Spotlight on Peacebuilding: Ushahidi

November 4, 2015 Shelby Bice Leave a comment Human Rights

Ushahidi‘s name means “testimony”, which is fitting. The peacebuilding organization creates software that allows individuals to share their “testimonies” about events in order that other people may become better informed. These “testimonies” can be used to keep track of outbreaks of violence, as was the case after the election in Kenya in 2008. They can also be used to map where relief efforts are needed, such as after the earthquake in Nepal earlier this year. So far, Ushahidi has received over 6.5 million “testimonies” through their programs. In this way, Ushahidi is accomplishing their goal of “creating technology that solves global problems.”

Ushahidi’s crowdsourcing software is applicable to many industries, only one of which is peacebuilding. These industries include human rights, environmental activism, humanitarian aid, and development on the international level, among others. Their software contains multiple features, including collecting and managing the “testimonies”, or data, presenting the data in a visual format, and alerting users to changes in the data. The open source code software also allows users to create their own branding. In addition to creating the software, Ushahidi will also work with users to train them and provides technical support.

In addition to their crowdsourcing software, Ushahidi has several other products. For example, RollCall allows members of team to contact each other on any and make sure that each member is okay, which is particularly useful in crisis situations. CrisisNet, on the other hand, allows people who have collected data on crisis situations an easy way to format and analyze their data. This allows journalists, analysts, and others to get the information they need from the data more quickly. In turn, this allows them to spread information about the crisis in a more time-efficient manner. To learn more about Ushahidi, their crowdsourcing software, and their other products, visit their website.

Sources: QuakeMap Cast Study; Ushahidi

Photo: Peace via Steve Rotman [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Spotlight on Peacebuilding: PeaceGeeks

November 3, 2015 Shelby Bice Leave a comment Human Rights

Access to technology provides people with power. This is the idea behind the peacebuilding organization PeaceGeeks. PeaceGeeks focuses on connecting peacemakers to the technology necessary to communicate their ideas to the rest of the world. By providing small, grassroots organizations with not only technology but also management and communication skills, PeaceGeeks helps make small, grassroots peacebuilding organizations have a larger impact.

PeaceGeeks was established in 2010, and since then has grown to over 700 tech-savvy volunteers. Even though it is relatively young, PeaceGeeks has already partnered with 26 non-profit organizations to share their stories. PeaceGeeks operates through two different programs—Public Engagement and Tech Capacities Projects. Tech Capacities works with the peacebuilding organizations PeaceGeeks supports to provide training, design branding, and help structure a plan for integrating technological solutions into the organization. The Tech Capacities program also works to identify and solve technological problems even after the process has been completed. On the other side, the Public Engagement program, while also sponsoring and creating events to raise awareness about peacebuilding, regularly hosts PeaceTalks. PeaceTalks allow experts in the area of peacebuilding and human rights to educate others, facilitate discussion, and help bring awareness to peacebuilding projects around the world. In addition to their programs, PeaceGeeks has developed open source software that allows the organizations they partner with to set up a website with relative ease. PeaceGeeks has also developed a web app called Service Advisor specifically for Syrian refugees to find information about services for refugees more easily.

If you are interested in learning more about PeaceGeeks, check out their website.

Source: PeaceGeeks

Photo: Peace via Steve Rotman [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Harvard Law Library is adapting to the Digital Age

November 2, 2015 Joyce Varghese Leave a comment Lawyer Tools, Tech

The Harvard library is where one may find shelves of books unearthed with valuable resources that include nearly every territorial and tribal judicial decision since colonial times. It provides priceless information for everyone from legal scholars to defense lawyers trying to challenge a criminal conviction. Now, Harvard librarians are taking off the spines of all but rarities and running them through a high-speed scanner. This would allow a complete searchable database of American case law available on the Web. Retrieval of these vital records were once usually paid for. Now they will be completely free.

“Improving access to justice is a priority. We feel an obligation and an opportunity here to open up our resources to the public.” said Martha Minow, dean of Harvard Law school.

Though the primary documents can be found in the public domain, it’s not in a convenient format, if at all. Legal groups spend approximately thousands to millions of dollars a year depending on the size of the office to find cases and trace doctrinal strands. Harvard’s “Free the Law” project can offer a floor of crucial information and offer sophisticated techniques for visualizing relations among cases and searching for themes.

“Complete results will become publicly available this fall for CA and NY, and the entire library will be online in 2017,” said Daniel Lewis, chief executive and co-founder of Ravel Law, a commercial start-up in California that has teamed up with Harvard Law for this project. The cases will be available at www.ravellaw.com. Ravel is paying millions of dollars to support the scanning project. The cases will be accessible in a searchable format and will be presented with visual maps developed by the company. It hopes to make money by offering more advanced analytical tools still being developed, like how judges responded to different motions in the past all for a fee.

