Development

Take any crisis in the past 10 years and there has been an increasing amount of digital content created immediately during and after the crisis events. For events like the Mumbai terror attacks in November, the amount of information is enormous and lasts multiple days. For shorter, more localized events like US Air Flight 1549 crashing in the Hudson, the amount is understandably lower. But in either case, pervasive new media allows citizens and professionals alike to create massive amounts of data. Sifting through and making sense of it all can quickly overwhelm an individual person or news organization.

Recognizing this, Ushahidi, the brilliant crisis mapping application, is approaching the question of how to filter through the information overload. Their simple approach is to “crowdsource the filter.” Writing on their blog, Erik Hersman calls this project “swift river” and will allow connected individuals to “go and rate the information as it comes in… where the more people you have weighing in on any specific data point raises the probability of finding the right answer. The information with greater veracity is highlighted and bubbles to the top, weighted also by proximity, severity and category of the incident.”

According to Erik, the prototype has successfully filtered a large amount of data and can combine experts and amateurs. When I first read this, I was understandably excited to see this in practice. During the Mumbai attacks, I watched as Gaurav Mishra chronicled the events by scanning blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and the MSM in order to synthesize and explain the story to his audience (in classic bridge-blogger style). His incredible public service kept me glued to my screen over Thanksgiving break. Amid his heroic effort, Gaurav occasionally mentioned to his appreciative audience how exhausted he was, and I can only imagine how much work it took. A reliable “Swift River” style tool would have allowed Gaurav to grab a couple more hours of sleep, knowing that the important truths would rise to the top. A look at the mock-up they provided shows a bit more what they imagine – individuals transparently describing their sources and adding “facts” that they trust to be true.

A mock-up of Project Swift River

No news consumers are completely autonomous; we all rely on some sort of filter. There is a spectrum from the obsessive consumers whose filter is minimal – reading and watching a ton of first-hand reports from Twitter, Flickr, etc. – to the mainstream consumers who get their news from CNN or even water cooler conversations.

My belief is that there is a sweet-spot for this spectrum of signal-to-noise filters – somewhere between (1) the exhausting work of reading all the information/analysis coming out of a crisis and (2) the lackadaisical, third-hand accounts which are colored by personal bias and memory.

The Spectrum of News Sources and Potential Downfalls

No one’s crisis news intake will ever be completely autonomous – even eye-witnesses only experience so much. But filters, especially the unreliable ones that exist in our world, can act like people in the children’s game “telephone” where each node can obfuscate the truth. Although news sources also add analysis, insight and context, my hunch is that during and immediately after a crisis, what matters most are verifiable facts. Ushahidi’s idea seems like a great way to find the sweet-spot for crisis reporting.

Although it will have to answer the same questions that were sneered at Digg and Wikipedia – who will trust a bunch of amateurs?! – a wealth of literature supports the ability of crowds to quickly and reliably reach consensus. Certainly there are some serious questions given the importance of the information that will be filtered (and I wish I had my copy of Infotopia to revisit how the wisdom of crowds can fail), but the open source nature of the project will allow for experimentation and revision that the New York Times or other news sources cannot do very adeptly.

Posted this on Techdirt today, but probably of interest to you, too.

Speaking to the Guardian, [OLPC founder] Negroponte says, “The XO-1 was really designed as if we were Apple. The XO-2 will be designed as if we were Google – we’ll want people to copy it. We’ll make the constituent parts available. We’ll try and get it out there using the exact opposite approach that we did with the XO-1.” Open hardware is an exciting new arena for innovative designs and, by embracing it, OLPC will create a new opportunity for entrepreneurs to create the best laptop for the developing world (or even the developed world). Also, instead of picking an established manufacturer from East Asia, open sourced hardware specifications will allow the developing world’s emergent technology industries to compete, strengthening the communities OLPC seeks to assist.

Read the whole post here.

(Update: Wayan Vota (who knows a whole lot more about this than I do) thinks this may just be hype)

Elizabeth Pisani was there at the beginning. A trained epidemiologist, Dr. Pisani has spent years interviewing hookers in seedy bars, chatting with junkies in train stations and exhorting bureaucrats to take smart steps to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. In The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of AIDS, Pisani gives a whirlwind, first-hand tour of the uncomfortable realities of the global HIV epidemic.

While Pisani certainly knows her science, this is not a academic work. Often, reading it seemed more like you were listening to the author rant about boneheaded policies over a couple beers. Her writing is equally informative, hilarious and disconcerting.

