Technology

15Mar

Play Data: Analyzing Gaming Interactions and Behaviour

A sense of play can teach us about interaction and behaviour for online communities. Where can we find a large dataset for this type of research? Well, Jaideep Srivastava, Social Computing Research Director Qatar Computing Research Institute, recently presented results from hours of not playing the Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMORPGs). Instead, he and colleagues massively played with user data. His analysis of some of the results highlight the need for all communities to really look at the user experience while building mechanisms for mentoring and feedback. For those of us who spend time trying to foster and grow healthy communities, we often turn to metrics. Online communities need to dig into the interaction data. But, that is a topic for another day. Let’s dig in some of the highlights of Jaideep’s work.

Jaideep Srivastava MLDAS Dr. Jaideep Srivastava presented Understanding Social Dynamics Tools & Techniques: Interaction and Behaviour in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (PDF) at the Machine Language and Data Analytics Symposium, an event hosted by the Qatar Computing Research Institute and Boeing (Doha, March 9 – 10 2015). The symposium convened researchers, practitioners, students, and industry experts in the fields of machine learning, data mining, and related areas to present recent advances, to discuss open research questions, and to bridge the gap between data analytics research and industry needs on certain concrete problems.

MMORPGs record every interaction of tens of millions of players. This is a research scientist’s data set dream. How can we understand behaviour and interaction in these games? What can it teach us to build better software? Stronger communities? And, my big takeaway, how can we activate this type of research to better support spaces for other communities like Digital Humanitarians? Why do people stay involved in games and why do they leave?
Churn in online games

Dr. Srivastava and team analyzed the relationship between social engagement, trust and player retention. Turns out that we all want a small town online. We want to have a virtual cup of coffee (or tea) with our neighbours. His analysis of Everquest’s community shows that stability and success can potentially be attained by building socialization and being mindful of opportunities to build trust within the game. Plus, he highlights how this interaction and behaviour data proves that community is a profit center. The gaming community shows this with their costs for add-ons and features. Other communities need to think about these lessons as they build great places to do __(fill in the blank)___ together. And, software creators need to think about community and feedback loops as part of their design from the beginning.

How are you analyzing your community data?

Digital Humanitarian and Open Source communities could learn a lot from other global online communities, especially these successful gaming communities. Over the years, I have spoken with software developers and funders about the power of community. Often, I hear: We don’t fund or prioritize community because there is no profit from it. Well, this continues to be a myopic view. If you want results (re: shiny metrics), you need to nurture and invest. While not all communities have access to data stores like these large MMORPGs or access to top notch researchers, we can still learn.

RESOURCES: Jaideep’s slides for Understanding Social Dynamics Tools & Techniques: Interaction and Behaviour in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (PDF) and his paper on Churn Prediction (PDF download)

This is why I am so excited at QCRI to be given the opportunity to collaborate on research and open source software development with a focus on local community engagement. You see, in the middle east, things get done by building strong relationships. (To be honest, I think that this values exist all over the world, but is just sometimes overlooked.) It is my hope that we can build on Dr. Srivastava’s work for our software in QCRI Social Innovation with a focus on Qatar. There is a burgeoning Qatari online community in many social forums. While the Qatari social data sets are not in the millions of users, it is home and we are neighbours.

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.

magnifying glass

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!

******
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.
*********

(Icon credit: Alexandria Eddings, Noun Project CCBY)

23Feb

Getting involved in HFOSS

Humanitarian
FOSS

[Cross-post from Opensource.com: This article is part of the HFOSS column coordinated by Jen Wike Huger. To share your projects and stories about how free and open source software is making the world a better place, contact us at osdc-admin@redhat.com].

Lending a digital hand for humanitarian projects is just a click away. Whether you have five minutes or a few hours, you can make a difference with a variety of HFOSS projects. The level of skills required vary from web search, verification, mapping, translation, training, and open source software development. Along the journey of changing the world, you can meet like minds and hone your skills. The key is to ask yourself: What do I want to do? How can I get started? How can I find the right project and community?

Over the years, Opensource.com has featured a number of articles about HFOSS and digital humanitarianism. We are in an unprecedented time of openness for international governmental organizations (INGOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Citizens and civil society have a place at the table to affect change via digital humanitarian efforts, often using free and open source software.

This primer provides an overview and touches on some amazing projects.

DHN logos

What can I do?

Many of you already contribute to open source projects, or you arrived at Opensource.com to seek a new adventure. When it comes to HFOSS, remember that you can’t break the Internet by trying. There is an element of seriousness and a sense of “matter” which might deter you. Don’t worry, we have a sense of humor and camaraderie like many open source communities.

Digital humanitarian communities vary in size, structure, and focus. There are well-established groups like Sahana Foundation or Ushahidi, as well as the growing Digital Humanitarian Network. Each of these organizations, and many more digital communities, seek your expertise. Sometimes theses groups have full blown “get involved” programs complete with “community task” labeled GitHub repositories, while others are just getting started.

Each community needs seasoned open source friendly leadership, mentorship, and development. Digital humanitarian communities also have more diverse opportunities to do small to large tasks. You do not need to develop code to contribute, though many of the HFOSS projects count on open source ethos and software development to thrive.

This is a quick cheat sheet to show you how you can get involved in HFOSS. The list is by no means complete, but it gives you an idea of how you can make a difference. Keep in mind that some of the communities require only small bits of time (less than 5 minutes to crowdsource or microtask), whereas others can evolve to larger tasks. And, if you are a serial volunteer like me, you can join a board or become an advisor. There is simply no shortage of opportunity. We, the HFOSS organizers, just need to find ways to make it easier for you to get involved.

11 ways to start with HFOSS

Task HFOSS community
Learn AIDR, all the projects
Map MapAction, Ushahidi, MicroMappers, Sahana, Standby Task Force, Google Crisis Response, Crisismappers, Esri, Mapbox, Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, GIS Corps and many more
Data Statistics without Borders, DataKind many of the listed projects
Technology Disaster Tech Lab, UAViators, Public Lab, Brck
Tell all the projects
Share Humanity Road, Veri.ly, CrisisCommons, Info4Disasters and all the projects
Translate Translators without Borders, all the projects
Reward Open Badges
Lead all the projects
Teach School of Data, all the above projects
Make Peace Geeks, Geeks without Bounds, all the projects need open source contributors

Each of these groups provide value insights, software-driven products, and information management to support humanitarians. The drive to participate openly and to have all the details shared openly is compelling. The key question becomes: what if the time I spent volunteering on humanitarian responses and/or software could make a difference in someone’s life?

With the Digital Humanitarian Network providing a direct collaboration avenue, this hypothetical question is becoming a possibility. My colleague at Qatar Computing Research Institute, Patrick Meier, recently published a book, “Digital Humanitarians,” all about the rise of these groups. Now is the time to find ways to better connect our efforts with the larger open source and corporate social responsibility programs. If we are collaborating with the official humanitarian groups, how can we better reinforce our partnerships with our big brothers and sisters in open source?

The big dream

This community builders Infogr.am chart should help community managers to think about programs and strategic planning from the point of view of the contributor. It is focused on the types of tasks that people might want to contribute and the suggested time allotment. In reviewing various HFOSS sites, there is not really an up-to-date master index by skills required or types of projects. The onus is really on new upcoming groups and organizations to tap into the larger open source network. There are many established digital humanitarian organizations that need to be added to this wiki. Finding this site has given me homework. If you have any suggestions, please do edit away.

HFOSS organizers need to make is easier to help people get involved. One recommendation that I have is a simple navigator that asks people what they want to do or what they want to give. The aggregator would then help match them to tasks and communities. Think of it as a global Match.com for giving. We would give love to open source organizations, corporations, nonprofits, community-based organizations, and citizens. Truly, this is all hands on deck to make it possible for anyone and any organization to connect. We could tailor it with the code to help people choose their own adventure based on topic, time, location, and their learning/doing/giving path. Really, we need to dream big more and build it.

To find your way in HFOSS, you might hear a talk, see a tweet, then join a mailing list, participate in a working group, or scan a Wiki/website to drill into the types of tasks and contributions you can offer. What if there was a “Hot or Not” or “Ask not” (Mozilla community code) tool that allowed new contributors to find various HFOSS projects based on the contributor’s interests, time available, and skills? This type of user-driven search tool already exists for odesk and LinkedIn, which has the awesome volunteer.linkedin.com.

Now is the time

Humanitarians are at the table with HFOSS. We have a huge opportunity to give back our knowledge and skills to support people around the world. The World Humanitarian Summit is hosting online and in-person consultations to help the traditional organizations move forward. Many INGOs and NGOs are turning to digital humanitarian, civil society, and software organizations to provide input to affect change. There are amazing innovators like Andrej Verity of UN OCHA calling for open humanitarianism. (See the new Open Humanitarianism website for more details.) Your help on these individual HFOSS projects or the larger goals is needed. All you need to do is take the step and ask yourself: “How can I help?” We will welcome you! Every interaction is a gift.

