(rapporteur: Ruth Grossman)

  interested in ICTs for community enablement and job creation
  info technology providing unique opportunities to explore capabilities pre-existing in communities
  community informatics aims at working with the community and community resources to identify how ICTs can be transformative
  creative online strategies and tools for collecting data, programme supervision, etc.
  interested in promoting decentralization of public employment to a given region; some projects successful, others fail in terms of effecting enduring sustainable change, despite stats that demonstrate success of individual projects
  linking projects on the ground to larger political process
  idea is to enable not only engagement but appropriation of ICTs for benefit of communities
  defining CI as enabling (empowering) ‘communities’ (which may be defined in many different ways) by means of information and communication technologies (ICTs)
  important to broaden and acknowledge base of stakeholders… CI is of equal interest to practitioners, researchers and policy makers
  what CI did (as a field) was to bring practitioners and funders into the equation… one of the foundational tenets of CI
  it is the confluence of funders (or policy makers) + researchers + practitioners that animates the CI arena
  examples of stakeholder interests/camps: 1) communities themselves (the local resources, the things that are there for the long term), 2) governments and private sector (who, aside from the types of resources they provide, also generally provide constraints that make things possible or impossible; and have a regulatory function), and 3) universities and researchers
  the gov’t stakeholders typically offer the “opportunity structures” that can be presented or transposed to community situations and then be performed or enacted by the communities themselves (ideally)
  nb: too many resources can be a bit of a trap; e.g dead-end investments or providing for communities rather than channelling resources effectively into local entrepreneurship
  CI argues for redirecting public funding into effective community-based initiatives; the money is there already and already being spent anyways, therefore this puts no additional strain on the public purse
  researchers remain important part of the CI approach since they are sometimes the ones who can ‘see over the horizon’; therefore researchers as catalysts
  model of ACCESS then ADOPTION then EFFECTIVE USE then APPLICATION then IMPLEMENTATION
  need to add in all elements necessary for effective use and sustainability and for social meaning; not enough to merely provide access
  telecentres represent probably largest ICT operation in world; a lot of technology has been designed around telecentres and around linking telecentres with mobile technology
  defines telecentres basically as computer centres in places that normally would not otherwise have access
  many telecentre programmes exist not only in Asia, Africa, etc. but Europe, UK, South America, as well (for example)
  also PIAPs (Public Internet Access Points)
  telecentres and PIAPs are top-down affairs; are the result of gov’t funding and policy decisions (this sometimes brings problems re sustainability, structural rigidity of programs that have been too narrowly designed, and delimited funding)
  versus the bottom-up aspect of community networks: although these too can have problems around continuity, they are essentially emergent and responsive to local issues in ways that top-down structures cannot be
  also bottom-up systems have social capital
  essence of CI = recognizing balance of relationships between top-down and bottom-up processes
  bottom-up also means mobilization of grassroots initiatives that support digital empowerment; integrating community processes with technology is what CI is all about
  in order to scale for digital transformation and empowerment, need both top-down and bottom-up processes to enable deployment of the funding and policy framework
  relationship between ICTs and mobile technologies begs new issues
  example of K-Net (Canadian remote aboriginal communities) who created own telephone network and maintains control over it since aboriginal communities in Canada have governance authority
  other e.g.’s such as E-Bario, RLabs
  important not to create stand-alone services, which are by definition unsustainable and tend to fail due to being unconnected in an integral way to communities they were meant to serve
  aim is to build effective and efficient service delivery to and within communities
  CI’s real value and power comes from enablement based in local resources and capacities
  only bottom-up community-based strategies work for community ICT success; so focus on community is the key thing
  must not (in the same breath) be overly pre-occupied with the technology per se (even though technology is obviously required for these undertakings)
  idea that networked individualism is essentially politically disempowering for social transformation; social transformation comes from collective/collaborative/organic connections between people
  culture and knowledge about ICTs has become almost universal over the last 15 years
  idea is to take community issues and translate these into broader development programmes and structured interventions
  best solutions and sustainable projects are based in and are dependent upon local resources and local initiatives (and are also able to be somewhat emergent)
  given that in many parts of the world having personal computers is unfeasible, argument is made that telecentres, for example, often become more important as public community spaces than as technological access points
  some efforts to blend cybercafés and public access points; desirability of integrating these into broader development of service delivery programmes
  most exciting current CI trend from an academic point of view has been the legitimization of CI as a disciplinary area in iSchools around the world; acknowledges the practice element of engagement as an essential part of the logical and long-term evolution of development strategies

Interests: Social and policy aspects of information and communication technologies with a focus on gender, youth, and political economy. This talk with focus mostly on backgrounding historical and recent developments in Canadian Internet policy.