The millions infected with HIV/AIDS did not need to be; there are well-established methods to prevent and treat the disease, but they require inconvenient truths. Rare is the politician who wants to admit his country has a heroin problem. Even rarer is the politician who will then do so publicly, repeatedly and provide clean needles so the virus doesn’t spread. The same wrongheadedness is found in donors, NGOs, ministries of health and civilians, and Pisani lambastes them in equal, deserved parts throughout the book.

The book might have been called “Confessions of a AIDS Activist,” but Pisani points out it is curious that “cancer activists” or “dengue fever activists” do not exist. A large reason for this is because HIV/AIDS disproportionately infects the marginalized in society – gays, prostitutes and drug addicts. As public health experts began to realize that this disease was going to tear through society, they had to convince politicians and the public that the disease mattered to them, as well. This took the form of “beat ups” where data was described in simple, dramatic terms to overcome the realities of politicians who care more about votes than lives. The sad fact is, this still needs to be done in many countries.

Dr. Pisani is painfully honest and opinionated. Her iconoclasm is aimed at commonly held beliefs like “AIDS is a development problem” and “the more people working on this, the better.” She dedicates an entire chapter to breaking down the religious leaders’ arguments that have led to idiotic, non-scientific policies and contributed to the death of those with AIDS. For example, George Bush’s “President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief” has been heralded as one of his shining foreign policy achievements; however, the influence of conservative Christians has propagated ineffective abstinence only plans and severely curtailed needle exchanges. Although he deserves credit for throwing a lot fo money on the table, “…by law, 20 per cent of the PEPFAR money must be spent on HIV prevention, and one-third of that is specifically allocated to programmes that do nothing but push abstinence until marriage. That is US $1.06 billion to fund foreign programmes that have a failure rate of 76 per cent…”

The reality of HIV/AIDS is far more complicated than a brief review or single book can do justice. But the take-away fromm Pisani’s account is that although the biology is easy and the epidemiology well-known, the answer to how to solve this problem requires patience, collaboration and smart policies. It depends on the specific contexts in each society, city and brothel.

Pisani’s blog is here.

A whole host of literature, notably C.K. Prahalad’s The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, has encouraged businesses, NGOs and others to approach the global poor not as charity beneficiaries, but as under-served consumers. By creating sustainable businesses, Prahalad and his peers believe that the poor can be empowered and employed, raising them out of abject poverty.

But how is a business to sell to the bottom of the pyramid if they don’t know where they live, what they want, or even who they are? Or, for more traditional aid activities, how does a donor know he is investing enough? Or in the right areas? Existing figures provided by the World Bank and other agencies are statistical projections.

Mobile Metrix, a market research firm founded by Melanie Edwards, has a better model. She employs local teenagers to go door-to-door in their own community, collecting data on handheld devices. The unofficial censuses gather information previously unknown – what she calls the “invisible billion.” In her speech at Pop!Tech, Melanie explains how employment keeps her teenagers out of drug violence and gangs, empowers organizations to fight disease, and educates individuals on how to help themselves.

[I took out the video embed because it didn't play nice and auto-played. Here's the link.]

It is a remarkable example of partnering with locals and using information to empower communities.

(By the way, I’m going through the Pop!Tech Fellows’ videos and recommend you do the same.)

One of the great things about Christmas Break (besides my mom’s cooking and sleeping in) is the ability to catch-up on things I’ve bookmarked, starred or left open in tabs for weeks. Many of these provide for great blog posts.

Andrew McLaughlin is one of those guys who I hope I get to meet at some point because his work seems to align so nicely with my interests. Not only is he in charge of Google’s international public policy work (the topic of a recent paper of mine), he has years of experience with technology, Africa and development.

The latter was the subject of a ten minute talk he gave at BarCamp Africa this past fall. In it, he posits three notes about the role of technology in development. His focus is Africa, but the principles are applicable around the developing world.

His three notes are:

1. Pay attention to the economic ecosystem: OLPC is disrupting domestic business efforts by forcing local entrepreneurs to compete with free. Experience shows that charity isn’t always as sustainable as for-profit markets. A better approach would be to open-source the designs and let manufacturers and distributors compete, bringing profits to the developing world.
2. Ignore statistics: A look at the spending capability of Africans suggests that Safaricom and other carriers in Africa should not be successful. But they are. McLaughlin says ignore the economic indicators and find ways to appeal to African consumers.
3. Realize that some of the most innovative companies are African. McLaughlin points to Nation Media Group, an African media company whose work shows the future of journalism. Stop thinking about Africa as a charity case of disfunction and focus on their capabilites because, as Eric Hersman says, “if it works in Africa, it will work anywhere.“

McLaughlin’s points are salient and smart – I look forward to the rest of the BarCamp Africa vides for more insight.