Beginners to
Open Source

A collection of articles about how to get started in open source.

(Photo note: DHN logos from the Digital Humanitarian Network website.)

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.

MM coconut screen

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

ICCM 2014

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.

14Jul

Ok go! What are you doing at OKfest14?

Ok go! This week 1000 people converge in Berlin for Okfestival with many more participating and observing online. We are here to instigate open action and open minds.

The Open Knowledge Festival 2014 will be our biggest open data and open knowledge event to date. It will be global, inclusive and participatory. We expect it to create a significant local and international surge of innovation.

Throughout the festival, I will be leading the Community storytelling team. I’ll mostly be using twitter and storify to curate stories. Also, expect pictures and maybe some videos with attendees. During this event, I am also running or assisting on a large number of sessions and side events, plus attending some key sessions.

okfest logo

Here’s my schedule for the following week. See some of you soon! And, for friends who aren’t here, see you online (all items are at the OKFEST venue unless stated otherwise):

Sunday, July 13th (completed)

Watch Germany win world cup, walk to celebration at Brandenburg Gate (checkmark)

Monday, July 14th (completed)

Hold informal #geobeers with mapper and activist friends in Berlin at Strandbar (so amazing, done-so)

OKfest Opening Day: Tuesday, July 15th
Open Knowledge Community Summit (13:00 – 16:00 CET)

stickies are love

This is a community-driven event to talk about the Open Knowledge community. See all the details. I’ll be hosting a sub-group to talk about the last 5 months of community programming and get input into the next steps.

Storytelling team meeting (17:00 CET)

Sharing stories, ideas and moments is such a big part of community events. I’ve had much practice curating and encouraging stories at large events. Join our Storytelling team and meet other digital curators. Look for folks with blue ribbons or tweet us at #okstory with blog links, videos, photos, headlines and key themes.

How to join: Review our Storytelling wiki page, add your name to our etherpad, tweet @heatherleson or with #okstory to meet team members. Our first meeting is at 5pm in the Media Hub room at the Okfest venue. We will have other informal meetings to be announced throughout the event. Stay tuned.

School of Data Table at the open night (18:00 – 21:00 CET)

Come meet the School of Data existing and new fellows, local partners and team. Ask questions, get involved.

Community Drinks (21:30 – on)

The Community team is hosting an informal drinks night. Join us for chats and connecting.
Location: Prater Garten

Bike by

OkFest First day: Wednesday, July 16th

Storytelling Team meeting like at 8:30am at venue. TBD, see #okstory.

Sessions:
I’ll be attending all the morning sessions. Truly, super excited for Ory to talk plus graffiti activists!!

Open Coalition (12:00 – 13:00)

Help us build an Open Coalition across various open organizations and individuals. We have common missions and are stronger together.

Power, Politics, Inclusion and voice


“Data, information, knowledge is created in a political environment where power dynamics dictate who is/is not included in the creation process. Unless we consider who is involved in knowledge construction we run the risk of simply entrenching existing power structures. If open data is dominated by data produced in the Global North what chance do we have in redressing the balance of power for an equitable world? “

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Workshop (16:30 -17:30 CET)

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap team will share stories and do a demo with hands on support. Super excited to support Katie and other Hotties on this.

Open Mapping Party

Join the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, CartoDB, Development Seed, Zeit Online and Mapbox to talk open mapping strategies and tools over drinks. Heather Leson, Ian Schuler, Javier de la Torre, Alex Barth and Paul Blickle are in town and ready to connect over humanitarian response, data visualizations, OpenStreetMap and satellite imagery. We are inviting map nerds, enthusiasts and friends to join us for a mapper night. Sign up here.

survey tape for teams

Okfest Second day: Thursday, July 17th
Storytelling team – meeting tbd

Day 3 of Community Storytelling. Stay tuned for more highlights and a meeting

Crisis.net (12:00 – 13:00)

Crisis.net is a new open tool from the amazing Ushahidi folks. The team will share a demo and answer questions. I’m expecting many civil society and journalists to join in the conversations. Session details.

Low Tech Data : Storytelling and Storyfinding (14:00 – 15:00)

Rahul and Gabi will be a fantastic hosts for this session at the heart of every impact for civil society and activists. See more details:

Looking for creative ways to find and present data stories in low-tech settings? We will share our hands-on, participatory techniques for bringing people together around data to find and tell powerful stories without computers. You’ll walk away with skills and ideas to help the communities you work with!

