Want a ‘Data Revolution’? Then listen to what citizens really want
Why are the #OpenData and #CivicTech movements repeating all the old mistakes about top-down development?
That was the major question tackled at a community skills day during the African Open Data Conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, between September 2-5. The conference was the biggest gathering yet of open data pioneers on the continent … but many of the initiatives at the conference were ‘trickle down’ projects where well-meaning governments and NGOs try to force feed ‘important data’ to citizens.
Little wonder then that so few citizens are actually using the available data or tech tools … despite millions of US$ being spent on the projects.
Code for Africa used the community ‘pre-conference’ and strategic panels at the main conference itself to challenge the top down approach. Our speakers aggressively pushed a ‘citizen first’ philosophy, and called on donors and governments to stop squandering money and goodwill on ad-hoc ‘hit & run’ projects. We argued that they should rather be investing resources into the grassroots communities who are at the coalface empowering citizens to use data themselves: communities such as Hacks/Hackers Africa and the School of Data (SCODA).
Code for Africa founder Justin Arenstein kicked off the discussions at the pre-conference with a simple question: what keeps you (as an ordinary citizen) awake with worry at night?
It won’t be the national budget deficit, or government’s procurement programmes, or even government’s capital expenditure projects. Real people care most passionately about ‘real’ issues: stuff like how to keep their kids healthy and safe, and how to keep their families fed and prosperous.
“The only way we are going to have a ‘data revolution’ is if we help citizens build civic tools that help tackle these existential issues. We need to give them decision-making tools that are granular enough to allow for hyper-personal and hyperlocal data-driven advice,” said Arenstein.
And, Arenstein said, the best way to do this is through inexpensive tools that leverage ‘mass impact’ communication channels like SMS, with the simplest possible technology backends.
“One of the most frustrating things strangling widespread adoption of open data is that most current ‘solutions’ are over engineered. Way too much money and time is thrown at building complicated tech solutions, with way too little money left for real civic engagement. The only winners are the consultants,” said Arenstein.
A group of Code for Africa, SCODA and OpenGov Fellow project champions then demonstrated their work, to prove that it is possible to build mass impact projects using modest budgets and appropriate technologies.
The showcased projects included GotToVote, which was originally built in just 2-days for $500 by Code for Africa technologist David Lemayian to help Kenyan voters find where they should register for the elections, and how to later verify that their registration details were correct. The toolkit has since been re-used in Ghana (where it helped electoral authorities create the country’s 1st ever consolidated voters roll), Malawi (where government authorities adopted it as the ‘official’ solution) and Zimbabwe (where village-based volunteers deployed it without any donor assistance). GotToVote is about to be deployed in its fifth country: Zambia.
The backend for GotToVote is, Lemayian stressed, a simple Google Spreadsheet. Users access it either via a website or via SMS using a short-code. Over 400,o00 Malawians used it to register for their last elections, while civic watchdogs used it to identify about 40,000 ‘ghost’ voters.
The Al Jazeera news report below explores GotToVote’s impact in Malawi
A second Code for Africa tool that resonated with the audience was StarHealth, which helps citizens figure out whether their doctors are legit, whether their hospital bills will be covered by their medical insurance, and where to find their nearest specialist.
Code for Africa technologist Serah Njambi-Rono pointed out that the backend is again a set of simple spreadsheets. The front end is a simple widget embedded into a major newspaper website. Most people access the data via SMS query service, using a short code.
StarHealth was originally built for Kenyan audiences. It has since been replicated in Nigeria and South Africa.
It is not just Code for Africa using these low-tech approaches for high-impact projects. The SCODA and OpenGov fellows showcased their own techniques for using free off-the-shelf software and publicly available data to solve the most pressing problems facing citizens in their countries.
All the speakers identified one key challenge: the lack of real support for building and maintaining dynamic communities of civic technologists and open data activists. Many of the speakers, including those from Code for Africa, argued for proactive involvement of commercial entrepreneurs to help build local civic data ‘economies’.
SCODA fellow Oludontu Babayemi also stressed the importance of Africa’s global diaspora, explaining how civic technology pioneers in Nigeria regularly use ‘digital’ volunteers from across the world to help build their projects.
But, Babayemi warned, you need to ensure that your volunteers are not security agents in disguise.
It wasn’t just grassroots African organisations that showcased their work and resources. Major international open data champions, such as the World Bank, the Open Data for Development (OD4D) network, USAID, and Global Open Data for Agriculture & Nutrition (GODAN) initiative all used AODC to announce new support for civic technology initiatives in Africa.
The World Bank’s Oleg Petrov introduced the Open Government Data Toolkit as a resource for both governments and others to help prepare for major open data initiatives through a series of planning and implementation toolkits.
Conferences are great places to get inspired and to forge new partnerships … but few of the promised collaborations ever materialize after delegates return home to the ‘real world’.
Building on a Code for Africa suggestion, a coalition of AODC partners also announced the creation of an African Open Data Collaboration Fund to help stimulate international partnership or intra-organisational collaborations. The IDRC’s Fernando Perini stressed that the fund was intended to make small ‘kickstarter’ grants and that proposals should be submitted by October 1, 2015.
The USAID’s Kat Townsend helped broaden the debate from just using government data to public non-profit public services, stressing that the US had managed to ‘mainstream’ open data by stressing the potential for entrepreneurs to build job creating and tax paying businesses on the data.
The approach, she said, helped convince governments that the cost involved in digitizing public information is worthwhile. The approach has been so successful that USAID now requires all grantees to transform their projects into open data for 3rd party reuse.
Townsend also showcased the pioneering work that GODAN does in helping entrepreneurs turn climatic and agricultural data into real-world tools to help farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs improve their sustainability.
Code for Africa’s Justin Arenstein also used AODC to announce the imminent launch of its new #InnovateAfrica fund in early December. The fund will offer $1 million in cash grants, along with additional technology support and business development mentorship to civic tech innovators.
Full details will be announced in December.
