Civic Innovation: Hacking Citizen Data
Good afternoon, everyone.
I’m Temi, and I’m excited to be with you today!
Exactly 33 days ago, I gave up my 9-to-5 in the Oil sector to chase a 24/7 job in Civic Innovation. I’m doing this in fulfillment of my part in our democratic social contract as a citizen of Nigeria — applying my skills to solve problems that really matter; like how to use data analysis as a tool to inform public policy and improve public services through civic innovation.
Talking about Civic Innovation; a lot (a wonderful lot, I must say) is already happening in that space in Nigeria. And a friend asked me recently, what are you doing differently? I had a simple answer: We’re hacking citizen data. Most intervention seems to have focused on open data (essentially within government), and that’s a big problem. Open data is simply not enough.
Now don’t get me wrong. By open data, I mean data in nonproprietary machine-readable format, available for use without restriction or permission. That should be sweet, right? And it is, actually. It’s a major ingredient in civic innovation. However, open data in the Nigerian context (as of today) is largely digital government data. Or described more loosely; it’s often limited to government data in machine-readable formats, like city budgets and public procurement records.
While that in itself may be extremely limiting, it becomes worse when you combine it with the analog nature of public service in Nigeria.
Open data is digital, but our government is analog.
The image up here is an actual government archive in Nigeria. It’s a mess; a big mess, and one of the greatest impediments to civic innovation. But we don’t see problems in it. Rather, we see a data gold mine waiting to be tapped.
In the same vein, how do you deal with a problem that has no data whatsoever, either open or proprietary? Like the combined abysmal effect of heavy traffic and poor air quality on the life expectancy of an average Lagosian? Ha! These are compelling 21st Century issues, and we need to creatively hack citizen generated data to solve them.
So, Code for Nigeria with the support of ICFJ and Code for Africa is seeking to optimize the digital interface between the government and the people of Nigeria by building simple systems that help digitize deadwood data within government, media, and academia. Build applications and tools to capture meaningful citizen generated data that help journalists tell better stories, and drive evidence-based decision making in public sector.
Thank you.
Lightning talk on Civic Innovation, presented at Africa Open Data Conference, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on September 2, 2015. Slides available here.