Canadian Internet policy – early 1990s. Reference: “Digital economy strategy” in Canada

Universal Access Research. “Social access,” not just technical access a focus

See “the access rainbow” slide – 7 layers from technical access, to digital literacy, to governance

Pub w/ Marita Moll for CCPA. Ex. Seeking Convergence in Policy and Practice

CRACIN, Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking. A series of case studies, urban and rural. Interested in how Canadian ICT programs, under “Connecting Canadians” agenda, succeeded in community access programs. http://Cracin.ca

Affective/emotional component to this study. Concern: What do you do when you are asked to quantify the financial significance of broadband access when you have lots of stories that involve how things may or may not have worked?

Concern: how do you involve community groups/public interest groups when you are also dealing with multiple successive governments with different agendas?

Alt.telecom forum, program set up to look at the issues of municipal broadband networks.

For Sale to the Highest Bidder: Telecom Policy in Canada w/ Marita Moll.

Recent structure of participation in policy issues. A closed door session on changes in policy in the “digital economy.”

March 2010 during Parliamentary budget, Minster Clement announced the “digital economy consultation.” 41 days to participate on the Web. Problem with this participatory model. Vote on your favorite idea! “To Compete you Must Compute” is top idea – high performance computing. It is questionable if this is an effective model. Who decides to participate in this forum? Is it “spurious”?

Digital Economy Consultation Roundtable. Key point: Look at digital economy in a more holistic, socio-cultural way.

CRTC (Canadian FCC equivalent) announced “Consultation on Obligation to Serve.” Key question: Should broadband be considered an essential service? How about mobile?  This is a new thing for CRTC.

Michael Gurstein – this needs to be seen in historical context. Canada has a long tradition of public consultation across the board. All of this has been cut off for these sorts of endeavors.

Leslie – Do we even choose to participate in these forms of consultation? If we don’t, then who does? Problematic issues in structures of participation.

New project. “Young Canadians, Participatory Digital Culture & Policy Literacy.” Age 15-25. Interested in how they are using Internet and mobile phones, their knowledge of digital policy issues. Use this information to create digital toolkit to educate.

See slides on DP Issues – Access/Content/IP and Copyright. Doing focus groups with young people on these issues.

Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Played a large, international role in advocating for peoples’ privacy online, including players like Facebook, etc.

Lisa Feinberg, U of Ottawa law student. Filed a complaint to CIPPIC. “SNS know a lot about us, but we know very little about them.”
http://www.youthprivacy.ca

“Privacy and Social Networks” YouTube video. Search for OPC SOCIAL NETWORKING

Annual contest for high school students to submit creative work based on privacy issues. These videos are on YouTube. Channel: PrivacyComm

Matt McKeon on the evolution of privacy on Facebook. (see slide for website)

Things learned from working in these different environments:

Challenge #1: Structures of participation to policymaking process are difficult to comprehend, alienating, take resources. A “beginner’s guide to intervention” is needed.

Opportunities: We need to be proactive and reactive at the same time when policy opportunities present themselves. Even if the academic research isn’t quite ready for “prime time” it can still be phrased and worked in an effective way.

Challenge #2: Quantifiable evidence is most recognized in policymaking. “Give me the numbers”

Opportunities: Qualitative research adds richness and depth to policy evidence

Caveats: Coordination among different groups; sustained funding; takes emotional labor too. Activist/academic coordinations can be challenging; hard to fund community groups the same way that students are funded to compensate for time. Funding structures are biased toward academics rather than community partners.

Conor: How can we “hack” these funding structures, esp. with new forms of participation?

Challenge #3: craft modes of research dissemination to influence beyond peer-reviewed articles.

Opportunities: We need to frame research how policymakers understand. Working in the mode of the Powerpoint presentation. They don’t like terms like “hegemony,” no citing Foucault.
ISDT 1.0 and 2.0… questions/lessons learned.

