How to get open data into the hands of activists
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The document discusses how open data can be used by activists to raise awareness of social issues and exert pressure for change. It argues that digital activists need tools to easily discover facts by composing and analyzing multiple open data sets. Specifically, they need tools that allow frictionless sharing of data, ability to mix different data sets, and location independence of where data is stored. It also argues that social activists need ways to effectively distribute knowledge to reach people and receive feedback to move them to action. Overall, the document advocates for open data and tools that lower the costs of participation, discovery, and sharing of data to spread common knowledge that can empower activists.
How to get open data into the hands of activists
- 1. HOW TO GET OPEN DATA IN THE HANDS OF ACTIVISTS Aslam Khan @aslamkhn
- 2. Open Data Activism Aslam Khan / @aslamkhn
- 3. 1977 School Protest 8y 1985 State of Emergency 16 Detention without trial 1986 17 1988 19 Worker & Student Pressure 1993 Brink of Civil War 23 Activist by default if you lived on the receiving end of apartheid in South Africa
- 4. 1969 23 years 1992 22born Would data have been valuable to me - in both eras? 21 years now 2013 I want to believe so but I'm not sure
- 5. This is Cape Town, South Africa Khayelitsha
- 6. This is Khayelitsha, Cape Town It means New Home in isiXhosa
- 9. chemical toilet ditto ditto There is (almost) no bulk sewage
- 10. source: ewn.co.za People protested using the most shocking means imaginable
- 11. More Importantly... Why did nearly 4 million residents of Cape Town not know about this issue? How wide spread is this problem? Why did we let this degrade into a battle for political points?
- 12. because it was just noisy people (perception!)
- 13. Khayelitsha 29 sq.km 400,00 people Look at the data behind the protest This touches the mind first, then the heart (a little) all figures are approximate 13.7k people/sq.km 2000 people share eleven flush toilets Everyone in Denmark will live into about 400 sq.km not 43k sq.km
- 14. Durbanville 27 sq.km 55,000 people 2,000 people/sq.km 1 flush toilet per house 4 people per flush toilet Khayelitsha 29 sq.km 400,00 people 13.7k people/sq.km 180 people per flush toilet 25km Facts stick when it touches hearts make it concrete and tangible so that it appeals to everyone, not just the disenfranchised On average, Khayelitsha toilets are used every 8 minutes so that each person can use a flush toilet once a day
- 15. Wikipedia Report of the Khayelitsha 'Mshengu' Toilet Social Audit Open Data for Africa Statistics South Africa Where did I find these facts? There is data available, but it is scattered, and not all open data various news web sites
- 16. What would we do differently if we had access to data?
- 17. Offering data to social activists has little value We need to distill data into facts that are simple, precise and easily understood that appeals to hearts and minds
- 18. common knowledge Social activists need to share we need tools to access discoveries and distribute widely open data Digital activists need to discover we need tools to discover facts in data and publish discoveries freedom to distributefreedom to discover
- 19. open data freedom to discover frictionless sharing of data sets ability to "mix-in" and explore varied data sets location independence of data sets What tools do digital activists need? Digital activists do not need campaign tools
- 20. software freedoms freedom to execute and modify freedom to distribute freedom to share changes Pre-requisites Normally codified in licenses data freedoms free to access, reuse, redistribute available as a whole machine readable
- 21. open data freedom to discover frictionless sharing of data sets ability to "mix-in" and explore varied data sets location independence of data sets What tools do digital activists need? Digital activists do not need campaign tools
- 22. Frictionless Data Sharing open datastandards based Lowest common denominator standards allow for richly adorned data sets simplest machine readable formats are anemic The constraint is meta data Must provide metadata early When/How do we get metadata?
- 24. Can we compare poverty between countries? Why metadata is the biggest constraint mostly because of changes in context and time US Census Bureau UNESCO World Bank WHO multiple definitions of poverty threshold South Africa adjustment for Sub-Sahara and medium income economies povertymetadata
- 25. poverty Can we compare poverty between countries? No metadata, No analysis metadata It's difficult to compare because the metadata is different for each country BUT without metadata it is impossible
- 26. HIGH barrier to get in HIGH cost of conformance The problem with a strict standard format The problem with any standard is that compliance is a choice But the cost of metadata remains, regardless of compliance
- 27. Frictionless Data Sharing I doubt we can ever remove the cost of metadata completely open data simplest extensible format for metadata simplest machine readable format for data Open Knowledge Foundation's Data Package Standard is a step in the right direction http://data.okfn.org/standards/data-package JSON for metadata + CSV for tabular data
- 28. open data freedom to discover frictionless sharing of data sets ability to "mix-in" and explore varied data sets location independence of data sets What tools do digital activists need? Digital activists do not need campaign tools
- 29. Why do we need data exploration tools? LOW barrier to get in Cost of computation (analysis) What is the effort to get knowledge out? constraint shifts (frictionless data sharing)
- 30. Why do we need to compose data sets? because that is where the interesting and relevant facts lurk When is per capita income interesting? Correlation between infant mortality and per capita income? … between parent to child HIV infections and per capita income? Digital activists are in the business of data science - not campaigning
- 31. What do we need for discovering facts? Split into individual columns and compose columns ad-lib treat every column as a data set & Find all other occurrences of a single value remove all duplications in every column and join on “value” then look for trends if we make the above easy then the cost is mental effort I DON’T KNOW Set-based? Graph-based? something else? how?!?