Legal aid lawyers and public criminal defenders called the Harvard project a welcome development that may save them money and make the law more accessible to struggling lawyers, students and even inmates who try to mount appeals from barren prison libraries.

Alex Gulotta, executive director of Bay Area Legal Aid in Oakland, CA, called the project “brilliant” and put it in a broader context of making government information more readily available. “Knowledge is power. People will always need lawyers, but having resources available for self-help is important.”

Article via NY Times, October 28, 2015

Photo: Law books 2 via Eric E. Johnson [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Spotlight on Peacebuilding: Alliance for Peacebuilding

November 2, 2015 Shelby Bice Leave a comment Human Rights

The Alliance for Peacebuilding, a global peacebuilding organization, boasts a membership of over 100 peacebuilding organizations and 15,000 individuals, allowing for stronger connections among peace organizations and opportunities to collaborate on projects that would be too large for any one organization to tackle alone. The organization’s main goals are to develop new peacebuilding practices, influence policymakers in Congress, the military, and other US departments, and build relationships between peacebuilders and other leaders to encourage the sharing of knowledge and new ideas.

With this in mind, the Alliance for Peacebuilding hosts events such as workshops on topics including advocacy and the power of dialogue. The organization also brings people together by supporting affinity groups focusing on topics like Education and Training or Women and Peacebuilding. Affinity groups meet at least once a year during the Alliance for Peacebuilding Conference, which is held annually. Next year’s conference will focus on the newest innovations in peacebuilding and look ahead to potential solutions that are still in development. The event also allows many individuals involved with peace and security to meet and collaborate. To learn more about the Alliance for Peacebuilding and their work, check out their website.

Sources: Selected Definitions of Peacebuilding, August 12, 2013; Alliance for Peacebuilding

Photo: Peace via Steve Rotman [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Inneract Project offers free courses on design in technology to students

November 2, 2015 Abby Shulman Leave a comment Education

Inneract Project, an organization established by Yahoo designer Maurice Woods in 2004, will be holding a panel discussion next month titled “Valuing Diversity in Design and Technology” in San Francisco. The panel will include a variety of leaders in technology that focus on sharing their skills with young people in minority populations.

Woods founded Inneract Project with the intention of helping underrepresented students learn about design in technology. Based in San Francisco, the organization offers three free programs: Youth Design Academy, an eight-week course for middle-school students, Learning Labs, one-day educational events for students and parents alike, and Designed, a video series that follows designers.

Design is vital in the implementation of any technology being used by a broad consumer base, and as a result, designers today are in high demand.

“Technology needs to be considerate of empathy, of how people learn and how people use devices, and that’s design,” said Woods. “That’s what designers do. Without that, it’s hard for the consumer to be able to digest and understand that technology.”

Maurice Woods also speaks about using “cultural context”—the idea that kids learn based on their surroundings outside of school—when planning programs for students. He states that minority students are familiar with music and sports, which is why Inneract Project will soon introduce a basketball program in which kids can design jerseys and logos, thus learning design in a context they’re familiar with.

Each of Inneract Project’s programs contributes to Woods’ mission to “see kids succeed and get into design and tech fields.”

Article via TechCrunch, November 1, 2015

Photo: Minority Serving Institute Partnership Program via Sandia Labs [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]

Teenage hackathon addresses cyberbullying

October 30, 2015 Abby Shulman Leave a comment Hackathon, Tech

Fifteen teenagers from across the country convened in New York City to participate in DoSomething.org and Coca-Cola’s co-sponsored Happiness Hackathon, designed to invent creative solutions to cyberbullying. The one-day event took place on October 3rd.

According to DoSomething.org, just under 50 percent of young people have been cyberbullied. Equally alarming is the estimate that 90 percent of teens who witness online bullying do nothing to address it.

Out of several hundred teenagers who submitted proposals to reduce cyberbullying, the fifteen chosen were from diverse backgrounds and generally had personal experiences with bullying.

“We wanted 15 different perspectives, different ideas, different ways of tackling the problem,” said Aria Finger, DoSomething.org’s Chief Operations Officer.

The teens were broken up into groups of three, and each team was provided a mentor to help develop their ideas. Among the proposed solutions, one team thought of an app that let users compliment others; another group designed a program that required teenagers suspended from social media for cyberbullying to take an online anti-bullying seminar before reactivating their accounts.

Finger awarded the teams for different accomplishments, such as “Best Use of Tech” and “Most Unique Idea.”

“We’re absolutely committed to being in touch with the teens and advocating for them and their ideas,” Finger said. “We are committed to this long term.”

Article via Mashable, October 28, 2015

Photo: GameLab Exhibit via Ars Electronica [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs]