Tackling civic tech in Abuja
How Hacks/Hackers is creating a new space in the Nigerian capital for journalists and data activists to come together, learn and think freely about the big issues in the troubled Northern region.
The common — and not entirely unfair — perception of tech development in Nigeria is that it is almost exclusively centred in the commercial and economic heart of the country, Lagos. That’s where entrepreneurs and ideas cluster, so the theory goes.
As a result, it can often feel as though the political capital, Abuja, is overlooked in this regard. Something that in our own small way the Hacks/Hackers community aims to address with the launch of a new chapter, Hacks/Hackers Abuja (#HHABJ).
The beauty of networks of is that to do so, we could draw on our established presence in Lagos to spread the news and get support for our new venture. We dug even deeper into our professional networks to secure a venue and we were set for the first Hacks/Hackers Abuja meet-up.
Since then, we’ve had two more events all aimed at training journalists to use digital reporting and investigation tools.
Innovation fellow with Code for Nigeria, Blaise Aboh, spearheaded our August and October events that focused on transforming spreadsheets into stories.
Most recently, we had a meet up in November focusing on finding data for stories.
“People are getting bored with text and there is a need to draw attention away from text journalism to a more consumable type of data delivery.”
Hacks/Hackers Abuja is an initiative of Code for Nigeria (CfN)and aims to bring journalists and civic technologists together and build a network focused on delivery news and information in a most effective manner.
At CfN, we seek out opportunities to train journalists in digital reporting skills, and work on projects that have social impact, can improve the lives of citizens through data and transparency, and hold the government accountable.
Abuja: unique, underserved
Abuja — and the Northern Region as a whole — is of huge interest nationally and internationally due to its political importance and social instability.
Many of the modern narratives about the area, however, tend to be focussed on the conflict with Boko Haram and — as a result — quite one dimensional. As #HHABJ, we want to help find storytellers and give them the tools to report honestly on the insurgency — and other matters — in Northern Nigeria. Raw data on the conflict in Northern Nigeria can be sourced in different ways, but most effectively through civil society groups that are involved in peace keeping and conflict resolution missions.
This raw data is usually meaningless until it is analysed for trends and turned into valuable information. Our trainer Ambrose highlighted three ways of getting data:
- Finding already released data This involves searching and finding data that has already been released
- Getting hold of more data Asking for ‘new’ data from official sources eg. through Freedom of Information requests. Sometimes data is public on a website but there is not a download link to get hold of it in bulk — but don’t give up! This data can be liberated with what data wranglers call scraping.
- Collecting data yourself This means gathering data and entering it into a database or a spreadsheet — whether you work alone or collaboratively.
To help people to find data, projects like the Open Access Directory’s data repository list or the Open Knowledge Foundation’s datahub.io have been launched with goals to either collect data sources, or collect together different data sets from various sources.
The training session also captured the importance of identifying your data sources as well as getting data in the format you need it, recommending the following formats as ideal for processing into valuable information: CSV, JSON, Excel and SQL. CSV was described as being a very versatile form of data and can be ported into most analytic tool and JSON can be used to house complex data in a machine-readable manner. Open Data Kit was mentioned as a great data tool bank to build, collect and aggregate data into useful formats.
After this very detailed presentation, Nkechi, Country Lead for Code for Nigeria guided the room through a practical session of searching and finding data, also well as determining the right sources for your data. Non-governmental organisations in Nigeria were identified as a primary source of raw data in the absence of adequate information from the government and its agencies. The World Bank and the World Health Organization for example regularly release reports and data sets.
It was agreed that there needed to be more policies in Nigeria that encourage free share of information and access to data from the government. This way the government is held more accountable and can push towards a more transparent practices.
A policy of openness is important for data to be shared between stakeholders and end users of data in the civil society space.
The Hacks/Hacker Abuja community would like to thankVentures Park, a co-working and creative space for tech-affiliated businesses to thrive and run as a community. Ventures Park is about collaboration ensuring its members benefit from each other. It has partnered with Code for Nigeria to support us in meeting our goals of improving journalism through technology.
Our last meeting for the year in December promises to be the best one yet, with a full day of activities centred around fake news/misinformation and celebrating the success of #HHABJ!
About the Author
Andie Okon is a Programme Assistant with Code for Nigeria and also Mandela Washington Fellow passionate about sustainable development in Nigeria. She’s social! — you can connect with her on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
The worlds of hackers and journalists are coming together, as reporting goes digital and Internet companies become media empires.
Journalists call themselves “hacks,” someone who can churn out words in any situation. Hackers use the digital equivalent of duct tape to whip out code.
Hacker-journalists try and bridge the two worlds. Hacks/Hackers Africa aims to bring all these people together — those who are working to help people make sense of our world. It’s for hackers exploring technologies to filter and visualize information, and for journalists who use technology to find and tell stories. In the age of information overload and collapse of traditional business models for legacy media, their work has become even more crucial.
Code for Africa, the continent’s largest #OpenData and civic technology initiative, recognizes this and is spearheading the establishment of a network of HacksHackers chapters across Africa to help bring together pioneers for collaborative projects and new ventures.
Follow Hacks/Hackers Africa on Twitter and Facebook and join the Hacks/Hackers community group today.