Policymaking: how to make it more civically intelligent? A more transparent process? What are the best tools and tactics to orient policymaking towards the public interest? What audiences to reach?
Networked citizenship: what are its elements? Who’s included/excluded? Cultural context? What discourse (citizen vs consumer)

Infrastructures: mobile media, open data, logistics of access

Cautions against tech determinism. Whose digital transformation?

What are the roles of various stakeholders? The state, citizens, advocacy groups, academics?
Document the problem, research the reality, define the opportunity.

Rapporteur: Alexander Cho

Discussion led by Fiorella De Cindio, Associate Professor, Department of Informatics and Communication at the University of Milano in Italy.

Slides from the presentation are available here: http://www.slideshare.net/dmcolab/fiorella-de-cindio-isdt2010

Digital media is changing the world. Digital media is developed by or with the support of the computer professional. However, while the computer professional is educated in computer science, they are weak in the impact of ICTs over society, resulting in missed opportunities and wasted intelligence. Community informatics is attempting to resolve this.
Since 1994, Fiorella has been working at resolving this, as an academic, in Civic Informatics, and as an activist in the Milan Community Network. Throughout her work in both areas, there has been a fundamental, continuous interplay between the two areas. Her research focuses on the design and implementation of social interactive computer systems as well as their deployment in real life settings. Within this framework, she dedicated special attention to promoting civic participation and deliberation at the urban level, and to the development of software tools for supporting them.

What computer scientists are doing to help the people we are discussing in other ISDT talks? 
Computer scientists are designing socio-technical systems for supporting peoples’ needs. These include: social interactive systems and software that enhances civic engagement, e-participation, on-line deliberation, citizen and community empowerment and reconstruction, and citizen consultations.  They have found the best results are achieved in setting up a social interactive system when both public institutions and grassroots movements work together. Some of the most popular web-based applications are modules, discussion boards, blog areas and polls.

Words of Caution: Good technology in itself will not make a community but bad technology can make sure community life will be bad.

The Viola Movement, an example from Firoella’s her own community.
Facebook, although considered individualistic, has worked where political parties failed, in organizing a million protesters. Facebook is an example of a tool being designed for one use, US college students, and being appropriated for another, use by ordinary people. The Viola Movement is experiencing difficulties in surviving because of the limitations of design of Facebook as the chat function does not support the rise of democratic organization. The Viola Movement, as a “we” movement, needs effective public dialogue that is rational, interactive, responsible and fair and the technology should have these characteristics embedded into it.
The ideal platform for productive public dialogue has: i) faces of participants rather than symbols, ii) maps to show location of participants, iii) a safe environment where documents can be stored.
How do you develop these tools? In 1983 participatory design (PD) began and socio tech approach was used which entailed collecting user needs. With PD it is imperative that users be considered as experts. However, this approach is demanding in terms of resources (time and money). It is even more difficult now because of transition from customer systems to web applications and users are often conservative.
There are several approaches to PD (Human Computer Interaction; software engineering and programming communities; market need) and these approaches are moving beyond user participation.
Fiorella’s Project:    Milano Community Network
↓ 10 years of use
The model for new software
                              ↓
1st experimentation (2006), technically a prototype,
however still in use by 1000s of citizens
Web Science
Key Paper: Web Science, An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Web.
Our use of the Web is dependent on fundamental developments in computer science long before the Web was developed.
If one only studies the Web, it cannot explain the success of Wikipedia versus the failure of other sites similar platforms.
The idea of the Web as a social machine is appropriate if one considers interactive Web applications as very early social machines (trout.cpsr.org). Exploring the Web can encourage more citizen participation in the public sphere.
Web Science is the merging of the two paradigms of physical science and computers.
Informatics, New Term for Computer Science
The term computer science should be replaced by the term informatics. Computer science is a formal discipline, whereas, informatics in an empirical science which studies selected aspects of specified classes of phenomena.
There are four aspects of natural science: i) phenomenology, ii) analysis –via underlying theory, iii) need for experimentation-synthesis, construction, technology, iv) multi-perspective reflection.
Informatics takes into account technology, theory and development. The anomalous path led to the wrong identification of the class of phenomenon (computer science). It is not the computer itself that should be used for identification but the impact of the computer on society which is an integral part of the discipline.
Informatics has needs in a number of areas, a proper and wider empirical platforms.
Real life social interactive systems provide opportunities for experimentation:
E-participation, on-line deliberation, theory
(this represents the theoretical framework mode)
+ Design of specific e-participation systems
(this requires experimental designs)
+ Development of specific e-participation systems
= Specific systems running in a real life system
CONCLUSION: Technology is needed to allow user communities to construct, share and adapt social machines so successful models evolve through trial use and refinement.