Working with data can empower or disempower. Algorithms, technical language, unfamiliar processes – these all leave many communities incapable of working with data, or understanding data-driven discussions. Most folks don’t “speak data”.

How to Teach Open Data (15:30 – 16:30)

Join the School of Data and friends to learn best practices in teaching open data. (full details) We’ll have a world cafe to share

  • How to organise tech and data workshops
  • Building effective curriculum and accreditation
  • Type of education activities: a blended offline, online
  • Designing passion driven communities (I’ll be with Bekka from P2PU)
If I had more time or a time machine, I would attend these amazing sessions too!

School of Data

School of Data Summer Camp (Potsdam) (invite only): Friday, July 18, 2014 – Monday July 21, 2014

School of Data is the division that I work in at Open Knowledge. This summer camp includes fellows, partners and local instances of School of Data. We will talk about strategies, share skills and develop plans for the upcoming year. I am specifically sharing community programming and community engagement best practices:

July 22nd, 2014

FALL OVER, Report back, sleep!!!

15Jun

Batman, Foodies, Fashion + CrisisMaps at Next Day Better

Building a common good unites us. This Thursday I’m participating in Next Day Better in Toronto. This is such a special event combining fun, food, art and technology to inspire people to make the Next Day Better. I’ll share the story of Crisismappers highlighting the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team response in the Philippines.

How will I make the Next Day Better?

I help people get more involved in their world. One example is supporting an open community-driven digital humanitarian response.

“We are a culture platform that builds and activates diaspora communities to create a better future. We believe that diasporas like the Philippines global community are hubs and inspirations for social innovation, incredible design, and world changing ideas. We bring these doers and change makers together to share their stories and make the next day better.”

nextdaybetter

Tickets are only $20.00 with amazing talks and food! Please join us.

Help Share about Next Day Better

Facebook updates:

We’re partnering with social innovation group @NextDayBetter to celebrate their launch in Toronto on June 19. It will be a night of inspired talks from changemakers – the #Philippines is ready for open-source mapping! If you’re in Toronto, RSVP here.

Amazing things are happening June 19 – board member/idea hacker Heather Leson will be @NextDayBetter’s launch in Toronto as they bring big-idea thinkers, amazing work doers and changemakers together. Get your tickets here.

Tweets:

We’re partnering w/ @NextDayBetter for their launch in #Toronto 6/19! Learn more: http://www.bit.ly/NextDayBetterTOR

The #Philippines is ready. Join us @NextDayBetter Toronto launch | 6/19 7pm | RSVP http://www.bit.ly/NextDayBetterTOR

About NextDayBetter

NextDayBetter is a platform that spreads ideas and actions that make the next day better. Ideas and actions are Philippines-flavored and rooted in design, entrepreneurship and innovation.

We invite innovators entrepreneurs, designers, do gooders — both Filipino and Non-Filipino—to share their stories about creating a better future.

Visit www.nextdaybetter.com for more information.

I found out about the Next Day Better group after engaging with folks around Hacking PH: focused on rebuilding a resilient Philippines. They really inspired me with their approach to building community locally and globally.

How will you make the Next Day Better?

14Jun

DISPATCH: HOT @ IEEE Humanitarian Technology Conference

[Cross-post from the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team blog]

A few weeks ago the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team was a guest of the 2014 IEEE Canada International Humanitarian Technology Conference (IHTC). In the session, Samual Paul Alce, Pierre Beland and I each presented about to share all about the community, activations and how to use OpenStreetmap. It was an honour to participate and share the HOT story with such an important organization. It is our goal to build relationships with groups like IEEE to improve processes and technical implementation. We would like to thank Alfredo Herrara, Glenn McKnight and the whole IEEE IHTC team for inviting us. It was a pleasure to host this session with my guests: Pierre and Samuel. Here is the abstract and our slides with speaker’s notes:

Abstract

Since the Haiti earthquake in 2010, new partners support the UN Agencies and International organizations through the Web 2.0 or Collaborative Web. OpenStreetMap is one of these community of volunteers. It has shown on several occasions its ability to mobilize hundreds of contributors and support remotely, providing maps and services necessary for such actions. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) makes the bridge with the humanitarian organizations.

