January 2016 - Page 2 of 5 - JusticeHub Innovation Lab

Coding in pink: leading more females into the technology industry

January 26, 2016 Joyce Varghese Leave a comment Tech

In 2013, only 18% of U.S. college graduates with a computer science degree were women. It seems like if you give the opportunity for a woman to code, the technology industry expects her to ask “where are the pink accessories?”

More girls should be granted access to tech spaces. The root of this problem does not lie in universities or even Silicon Valley and their notorious nonexistent gender diversity. It stems even further, from a very young age. Girls and boys are taught that math and science are for the boys. Whenever a computer crashes, you call a technology specialist and chances are, he is a male. So how can this field invite girls in? A potential answer is “pinkifying” coding. They use this tactic because girls may find coding uninteresting and using the color pink can help encourage and invite them to try something new. The color is meant to emphasize “you’re a girl who codes” and “you’re a coder.”

Emily Reid, curriculum director of Girls Who Code, tells Mashable the tendency to pinkify coding comes from a desire to “meet girls where we think they are.” While she says the intention is good, the problem comes with assuming girls won’t be inherently interested in computer science — that things like “pink and princesses” are needed to lure them in.

Coding is a space that is historically not inviting to girls, especially African American girls. Kimberly Bryant, founder of Black Girls Code, also uses the color pink to appeal to girls.

All in all, it’s a controversial solution. If girls were encouraged from childhood, this would not be so “offensive.” But it’s definitely a baby step towards evening out a male-centered profession.

Article via Mashable, January 24, 2016

Photo: Crossroads Elementary School via DoDEA [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Top 1 percent own more than the other 99 percent

January 22, 2016 Abby Shulman Leave a comment Economy, Human Rights, Tech

Oxfam International, a coalition of 17 organizations dedicated to reducing world poverty, just released its newest report on global income inequality. Fittingly titled “An Economy for the 1%,” the report states that the globe’s top 1 percent of earners now own more than the other 99 percent altogether. Moreover, the 62 richest people in the world own as much as 50 percent of the planet’s population.

Since the year 2000, income inequality has skyrocketed. The bottom 50 percent of the population have experienced a decrease in wealth of 41 percent—over a trillion dollars—and the top 1 percent has accumulated half of the total increase in global wealth since 2000. This occurs even as new technologies are brought to developing countries in order to improve their economies and help individuals.

The largest share of blame, according to the report, should be dealt to wealthy individuals who circumvent taxes through the use of consultants and offshore accounts. However, the increase in income inequality is also partially due to improvements in technology that increase capital gains.

“One of the key trends underlying this huge concentration of wealth and incomes is the increasing return to capital versus labor. In almost all rich countries and in most developing countries, the share of national income going to workers has been falling,” said the report. “This means workers are capturing less and less of the gains from growth.”

This issue is augmented by modern intellectual property laws, which drive out competitors and increase prices. The pharmaceutical industry, for example, spent over $228 million in 2014 on lobbying campaigns.

World Economic Forum Founder Klaus Schwab talked about the “fourth industrial revolution” that has resulted from the developments of new technologies. “Those who are entrepreneurs, who have talents, will push innovation—will gain from the revolution—and those who are on the other side, particularly in service positions, will lose,” he said.

From another perspective, this means that entrepreneurs in developing countries have a newfound shot at success. Half as many people lived below the extreme poverty line in 2010 than in 1990. According to the Oxfam report, however, the number of people living in extreme poverty “still remains unacceptably high.”

Article via The Washington Post, 21 January 2016

Photo: Boss by Santiago S.V. [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Automate your law practice

January 22, 2016 Astrid Countee Leave a comment How-to

David Sparks is famous for being a successful lawyer and a technology geek. He explains how he mixes both law and technology to make a unique practice. “I use technology to make my practice run faster and more smoothly. Nothing that I do is impossible for another lawyer to do and everything I do can be accomplished using either technology or manpower. Technology doesn’t give me something no one else has — but because of it my practice is much more lean, and, among other things, gives me an edge in terms of pricing.”

To keep his law practice running lean, automation is the answer. When asked why he automated his law firm he replied, “First, there’s efficiency—it’s much faster. When you have the computer doing something for you, you no longer have to type out words or take time to manually file documents on your computer. Second, it’s more accurate. The computer is doing the task, so for example, as long as you set up the rules correctly, the computer is always going to name files properly.”