Monday, 26 July 

9:00 Leslie Regan Shade - Alex Cho
16:00 Tanya Notley
18:00 Marlon Parker

Tuesday, 27 July

9:00   Michael Gurstein
16:00 Fiorella De Cindio
18:00 Ming-Chun Lee
 
Wednesday, 28 July 
 
9:00 Eric Gunderson 
11:00 Ademar Aguiar
 
Thursday, 29 July 
 
9:00 Laura Stein
16:00 Daniela SilvaPedro Markun
18:00 Karin Wilkins

Friday, 30 July 

9:00 Very Special Mystery Guest!

Tanya Notley
(Tactical Technology Collective)
http://www.tacticaltech.org/

Turning Information Into Action

Tactical tech is an international NGO helping human rights advocates use information, communications and digital technologies to maximise the impact of their advocacy work. They provide advocates with guides, tools, training and consultancy to help them develop the skills and tactics they need to increase the impact of their campaigning. Tanya explained the way their work focuses on three areas they think is critical for rights advocates wanting to use information and digital technology to advance their cause. These three areas are: 1) ACT (Supporting advocates to make strategic choices and effectively employ the use of digital tools to turn information into action); 2) PROTECT (Raising awareness about digital security risks and providing the tools/skills to help advocates address risks) and; 3) REVEAL (using visualisation tools as way to present information to engage wider audiences).

1) The collective’s aim is to help human rights advocates and to develop supporting digital tools. (The presentation was divided into two parts with the second one incorporating a discussion and a spectrogram discussion exercise around privacy, security and digital technology issues.)

•  View of short animation movie presenting Tactical Technology Collective: ‘How do we use information to create change?’
o   Work with advocates: strategic use of tools and make of efficient exposure of information.
o   Targeted advocacy + really good data.
o   The right packaging.
o   Evidence-based campaigning that works.
o   Create‘Toolkits and Guides’ in collaboration with rights advocates, designers and technologists
o   Participatory development of toolkits and guides involves a process of
- Research – Listen
- Consult – Collaborate
- Create – Distribute
- Evaluate – Reflect
o   Attempt to develop material that is right for a specific audience.
o   Organize large events that bring rights advocate/technologists and designers together so they can share skills and work collaboratively
o   Work on projects/grassroots work.

1) ACT PROGRAAME
→ Realistic about the use of technology – critical and reflective about the tools before creating a strategy; as a tool might not be appropriate/useful in different contexts.
On eexample of work in this programme is, Film: ’10 Tactics for Turning Information into Action’ (see http://www.informationactivism.org/)
 
  - 20000+ absolute unique site visitors from 174 countries;
  - More than 30000 plays of videos online;
  - Film has subtitles in 22 languages and cards in 9 languages. Uses creative commons to support people to remix and reuse content.

2.2) PROTECT

- Focused on Attention/ Awareness/ Ability around digital security
- Helping advocates using digital technologies safely.
- Which is safer to use: Gmail or Yahoo! Mail? Gmail! Explains HTTPS versus HTTP (which gmail supports and yahoo does not and this encrypts your email). Explains these are some of the simple steps advocates can take to protect their communications.
- A new trailer for a series of animations is played that aim to raise awareness around digital security issues, featuring a robot called ONO.

2.3) REVEAL

-Visualizing information:
  - Not all visualization has to relate back to numbers, for example: Women Genital Mutilation (Amnesty International).

3) Over the last six months, the Collective has been working with ‘Anti-Slavery’:
  - Playing with data: to produce a campaign’s poster on products of slavery;
  - Working now on an Interactive Website:
      - Depth – specific info on countries & industries.
This work is one example of many collaborations they are working on around visualising information.

The discussion concludes with a Spectogram where all participants are engaged in a discussion based around how much they agree/disagree with the following statements:

1. “Good researchers need to value objectivity more than they value activism in their work”
2. “You should always be able to keep your information private”
3. “Technology radically changes activism and advocacy”
4. “The internet is a more powerful force for change than religion”.
5. “I don’t need digital security because I’m not doing anything wrong.”

