[Op-Ed] Bill Gates's Database of Global Citizens Will Not Be "Moneyball" for Activism
BY David Karpf | Monday, January 26 2015
The World’s Richest Person has ideas for how to revolutionize social activism...as far as I can tell, it involves underpants gnomes.
Read MoreCivic Tech and Engagement: How NationBuilder Helps Organizations Recruit and Mobilize
BY Eilis O'Neill | Tuesday, January 13 2015
NationBuilder officially launched in 2011, and, since then, it has grown from a start-up to a company that employs 70 people and from a beta platform to one used by over 1,000 organizations—from civic activists to gelato shops—to find new members, track their involvement, and then encourage them to meet in person. In 2014, NationBuilder’s customers used the platform to raise over $200 million and to recruit nearly 900,000 new volunteers.
Read MoreAn Ushahidi-Powered Platform Shows "Free" Healthcare In India Comes With Hidden Costs
BY Jessica McKenzie | Wednesday, June 18 2014
Two and a half years after a pilot program called Mera Swasthya Meri Aawaz (My Health, My Voice) was launched to record and document the informal fees that plague India's “free” maternal health services in Uttar Pradesh, hundreds of reports have been collected and mapped. The Indian human rights organization Sahayog, which helped launched the initiative, tells techPresident that around 40 public health facilities in two Uttar Pradesh districts have been connected to informal fees, a kind of low-level corruption.
Read MoreNear 3-Year Mark, Open Government Partnership Success Still Unclear
BY Jessica McKenzie | Thursday, May 29 2014
In a blog post earlier this week, Martin Tisne called the progress made by the Open Government Partnership “one of the best returns on investments we've had.” Bold words from the man who helped found the Open Government Partnership in 2011, and who now works as the Director of Policy for the Omidyar Network's Government Transparency initiative, which committed US$1,480,000 to the initiative in 2012.
Read MoreWhere the White House "Big Data" Report Falls Short
BY Jessica McKenzie | Tuesday, May 6 2014
The White House released its report on big data Friday to general approval from civil rights advocates for its acknowledgement of the dangers of discrimination through new ways of manipulating, combining and analyzing personal data. However, a number of concerns remain: that the report was too starry-eyed about big data; that the report gave preference to industry stakeholders rather than citizen consumers; and that its policy recommendations were not forceful enough.
Read MoreMexican Politicians "Cave" to Internet Activists, But Was It A Ruse?
BY Jessica McKenzie | Friday, May 2 2014
Last week activists in Mexico drew the world's attention to a bill proposed by President Enrique Peña Nieto that would do away with net neutrality and user privacy measures, among other changes. The protest hashtag #EPNvsInternet (Enrique Peña Nieto vs the Internet) drew nearly a million tweets and became a global trending topic. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets to protest the bill on April 22 in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey. The media reported that Mexico's governing party immediately backed away from the proposed legislation, with promises to change the problematic clauses before the vote, which has been postponed until June. However, activists behind #EPNvsInternet worry that the party will try to pass the bill with little to no changes during the Football World Cup, when the attention of their citizens is elsewhere.
Read MoreHow Does Lebanese Censorship Stack Up Against Chinese, Iranian and Russian?
BY Jessica McKenzie | Wednesday, March 12 2014
Since 2011 the NGO March Lebanon has been curating examples of censorship in Lebanon in a Virtual Museum of Censorship.
Read MoreA Burgeoning Hacker Culture in Haiti
BY Jessica McKenzie | Thursday, January 23 2014
Haiti's first hackathon ever took place only one year ago, in February 2013, but since then students at the Ecole Supérieure d'Infotronique d'Haiti (ESIH) have held two more hacking events and are even now forming a coding club called Enjoy.code. More than 100 students have applied to be a part of the new club. In an interview with techPresident, the Directeur Général of ESIH Patrick Attie talked about the burgeoning hacker culture in his school.
Read MoreWhy Did "I Paid A Bribe" Fail In China? It's More Complicated Than You Think
BY Jessica McKenzie | Wednesday, January 8 2014
A paper by Yuen Yuen Ang, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, explains“Why 'I-Paid-A-Bribe' Worked in India but Failed in China.”
Read MoreNonprofits Should Share Their Data, Too
BY David Eaves | Thursday, January 24 2013
Whenever I'm at a hackathon — or any discussion about open data, really — I'm always disappointed to see that there are few people there from the non-profit sector. Obviously this is a sector with limited resources and capacity, but not without a history of effective open data use. For example, some nonprofits — particularly those that provide housing for the elderly, or engage in advocacy around homelessness — are big consumers of census data as it helps them either plan or spot longer term trends that impact their core issues. Such analysis can help ensure scarce resources are allocated more effectively, enhancing the organization's impact. But there's more that nonprofits could be doing. Rather than just use data others create, shouldn't more nonprofits be sharing their data for like-minded organizations to re-use? Read More