- 32. Is there such a data discovery tool? QlikView fails freedom pre-requisites http://www.qlikview.com/
- 33. open data freedom to discover frictionless sharing of data sets ability to "mix-in" and explore varied data sets location independence of data sets What tools do digital activists need? Digital activists do not need campaign tools
- 34. “Peer-to-peer software, if we could make it work, would seem to give the best of both worlds: the freedom to modify how a program functions on our local computers as well as the ability to share and collaborate with others across the Internet. Why do we need location independence? for the same reason that bit torrent is popular -- Aaron Swartz A Programable Web: An Unfinished Work http://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/abs/10.2200/S00481ED1V01Y201302WBE005
- 35. The attraction of peer to peer but I think we need a more research to make this work we get location independence for free the publisher is relieved of the burden to share distribution is the responsibility of those that want it
- 36. To turn Open Data into Common Knowledge so that we can spend our effort almost exclusively on the mental (analysis) battle simple data format extensible meta data format lower the cost of participation compose into new data sets compute power to discover lower the cost of discovery peer to peer distribution lower the cost of sharing
- 37. common knowledge freedom to distribute knowledge close at hand ability to reach people ability to receive feedback What tools do social activists need? Social activists also need tools for campaigning
- 38. Reminder this applies regardless of scale - from few to thousands to millions of people activism is a call for a gathering of people to exert pressure for (social, political, environmental, economic) change
- 39. Most commonly... to stop exploitation to alleviate under-development under-development is the result of unfair agreements for access to resources (in other words)
- 40. Activism is an effort to ... …establish new relationships. A balancing via fair and equal agreements
- 41. common knowledge freedom to distribute knowledge close at hand ability to reach people ability to receive feedback What tools do social activists need? Social activists also need tools for campaigning
- 42. federated wikis is an interesting development How can we make knowledge accessible? overlaps with location independence for digital activists https://github.com/WardCunningham/Smallest-Federated-Wiki Wiki is centralised with many editors Federated wiki belongs to a single person Sharing is achieved between wikis
- 43. common knowledge freedom to distribute knowledge close at hand ability to reach people ability to receive feedback What tools do social activists need? Social activists also need tools for campaigning
- 44. How can we reach people? this is not about about twitter and social media Awareness is the first stage of involvement for activists NOT shotgun marketing Very specific and targeted messages It can be private too! lots of marketing strategy involved
- 45. common knowledge freedom to distribute knowledge close at hand ability to reach people ability to receive feedback What tools do social activists need? Social activists also need tools for campaigning
- 46. How can we receive feedback? this starts overlapping with campaign tools quite quickly The channel you reach out is not necessarily the channel for feedback about shifting people through various stages from being aware to organiser
- 47. Open Data is NOT the end game it is just a pre-requisite for us to carve out new social relationships frictionless data sets makes it easier to to compose new data sets at will discover new facts so that we can that can be shared independent of where it is located can distribute it so that social activists it becomes common knowledge and eventually
- 48. fight against corruption How much is being siphoned off? What is the money trail? At what cost to our people? call for economic boycott Why must we sacrifice for freedom? What pressure will our sacrifice have on the ruling white minority? Common knowledge is valuable It is valuable to any person that values living together 1992
- 49. How soon before Open Data is used for exploitation instead of good? Ideologically speaking... This is important in the bigger picture of digital activism What are the consequences if we consider data as a “natural” resource? In the internet of things privacy is the next freedom.
- 50. “Magic machine cannot match Human being human being African idea -- make the future clear They are the scatterlings of Africa Each uprooted one On the road to Phelamanga Beneath the copper sun And for the scatterlings of Africa The journey has begun -- Johnny Clegg Scatterlings of Africa * *The place at the end of lies. It is the place beyond our imagination where ultimate truth prevails.
- 51. Common Knowledge Activism Aslam Khan / @aslamkhn