During the tragic post-election violence in Kenya late last year, a couple of technologists with ties to Kenya created Ushahidi, an innovative web service that allows witnesses to report crisis news from their mobile phone or computer. From the Swahili word for “testimony,” this non-profit has created a platform which allows for the crowdsourcing of reporting. It has already been proven useful in South Africa to track anti-immigration violence, and I’m sure sundry other uses will pop up.

I’m really excited for the possibilities this opens up. Ushahidi was an important tool for making the crisis in Kenya more transparent and capitalizes on the mobile penetration in Africa. Allowing more people to have the ability to express what they see is an important goal and Ushahidi is doing so in an open-source way which will make this as accessible as possible to all. Congratulations to the team!

I remember the first time I saw Hans Rosling present his Gapminder project. In a TED video he wowed the crowd by bringing boring tables of statistics to life through stunning animations. His innovative presentation of data dispelled myths and misconceptions. By making statistics something we could visualize, Rosling showed me the power of a good visualization.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w]

That is why a new project called GeoCommons is so exciting. GeoCommons is the consumer product that includes “Finder!” and “Maker!”. They allow, as you might expect, anyone to find or make stunning maps of geo-coded data. Data sets are easily exportable to mapping services like Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth. When they unveil Maker! in the coming weeks, expect it to do for geo-visualization what the Google Maps API did for geo-mashups. Take, for example, the map below.

According to TechCrunch who covered GeoCommons today, the orange circles represent carbon emmissions while the darker shaded regions show heavier population densities. Because of this map the amorphous issue of air quality in China is reified. The possibilities are endless and hundreds are already available for examination.

I am incredibly excited to see what geographical data people are able to make concrete. Data is only as good as it is understandable and tools like GeoCommons and Gapminder make data understandable at a glance. They reveal the truth more than a spreadsheet ever could.

I just had the pleasure of coming across Chris Abani’s speeches at the TED Conference. Chris is a Nigerian poet and author who combines wonderful humor with profound thoughtfulness into speeches which are both stunning and inspiring.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCermULRk-I]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrbiIWD_CxI]

As I’ve spent my summer back in the American Midwest, I’ve been frustrated by the seeming distance – geographic and culturally – from the areas in which I’m interested. The developing world’s richness is lost in sterile non-fiction accounts and Chris Abani reminded me that “If you want to know about Africa, read our literature. And not just ‘Things Fall Apart’- that’s like reading ‘Gone With the Wind’ and thinking you know all about America.” Of course! I realized that the cultural understanding I’ve been flirting with in a number of posts, can be found in fiction. I feared, however, that I didn’t know where to start.

Luckily, Chris is easily reachable via email and responded to my inquiry for African book recommendations with the following list:

1. Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun both by Chimamanda Adichie
2. Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala
3. The Beautiful Ones Are Not yet Born – Ayi Kwe Armah
4. A Question of Power – Bessie Head
5. Butterflies Burning – Yvonne Vera
6. The Sand Child – Tahar Ben Jelloun
7. Waiting for an Angel – Helon Habila

If you have any other recommendations, leave them in the comments. But, regardless, do yourself a favor and watch his talks.

I just finished Nicholas Sullivan’s account of GrameenPhone’s birth and development, a formation which revolutionized telecommunications and how developing countries use technology. “You Can Hear Me Know” is both a case study of GrameenPhone and a wider look at how technology transforms developing nations.

GrameenPhone is the brainchild of Iqbal Quadir, an American educated Bangladeshi who, while working as a venture capitalist in New York City, realized that “connectivity is productivity.” Thinking back to his home country, Quadir recognized a missing web of connectivity due to the lack of information communication technologies (ICTs). His battler to bring cell phones to Bangladesh provides fascinating insight into development and international finance.

Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries, was already home to an innovative development approach. Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Prize in 2006, is widely credited with starting microfinance, the approach which gives small loans (less than a couple hundred dollars) to people without a credit history or much collateral. The amazing success (hardly any defaults and increased income) of microfinance has seen the system spread income to the historically ignored 2 billion people who live on less than $2 a day.

The typical example of Grameen Bank, Yunus’s venture, is a loan given to a rural woman to buy a cow who sells milk to pay off her debt. Quadir’s insight was that a cell phone could function as a cow. Pushing past dissenters who though cell phones were only for the rich, Quadir developed a model through which village “phone ladies” would sell minutes to others and, in turn, make a profit and provide an important service to people who otherwise had no conectivity. The phone calls are used to check market prices, connect with expatriate family or check the availability of medicine 5 miles away.