‘Tools and strategies for data collection & visualization’

Eric started by sharing some of his personal background and explained how his studies and interests first took him to Peru in 2003. Fujimore had just been ousted and the political climate was changing, while internet access was also increasing. He took open source tools being used by Howard Dean (‘Drupal powered Dean Space’) in US and introduced these to NGOs in Peru to see how they could be utilised in micro-finance. It was this experience that led him to co-found Development Seed (http://developmentseed.org/). [Eric has a master’s degree in International Development and has dual bachelor’s degrees in Economics and International Relations.]

Today though he said he’d talk about large datasets to allow for a discussion on challenges researchers in room facing with this. He also wanted to discuss the value of open data.

At Development Seed they use open source tools, particularly Drupal (http://drupal.org/), a Content Management System. They work with government bodies, international institutions and large NGOs and they build websites (closed and open); most of these sites include a map which uses open data to visualise information.

What is Open Data?
July 4, 1966. Freedom of Information Request law first signed by Lyndon Johnson. In many ways this lay the foundation for a more open government in the US context and also for open data. [for more detailed explanation see: http://bit.ly/9X6EB5]

More recently DC dataset took things further when they provided all kinds of datasets on a website to the public. They launched a Competition ‘Apps for Democracy’ and announced ‘we are giving you some sets of data’ and you have 30 days to build a tool that uses this data.

This was an experiment to see what would happen and it went against the dominant practices at the time where this kind of data was not made really accessible. Perhaps some of it was available in different places, or you could access it with a FOI request, but it wasn’t made available in a usable format in the one place.

So what happened?

Some people built a map that was a carpool finder, another built a a parking meter finder. Eric worked on the mapping of bike routes, shops and bike theft along the roads. (http://outsideindc.com/bikes). They also built a more light-hearted ‘stumble safety’ where they mapped all the bars around their office. You can filter events based on time you are drinking and you can then find out thefts and other crime which appear around the bars. Stumblesafely.com

But actually there was an unexpected result of doing this mapping. Some time later someone told them ‘you know the cops really love your site’. They had started using this map to see where and when they would patrol, which makes sense. But the way people might use your data is not always unproblematic. In another example the police changed the way they reported things because they knew how this data was being used.

So by opening up this data, the city benefited by putting this info out there and allowing people to do something with it.

Eric believed that when governments open up data this supports innovation within the private sector and supports the government because people use their data in ways that can be helpful, useful.

Nov 19th 2009
Karzai is sworn in as President in Afghanistan. The govt bodies working on election monitoring opened up data about votes (but he says sadly in PDF format). So number of datasets were available: master polling centre list (where they are and for what districts); Premium results; The ECC complaint data. So there were three open data sets. Development Seed were employed by National Democratic Institute (http://www.ndi.org/) to map this data so they could understand voting patterns better. The particular aim was to locate and visualise voting irregularities from the elections. Initially they made this as private site, but showing partners. Later they made public. http://afghanistanelectiondata.org/data. (technical walk though here: http://developmentseed.org/blog/2009/dec/17/opening-afghanistans-election-data-open-source-data-browser)

[Note from Eric: Adobe PDF not a good way to open up data! Need crazy scraping tools to use data embedded in a pdf!]

Development Seed started by ‘Geocoding’ the voting open data they had. Then they mapped this data so people could filter the information by location, ethnicity and voting patterns. People can export datasets for their own use as well from the site.

The site was built with tools they have developed over time (Drupal + Managing News) but generally for a project like this you can say it will cost around $100,000USD for customisation. While the tools they develop are open source, organisations pay for their add on services, expertise and customisation.

What happened?
Created snow maps of country, using radar and satellite imagery from NASA and US military: Some specific blog posts go into details on how to make maps like this: 

Terrain Mapping in Afghanistan: Summer in Kabul
http://developmentseed.org/blog/2009/nov/02/summer-kabul

Snow Cover Hillshade Maps: Winter in Afghanistan
http://developmentseed.org/blog/2009/nov/05/snow-cover-hillshade-maps-winter-afghanistan

While this was useful, it’s also useful to consider what happens when you allow people to add data on the places they live. This is the value of Open Street Maps. “the OSM community is huge and growing” [watch this video showing OSM edits made in 2008:http://vimeo.com/2598878]

Eric mentions that the founder of OSM just got series B $12.5 billion funding for CloudMade, which adds value on top of OSM. So this shows it’s also possible to build services around the OSM data. www.cloudmade.com/press/2010/07/27/cloudmade-raises-12-3-million-in-series-b-funding/

Last spring over 141,000 miles of new mapping data was contributed to OSM from an organisation called Africover (FAO).