In this session, we will discuss open source methods for humanitarian technology. The workshop will include an overview of Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team’s (HOT) activities, some of the tools and best practices. We will include stories of activations around the world from Indonesia to Haiti to Philippines and the DRC. Our session also includes hands on training from HOT community leaders. Join us and learn about new methods in digital and in-person responders using OpenStreetMap.

8Jun

Mesh in the Open

Mesh is Canada’s premier digital conference about what is next in business, media, marketing and society. The diverse participants always inspire. This year was no exception from Neil Harbisson’s cyborg activist to Mark Little on telling stories better with Storyful my brain is still spinning from the eclectic conversations.

This year I had the honour of running a workshop with Gabe Sawhney about Open Data, Civic Tech and Hacking for Good. We made our session fairly interactive with some slides to frame questions and then 5 breakout groups to talk about everything from technology in the upcoming Toronto elections or building a civic hack lab in the city. Each group had 30 minutes to talk amongst themselves and then provide report-backs. Thanks to the MESH team for inviting us to hack the conference process and bring our civic engagement spin to the event.


17May

Get Involved Dreaming

We want to do something, share and participate in our world. And, we want inspire others to join in our various parades. What is the on ramp for Get Involved in our neighbourhood, our city, our country and our world? Organizers and citizens could circle the globe and back citing examples of websites that ask you to Join, Participate, or Get Involved.

Getting Involved Dreaming means considering how can we stitch together all the amazing opportunities in a collaborative and citizen-focused way. From offline to online engagement, there is a buffet of awesome for communities and companies. Each has a Get Involved strategy focused on their ROI goals or theory of change. When Linked In created their Volunteer site, I cheered. This combined with the rise of Corporate Social Responsibility programs is just touching the surface. From NationBuilder or Crowdrise, you see that there are a million ways to help organizations or individuals build “get involved” and create “fundraising’ opportunities. This is the same for open source, crisismappers and digital volunteers. Every day at Ushahidi I wondered about how to help all these citizen mappers force multiply their mission. Each of their ideas and projects truly matter in the world. Mozilla and Ubuntu have some best practices for Getting Involved Strategies in open source communities. The Digital Humanitarian Network was created to help people and organizations connect during times of crisis. My colleague, Patrick Meier, created AIDR: Artificial Intelligence for Disaster Response with the Qatar Computing Research Institute. This is micro-mapping and volunteer tasking at is small bit best. Social Coding 4 Good focuses on developers and technical folks whereas Do Something is for teens. In Canada, there is Getinvolved.ca. I could spend all day giving examples of excellence in building community.

What if we dream a bit bigger and turn the model around to help our common mission?

book staircase, berlin

Master Search: Get involved, Community of Practice

What if we pulled back and had a Master Search for all these amazing things we could do to help our neighbours? The software exists, we just need to collaborate a bit more and aim for easy access for citizens to find their doing or giving passion. The key audience would be participants, doers, citizens and you. We would have a JOIN showcase. It is a simple navigator that Asks people what they want to do or what they want to give. The aggregator would then help match them to tasks and communities. Think of it as a global MATCH.com for giving. We would give love to open source organizations, corporations, non-profits, community-based organizations and citizens. Truly, this is all hands on deck to make it possible for anyone and any organization to connect. Using my Bit, Bye and Meal Deal community building framework, we could tailor it with the code to help people Choose their own adventure based on topic, time, location and their learning/doing/giving path.

The Community of Practice for Organizers would be the second audience. This would include anyone who wants to share and help make it easier for people to get involved in their world. It is not limited to non-profits alone, but for companies who have CSR programmes or Open Source groups. While I don’t want to simplify any of the amazing efforts, I’d like to see a common place for organizers to unite and share best practices and maybe build some common toolsets. Right now this is scattered. We have to hunt down articles on Chronicle for Philanthropy, join the Community Roundtable, seek counsel at NTEN , find each other in the halls at OSCON (create a Birds of a Feather) or attend the Community Leadership Summit. I created this fledgling mailing list to try to connect organizers some.

What’s in the Code? Pybossa or Crowdcrafting was built to help matchmake people to tasks. Mozilla has even adopted this great tool: What can I do for Mozilla? (See the code.) There is a new Canadian company called AskforTask that matches people to tasks for pay. What if this type of code was for volunteering? We are closer to this master search or JOIN dashboard everyday.

What examples can you share? Are you working on this? Do you want to help me try and sort out this tangled dream of helping people get more involved in their world? You can join the mailing list or drop a note on this post.

(Photo: Story of Berlin (March 2013))

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