Generation Y? Bridging the participation gap in an online world

20130204_104332

Back in July 2011 I spoke at a conference on ‘Generation-Y’ and public services hosted by Institut de la Gestion Publique (Institute for Public Management) in Paris. I was asked to write up the talk as an article for a print publication. So, I wrote up an extended version of this blog post, and fired it off, with a creative commons license on. A few months later I found myself having to print and sign paper contracts to convince the publishers that yes, they really could print the article. To make them happier I agreed I wouldn’t publish a copy of the article till it was out in their book. And then I pretty much forgot about it.

So I was surprised to get back from the OKF Winter Summit yesterday to find a parcel from France containing a copy of the book, French translation of the article included. 18 months after the conference, a print document void of links or graphics, with no mention of the creative commons license on the article. It looks like Institut de la Gestion Publique still have a very long way to go before they are really taking seriously the expectations gaps that my article talked about.

Ah well. Here’s a copy of the full article in English anyway (PDF). Unfortunately I’ve not been given a digital copy of the version in French, but happy to scan it in if anyone would like it.

20130204_104324

 

Open Data for Poverty Alleviation: Striking Poverty Discussion

Screen Shot 2013-02-03 at 08.43.29

[Summary: join an open discussion on the potential impacts of open data on poverty reduction]

Over the next two weeks, along with Tariq Kochar, Nitya V. Raman and Nathan Eagle, I’m taking part in an online panel hosted by the World Bank’s Striking Poverty platform to discuss the potential impacts of open data on poverty alleviation.

So far we’ve been asked to provide some starting statements on how we see open data and poverty might relate, and now there’s an open discussion where visitors to the site are invited to share their questions and reflections on the topic.

Here’s what I have down as my opening remarks:

Development is complex. No individual or group can process all the information needed to make sense of aid flows, trade patterns, government budgets, community resources and environmental factors (amongst other things) that affect development in a locality. That’s where data comes in: open datasets can be connected, combined and analysed to support debate, decision making and governance.

Projects like the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) have sought to create the technical standards and political commitments for effective data sharing. IATI is putting together one corner of the poverty reduction jigsaw, with detailed and timely forward-looking information on aid. IATI open data can be used by governments to forecast spending, and by citizens to hold donors to account. This is the promise of open data: publish once, use many times and for many purposes.

But data does not use itself. Nor does it transcend political and practical realities. As the papers in a recent Journal of Community Informatics special issue highlight show, open data brings both promise and perils. Mobilising open data for social change requires focus and effort.

We’re only at the start of understanding open data impacts. In the upcoming Exploring the Emerging Impacts of Open Data in Developing Countries (ODDC), the Web Foundation and partners will be looking at how open data affects governance in different countries and contexts across the world. Rather than look at open data in the abstract, the project will explore cases such as open data for budget monitoring in Brazil, or open data for poverty reduction in Uganda. This way it will build up a picture of the strategies that can be used to make a difference with data; it will analyse the role that technologies and intermediaries play in mobilising data; and it will also explore unintended consequences of open data.

I hope in this discussion we can similarly focus on particular places where open data has potential, and on the considerations needed to ensure the supply and use of open data has the best chance possible of improving lives worldwide.

What do you think? You can join the discussion for the next two weeks over on the Striking Poverty site…