More examples:
Layers in OSM of Haiti [http://haiti.openstreetmap.nl/]
US Geological Study (GS) showing earthquake intensity.

In Haiti, good maps did not exist when the earthquake struck earlier this year. This is one sign of the lack of stable infrastructure which in the end led to so many deaths when the earthquake hit.

At Open Street Maps parties people sit round and trace satellite imagery. [to watch how to do this: http://vimeo.com/3365503]

So after Haiti and the base layer maps were created, people started adding collapsed buildings which was info being collected by various people on the ground. Here is more on Open Street Mpas in Haiti:

What’s Next for the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team:
http://developmentseed.org/blog/2010/jul/15/whats-next-humanitarian-openstreetmap-team

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Report from Haiti: Week 2:
http://developmentseed.org/blog/2010/apr/07/humanitarian-openstreetmap-team-report-haiti-week-2

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Report from Haiti:
http://developmentseed.org/blog/2010/mar/30/humanitarian-openstreetmap-team-report-haiti

Speeding up OpenStreetMap-based Map Development with OSM Bright Template:
http://developmentseed.org/blog/2010/mar/23/speeding-openstreetmap-based-map-development-osm-bright-template

‘Flexible Data Workflow’
Development Seed came to work with an NGO (Interaction) to add value to the Haiti OSMs to show things like a ‘who is working where map.’

Haiti: Mapping Who is Working on What, Where:
http://developmentseed.org/blog/2010/jul/21/haiti-mapping-who-working-what-where

Post-Earthquake Map Tiles for Haiti:
http://developmentseed.org/blog/2010/jan/29/post-earthquake-map-tiles-haiti

Why do people, including for profit groups and government open up data?
There are a number of Incentives to do so:
1.cost saving…things might happen with your data that are useful and you don’t have to pay for this. So you are fostering innovation without really doing much.
2.contributing to knowledge…by making the data open you are effectively stopping ‘recreate the wheel’ problem where people have to start from scratch to collect the same data. By opening it up you are also allowing people to collectivise knowledge including local knowledge. They add meaning to the data when they look at it and use it in new ways.

Questions:
1. What about balance between privacy, surveillance and transparency and also between social good and commercial values? For example, I don’t want my house online, or to appear to the public sitting on my balcony on Google Maps. All this openness can be used for corporate interests as well and where do I have a say in that?

Yes private sites use this open data and sometimes also make their own closed, private, even problematic maps. Yes it’s political, maps are inherently political. What exists on a map and what does not is political. Why is voting data not available for Sudan? There is a vested interest in not releasing data as well. We need to scrutinise this, yes.

2.There is an example of a dataset of diseases and at some point someone created a map around that. Then they started to work with community groups who had experience with working with environmental diseases and they started defining the units of analysis and started doing mapping. They took this info and it became part of a political campaign that lobbied against polluters. So it’s not just the mapping and tools but the process of enabling effective use that will change adverse conditions affecting peoples lives.

Yes. How can you take data and tell complex stories. Open Layers tools allow that to happen, allow people to say ‘hey it’s interesting to look at the data with this perspective because it tells a different story’. Anyone can take open maps tiles to tell other stories. Open standards, open layers, open data allow people to do this. I think we’ll see a lot of changes in next 18 months of exactly this happening. It’s really developing.

Statement: For those of us doing mapping work at community level, one thing that would be useful is business cases for moving from PDF to open data formats. You get a lot of friction for asking people to change and move away from this format. I think people need to be convinced.

Question: What is Cloud Made?

Company run by founder of Open Street Maps www.cloudmade.com
In the past you saw private data mining companies buy datasets from govt and package it for different audiences. Now going to see different approach emerging because there are business models that can be built around open data as well.