Here are some of the tools that he uses to automate his workflow:

Hazel

Hazel is software for mac that is designed to clean and organize files in the background while you work.

“I automate my firm’s documents using Hazel. So when I scan a document into my computer, the document is automatically saved in OCT format and then Hazel reads it and can identify clients, dates, etc., and will name the file and file it away for me in my system,” he says.

TextExpander for Mac

TextExpander allows you to create custom abbreviations that, once typed, will expand to full words or images.

“With TextExpander, when I’m drafting discovery documents — for example the list of 5 contention questions we use in California — I have created text expanders so I can type in the bits that are different in each case and TextExpander automatically creates and generates the questions for me. I was going to hire a paralegal to do this for me, but realized it’d be more efficient and more cost effective for the client to accomplish this task using automation.”

Sparks ends with some advice about bringing more technology into your practice. “My standard advice to lawyers is don’t be afraid of technology. It can make you a better lawyer and can save you a lot of money.”

Article via Above the Law, 23 July 2015

Photo: The Lawyer by Ard van der Leeuw [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Child labor used for tech gadgets

January 21, 2016 Astrid Countee Leave a comment Criminal Law, Ethics, Human Rights, Justice

Child laborers are mining cobalt for the devices of major tech companies like Apple, Samsung and Sony, alleges a report issued Tuesday. Amnesty International and African Resources Watch issued a report suspecting that the supply chains of these major electronics companies are using child labor, partly because they have failed to make basic checks to halt these actions.

The report traces the harvesting and sale of cobalt in the poverty-stricken Democratic Republic of Congo — where children as young as seven work the mines. The cobalt is used in lithium-ion batteries that power smartphones and electric cars. The DRC is listed in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Worst Forms of Child Labor report, and goods made under those conditions are listed in the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.

Amnesty International contacted 16 companies listed as customers of the battery manufacturers that reportedly sourced processed ore from the DRC. Half the worlds cobalt comes from this country, specifically. None of the firms contacted could provide documentation to prove where their cobalt originated. Apple stated in a letter that “…underage labor is never tolerated in our supply chain and we are proud to have led the industry in pioneering new safeguards.” Samsung SDI does not have any transactions with Huayou Cobalt, the company said in a statement.

“Amnesty would like to see the home state countries — U.S., China, Japan, etc. — conduct human rights due diligence on their cobalt supplies,” reported author Mark Dummett. “An effective lasting solution to a complex problem such as this is going to require a collaborative approach with government, civil society, subject matter experts and multiple industries,” said Deborah Albers, vice president of social and environmental sustainability at the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition, said.

Article via TechNewsWorld, 20 January 2016

Photo: Conflict minerals 4 – Lezhnev by ENOUGH Project [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

The law school brain drain and bar pass rates

January 20, 2016 Joyce Varghese Leave a comment In the Law, Legal News

For the past few years, alarmingly low bar pass rates have made headlines. In July 2014, Erica Moeser, president of the National Conference of Bar Examiners declared that the current bar exam test takers are “less able” than their predecessors. Law schools deans argued that this was a harsh categorization of their graduates. However, when the July 2015 bar exam results came in, Moeser’s statement was proven correct. Since the law school crisis began, applicants with lower qualifications who were predicted to encounter difficulty passing the bar exam were admitted in packs.

The great law school brain drain is evident but let’s take a closer look on what caused this great phenomenon. Jerry Organ, professor of the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis has been tracking LSAT profiles of law school students for years. His analysis shows that LSAT scores correlate with scores on the bar exam. Below is a graph that displays categories of LSAT scores and the percentage of those with that score matriculated into Law school.

While the percentage for the students that scored between a 150-159 remained relatively stable, the 160+ category slowly declined and the students that scored below a 150 continue to increase every year. This is what happens when law schools need money and accept virtually anyone. Organ noted that “the top is eroding and the bottom is growing” and predicts the brain drain will have lasting effects: “Given that the LSAT profiles of matriculants and of law schools for fall 2013, fall 2014 and fall 2015 are less robust than those for fall 2011 and fall 2012 (the classes that graduated in 2014 and 2015, respectively), one can anticipate that the declines in median MBE scaled scores and corresponding bar passage rates in 2014 and 2015 will continue in July 2016, 2017 and 2018 absent increases in attrition, significant improvement in academic support programs at law schools, or improved bar preparation efforts on the part of graduates.”

Article via Above the Law, January 20, 2016

Photo: Studying via Francois de Halleux [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]