How can we get to the next 1 million people for digital response? Digital Response or Digital Humanitarians self-organize in teams to use their digital skills for many topics from refugee support to disaster response to environmental protection.
By Heather Leson, Qatar Computing Research Institute. Presented at Crowdsourcing Week Global 2016. Learn more and join the next event: www.crowdsourcingweek.com
Over 15, 000 individuals participated in the digital response to the Nepal Earthquake. For the past 6 years, I’ve met and collaborated with many types of digital responders. There are some core skills that people use/learn which could make for smarter cities and be step ladders to true engagement and implementation around the SDGs. Research into other digital communities actually flips the map - OpenStreetMap - Ebola response had far more contributors from the continent of Africa. (Martin Dittus) If every hub and lab had a digital humanitarian/digital responder team, how would this help our cities, countries, regions and world? (Graphic from Qatar Computing Research Institute, MicroMappers for the Nepal Earthquake April 2016)
When the SDGs were announced, there was a project called “the World’s Largest lesson”. The 17 global goals are big mandates in each of the areas. Around the world, organizations and individuals are aligning and planning implementation to meet these goals by 2030. Each of these will take all the brightest minds, especially you. Give 2 UNDP examples. What if we build digital lesson plans to help people build crowdsourcing projects? Many smart people are working on programmes, tactics and plans aimed at the targets and indicators. We collectively can help.
QCRI is interested in social computing and social innovation research, software and programmes. On the left you see how we used pybossa (microtasking software) to ‘human compute’ (curate data during the Typhoon.) On the right, you see a layered map of our Urban Informatics team using social media data to consider traffic issues in Doha. How can we use these layers of social /citizen data to improve our cities. (Credit: Software from Qatar Computing Research Institute)
Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team works on humanitarian response and economic development projects. These two projects show how people can build programmes local and global to really make a difference. HOT uses tools like field papers, satellite imagery, and HOT taks manager (photos by Kathamandu Living Labs and Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team ccby)
https://hotosm.org/projects/mapping_financial_inclusion_in_uganda
http://www.kathmandulivinglabs.org/project/details/quakemap-org
http://www.kathmandulivinglabs.org/project/details/mapping-and-opening-data-for-local-governance-and-citizen-engagement
Allies at Mozilla Foundation aim to “teach the web”. Their framework is complimentary. https://teach.mozilla.org/web-literacy My goal with these is to demonstrate the type of skills that Digital Humanitarians or Digital Responders use. There are many organizations, partnerships, networks and individuals. Many of these skills you see in programmes and projects. How does anyone even start to learn. Where is the ‘introduction course? Some of these core skills have manuals and whole communities around. We could keep recruiting and training. But how can we scale this in a sustainable way. Many of the groups are stretched. UN OCHA recently released the a ‘Guidance for building a local Digital Responders Network’ http://blog.veritythink.com/post/140679788344/you-can-do-it-too-guidance-for-developing-a-local
A few years ago I wrote this quick guide which I often share with Community Managers. We need to build by the types of skills people are interested and timebase it. Example: Hey you have 30 minutes and want to help inform your city planners on park life, here are some small tasks you can digital contribute. The organizations that need a hand could task up. There the key components to grow these crowdsourcing communities, but there are some gaps to be considered.
https://infogr.am/build-your-community
For the past year, I’ve working with local groups - Qatar Red Crescent and Reach out to Asia. This deep learning exercise is informing some of the work needed. Qatar Red Crescent has been co-hosting digital training classes. Rota invited me to run a test workshop with UNDP on how to potential apply these digital skills to the SDGs. Local language, customs and knowledge are key to actually building a good project
https://www.joncamfield.com/blog/2013/04/stop_doing_technology_for_good (photos by Heather Leson ccby)
Often people cite step ladders as a means to engagement. To be honest, I think the ladder does not help with the chaos and flow of information and skills. But we need to start somewhere. How can encourage some skills but also remix them with local language, culture and knowledge. In Qatar I have learned that the will to co-create is there, especially for social entrepreneurship. This brings up the key point that Mark Graham has been researching. Digital Skills could be volunteered but we must seriously consider how to better have social entrepreneurship. The risk of being a ‘parachute’ programme or education plan is serious. In HOT OSM, there are leaders in Indonesia and the Philippines that are really teaching the global community about crowdsourcing. We need more visibility into this. https://usilive.org/opinions/digital-transformations-of-work-digital-work-the-global-precariat/
How can we make an open api for volunteering (cross multiple org/platforms. Eg linked in,social coding for good etc. Consider is digital volunteer front page focused on the user not just the orgs? How can we surface tasks to be done that are scoped for skills, time and goals with thanks? What does an open github curriculum look like? How can we match more experienced digital skilled folks with others? In HOT we are having some questions around validation. New folks need mentorship and ‘peer’ situations. What is the online version of missing maps or other collaborative contributions? (See soon to be released paper - A quality comparison between expert and crowdsourced data in emergency mapping for a potential service integration: The Nepal Earthquake case- Agata Elia, Simone Balbo)
Thanks so much for your interest in QCRI. @qatarcomputing http://qcri.org.qa/