A different kind of example is the Open Seeds ‘managing news’ software which is a news aggregator. It pulls together news sources based on the search terms you specify and it maps them. People using this are groups like human rights watch and Al-Jazeera who use it to manage news when certain events happen and they need to track and follow how and where this is being reported to be up-to-date.

www.managingnews.com. 

Customizing Maps and Geo Data in Managing News :
http://developmentseed.org/blog/2010/feb/19/customizing-maps-and-geo-data-managing-news

Managing News Beta 9 Released:
http://developmentseed.org/blog/2010/apr/12/managing-news-beta-9-released

Still govts needs to be convinced of the value of opening up data. 10 years ago they were paid very well for selling data they collected from us. And you could say fair enough because it paid for the cost associated with collecting this data. But now think those kinds of data mining companies will not become irrelevant but they will change tactic, work in different ways. After all the need for services around the data will grow not cease to exist: insurance companies will still want to buy data about x, y and z and these companies can still provide that with open data.

“ISDT personal map tiles 2010” 

-or-

The Porto’s secret code

-or-

the Digital Paramedic

-or-

I <3 Porto, a Platonic SMS novel

...

It was a hot summer day in Porto. The sun beat down on the Reitoria. Even the old dudes on the wall were sweating. All we could think about was the ice cold Super Bocks waiting for us at the end of the day.

The Sun was so strong the farmacia notice said 41 C is that possible?  Can the virtual patient be resurrected so that we can practice how to treat sunstroke?

Ricardo Cruz

Regardless of the extreme hot temperatures, the minds of the participants at ISDT remained attentive and responsive. They had to assimilate all the amount of important and significant information that so many interesting people were giving.

For those who went to LCD, what an amazing experience it was… But that was not the only significant experience that night… Ask the Brazilian folks about the special place near the hotel where to eat a truly unique hamburger with absolutely tasty, salty and delicious French fries, and an incredible ice-cream for dessert.

Tiago Videira

The hotel room is fresh and cozy. The seagulls provide an endless symphony in sea minor, their sound coming from the roof tops nearby, brought by the almost inexistent summer breeze.

Through the night I experience melancholy and loneliness by the bar as occasional people pass by indifferent to my presence. 

During daylight the walks to Reitoria equate sipping steak trough a straw: you make a hell of an effort, your face turns red, and in the end you get nothing to feed your drained soul - hot, hot, hot. sigh.

Carina Lopes

The unlikely high temperatures being felt this week in Porto seem to have become central in this year’s ISDT. Our moods, decisions, moves or even drinking patterns are referred back and forward to the uncomfortable heat or lack of breeze.

Eduardo Morais

Regardless of the heat, the dry air and the smoke, our sore throats, we talk about the weather, the sports, technology and love. Gin & tonic, a couple of wine glasses later, our English is fearless.
Once the room went quiet with singing, threads resuming as soon as possible.

ruth grossman:

she did a few flapjacks (or maybe it´s jumping jacks) outside her room to get the lights to go on.  she could smell the smoke (of course she could smell the smoke) like everyone else.  they said it had been especially and unusually hot.  it was a mystery.  and we were in it together.  we were, after all, a collective, speaking (ultimately) in a single voice, united in perspiration.  our alter egos beside us, prepared and ready.  she wondered what else we might some day do as a collective.  and she took pleasure in the peculiar and potent status of this comfortable incomplete construction (i mean, aside from being in a protracted and possibly permanent state of ´molhados´).  and then there was karaoke…

pedro markun:

...and zombies…

sheila moore:

…a collective created from shared experience and each person’s own history of shared experiences.  The presentations, the discussions, the workshops, lunches and dinners, the smoke, the heat, the wine, the conversations, the laughter (and one must include the man in the park who was…) have contributed to something unique…

antónio maneira:
... something new. New connections are the best ones. You can do every thing with them. People may be marrying after isdt. We share more in a week than in a hole year as we belive in the power and inspiration of this new digital world of connected people.

porto is a place of beginnings and connections it was a wonderful week, seeing the birth-place of henry the navigator, the birth place of the revolt against Napolean and the birth place of porto-gaia.  Thank you for the wonderful community - perhaps next year in porto?

 
book for community empowermentEducation for critical consciousness Paulo Freire brazilian read in google books for free

Update Economic sytems for development will be over lunch on Friday at 12:00 Can we meet in the conference hall and perhaps go to lunch nearby? julia