As mobile phones have spread like wildfire through developing nations, an entire ecosystem of advanced applications, many financial, have created even new opportunities. Sullivan’s book is filled with wonderful examples and statistics showing just how revolutionary the cell phone can be.

In discussing development, the author uses what he calls the “external combustion” model which relies on introducing ICTs, through native entrepreneurs, with the backing of foreign investors. The exogenous shock of this combination is what made GrameenPhone so successful (as of 2006, had more than 10 million subscribers, revenue pushing $1 billion and profits above $200 million). And, while many worried that foreign capitalists would suck out value like modern day colonialists, the opposite has been true: the mobile phone industry in Bangladesh has created $812 million in value and GrameenPhone has reinvested $1 billion in Bangladesh. When the African telecom CelTel sold for $3.4 billion, it created 50 new millionaires, many of them Africans. What Sullivan calls “inclusive capitalism” creates both external income (development) and internal profits.

Quadir is now exploring energy options for the developing world through his start-up Emergence Bio-Energy which is using adaptable engines to power villages. Energy is a big problem not only in the developed world, but in the global South where it is unreliable and halts economic growth. In Brazil, the Sun Shines for All has used solar power and microfinance to electrify the countryside. Grameen Shakti is apparently trying a similar approach. A major obstacle that Quadir points out is that, unlike telecommunications, Moore’s Law doesn’t apply to energy production.

In January, Bill Gates delivered a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos calling upon the audience to embrace a “system innovation” to deliver the bottom billion, those poorest people, from poverty. In his reckoning, capitalism harnesses one major human motivator, self-interest, while government and philanthropy apply the other, care for others. Gates thinks a hybrid system is needed to address the dire needs of the impoverished.

“I like to call this new system creative capitalism – an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world’s inequities.”

Creative capitalism would use dual incentives to solve hunger and disease: profits and altruism. Profit-driven firms would be more accountable while focusing on traditionally under-served markets. Take the example of “a Dutch company, which holds the rights to a cholera vaccine, retains the rights in the developed world, but shares those rights with manufacturers in developing countries. The result is a cholera vaccine made in Vietnam that costs less than $1 a dose – and that includes delivery and the costs of an immunization campaign.”

In response to Gates’s call to action, a number of prominent economists and lawyers have developed an online conversation about creative capitalism’s promise and its weaknesses. Participants include Nobel laureate Gary Becker, Judge Richard Posner and aid skeptic William Easterly. Many of the essays are critical.

Easterly writes, “Mr. Gates’ speech attacks the system that has historically done the most to alleviate poverty—traditional capitalism—in favor of an untried and implausible alternative—an illusory Third Way that mixes profits and altruism.” Posner opines that creative capitalism is nothing more than traditional PR-based charity which actually fits nicely with traditional capitalism.

After browsing the critiques, I think much of the trouble comes down to Gates’s nomenclature. The examples in his speech or C.K. Prahalad’s wonderful book, “Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” are not truly a new system. Prahalad demonstrates the massive profits and opportunities open to firms which are willing to understand and enter the market of the poor.

The problem comes down to capitalism’s tendency to lead to thoughtless profit pursuit. What is needed is not creative capitalism (as Greg Mankiw said “I though capitalism WAS creative.”). What is needed is conscious capitalism. Mortgage brokers, borrowers and Wall Street investment bankers got a taste of unconscious capitalism with the subprime fiasco.

Part of the problem comes down to the way corporate governance is conducted: being under pressure to out-perform the last quarter every 3 months places an insane focus on short-term thinking. Judgement Day for those corporate officers with fidicuary responsibility to shareholders comes not once a lifetime, but 4 times a year. Accountability is good, but long-term thinking often falls by the wayside.

Joi Ito, a Japanese venture capitalist and CEO of Creative Commons, noted something similar at a recent panel. Money makes people short-sighted and when coupled with the Internet’s efficiencies, he believes “fluctuation amplification occurs.” His hope is that capitalism will be injected with long-term thinking about issues like the commons.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ox02qM_yuc]

As it relates to the Internet, Joi worries that a rush to mobile-based connectivity will promote carriers who do not reinvest in the ecology of the Internet and who swallow profits for short-term gain.

The same could be said of Gates’s goal. The same wholistic approach which must be taken to defend the Internet’s openness is the approach which must be taken to invest in the poorest in our world. It requires awareness of the difficulties and opportunities of capitalism. By recognizing that today’s poor are next decade’s consumers, capitalism will continue to lift out of poverty millions, but only if it is done consciously.

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