon. Let no topic go unturned.
Here are some snippets on this work:
An Interview with the IACC team
“Por trás dessas ferramentas online que servem de “atalho” para se denunciar corrupção está uma multidão de jovens internautas.
“A juventude está mudando as táticas do ativismo anticorrupção. Eles trazem consigo um incrível entusiasmo por tecnologia móveis e novas mídias, como vídeos”, diz Heather Leson, uma das diretoras da Ushahidi, à BBC Brasil.
“Esses jovens ativistas agora atuam e compartilham, ininterruptamente, em suas redes sociais. E assim eles não precisam mais usar arquivos em PDF de 50 páginas para lutar contra a corrupção. Estão livres disso. ”
Heather
Everywhere I turn there is storied history and a sense of inspired education. For the next two weeks, I am a student at University of Oxford as part of the Annenberg-Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute.
The Institute has 30 participants from around the globe, many journalists, academics and a few civil society/NGOs. I’m completely inspired by their work already. We are each one of 1000 selected to share in this experience.
It did not really strike me that I was 1. studying at Oxford and 2. at Oxford until I walked by the Bodelian. I’ve been so engrossed with work (Election Hackathon and Open Internet of Things Assembly) that the shock set in walking down Turl Street. Then after reading the brochure, I realized that Harry Potter and Lawrence of Arabia have deep roots on these grounds. I imagine I will be able to explore at some point.
For now, back to braining!
What if? This is a question that drives me daily. What if people are connected to affect change with technology? I am very honoured to be selected as a Personal Democracy Forum Google Fellow 2012 among a distinguished list of accomplished fellows.
Learning about the struggles to give voice and have free elections around the world, I’ve encountered a few shining lights that we could learn and remix in North America:
Qabila.tv from Egypt has an amazing program of digital literacy accessible videos to teach people about democracy and the principles. It is in common language. The team used these in their community-based organization outreach campaign to reach the youth. In order to succeed in mandates for elections, we need to start thinking better about how to use the power of the Internet for true engagement. And, then take it offline to communities, listen and remix:
At Ushahidi every day I work alongside election monitors, corruption mappers and other civil society activists. I’m on a mission to ask “What If” citizens could give voice to their causes, their passions, their communities. These people are disrupters doing the heavy lifting. I simply have the honour of sharing their stories as Ushahidi is a vehicle for people’s change. And, I have the responsibility to find ways to augment and surface their work globally while supporting it with documentation and training.
On Saturday, June 16th, I will participate in a Free Election Hackathon with a number of groups. I plan to use my PDF experience to assist people who will be doing election monitoring around the world in the coming year. I can’t wait to hack on ideas, then test them into action.
Here’s to happy braining,
Heather