Digital Policy Literacy Tuesday Lunch
Leslie Shade
Sheila Moore
Andres Lombana

Locative Media & Mobile Technologies Tuesday 14:30 16:00 (new time!) @ Galeria de Paris Reitoria
Olaf
Alex
Vanda
Dana
Andres
Ed. Morais
Sheila

Community Informatics Tuesday Afternoon, TBD
Mike Gurstein
Marlon Parker
Julia Willis
Mónica Mendes
Tiago Rocha
Ming-Chun Lee

LCD Hackerspace Visit Tuesday after dinner
Mónica Mendes
Al
Eduardo Marques
Ricardo Cruz
Andres Lombana
António Maneira
Chris McConnell

Mapping Tools Wednesday. From lunch onwards
Andres Lombana
Alex Cho
Carina Sofia Lopes
Daniela da Silva
Pedro Markun
Mónica Mendes
Olaf Veerman
Eric Gunderson

Social Interactive Systems Wednesday 12:30
Mónica Mendes
Carina Sofia Lopes
Mihp
Fiorella De Cindio
Tiago Assis
Eduardo Marques
Antonio Maneira
Ademar Aguilar
Al
Vanda
Tiago Rocha
Ed. Morais

Mixed Methods research evaluation Thursday, 16.00
Julia Wills
Ricardo Cruz

QUEER Thursday, 3pm (Time changed) - downstairs meeting room
(begins with a 10-minute lowdown on the basics of queer theory and how it applies to the Internet)
Alex Cho
Al
Dana

Community-driven Innovation and Sustainable Models Thursday, 14.00 @hotel
Marlon
Gustavo
Afonso
Tiago

Economic Systems and Development Friday, 11:30
Sheila
Olaf
Gustavo
Al julia

Our Utopian Manifesto! Friday 1:30 pm
Alex Cho
Carina
Mike
Mónica Mendes
julia wills

Pre-conference organization…

Assesment of Campaigns and Projects (was measurement of community empowerment outcomes)
Julia Willis
Olaf Veerman
Sheila Moore
Ricardo Cruz
Summer Harlow
IS THERE A TIME ANYONE CAN SUGGEST FOR A BAR CHAT?

Campaigning and Creative Thinking
(suggested facilitation by Tanya Notley)
Afonso O’Neill
Tiago Videira
Luís Frias
Sheila Moore
Eduardo Marques
Vanda Correia
Carina Lopes
Ademar Aguiar
Eduardo Morais
[materials needed: flip-chart paper/cardboard, coloured markers, big black/silver tape, internet connectivity]

Creative Commons and Copyright
Tiago Videira
Luís Frias
Andres Lombana
Tiago Assis

Education
Ricardo Cruz
Ademar Aguiar
Tiago Assis
Eduardo Morais

Free Software for non-Geeks

Fun Theory
Tiago Videira

Mapping Tools : affinity session : wednesday 13:00 (tentative)
Andres Lombana
Leslie Shade
Luís Frias
Eduardo Marques
Tanya Notley
Pedro Markun
Alex Cho
Carina Lopes

Developing a media strategy for advocacy affinity session : thursday 11:30
(suggested facilitation by Tanya Notley)
Andres Lombana
Afonso O’Neill
Sheila Moore
Summer Harlow
Carina Lopes
[materials needed: flip-chart paper/cardboard, coloured markers, internet connectivity]

mobile technology for economic opportunity
Julia Willis
Olaf Veerman

Open Data
Julia Willis
Olaf Veerman
Sheila Moore
Pedro Markun
Eduardo Morais
Eduardo Marques

participatory design strategies
Luís Frias
Sheila Moore
ruth grossman
Tanya Notley
Vanda Correia
Carina Lopes
Ademar Aguiar
Tiago Assis
Eduardo Marques
Fiorella de Cindio

Collective Narrative tools :: affinity session : monday 12:30 @ reitoria
(suggested by Luís Frias)
ruth grossman (this is one way of thinking about shared curatorship)
Summer Harlow
Tanya Notley
Alex Cho
Andres Lombana
Carina Lopes
Ademar Aguiar
Eduardo Morais
Eduardo Marques
Fiorella de Cindio

The Repository (representation, authenticity, trust)
ruth grossman
Alex Cho

Utopia, democracy, digitality
Alex Cho
Tiago Assis
Fiorella de Cindio