Could tech and data be the panacea to sustainable cities?
I am excited to announce that I will be traveling to Denmark this August to participate in a global initiative on tackling the Sustainable Development Goals — a set of targets agreed by United Nations member countries to drive global development agenda until 2030. This is a rare opportunity to plug into a network of like-minded thought leaders, innovators and potential partners to grow the ideas that we are working on to address world challenges. This inaugural edition of the programme code-named UNLEASH, will bring together 1000 “talents” — individual entrepreneurs, professionals, academics, tech experts and change makers — selected from all regions of the world, with big disruptive ideas and a desire to create a sustainable world — who will have an opportunity to co-create solutions.
UNLEASH talents will work with in themes including; Education & ICT, Energy, Food, Health, Sustainable consumption & production, Urban sustainability, and Water. I have been allocated urban sustainability! What a great decision by the organizers! Not so long ago, I co-founded two initiatives in a bid to not only contribute to better cities but also to utilize the opportunity that urbanization presents to a country like mine, Uganda.
In 2015 I co-founded Makanika Dot Com, a tech initiative incubated by Hive Colab, that’s looking to transform the way motorists access service providers especially garages, as well as the way providers get clients — the firm has built a data base of garages that motorists can access when in need via a mobile application. Also, at the end of 2016, I co-founded Evidence And Methods Lab, a growing civic technology initiative working in the areas of access to information, accountability and collating what works in generating evidence, with specific focus on improving the way research findings (data, evidence) are shared for better engagement. The initiative is also providing space/hub (both virtual and physical) for organizations to have conversations on methods that work in generating evidence.
Three things characterize the above descriptions of what I am working on: data, technology and urban centres. I strongly believe that if we paid close attention to strengthening that combination, we will be very close to greatly reducing or even eliminating some of our urbanization and other challenges.
Like Jennifer Pahlka, Founder and Executive Director for Code for America said, “Our ability to do great things with data will make a real difference in every aspect of our lives.” I am passionate about Learning, Monitoring and Evaluation, the utilization of data/evidence and technology for change, ICTs, governance & civic engagement, Education, and lately, urbanization. For close to 8 years I have been working with organisations to design and implement measurement frameworks, with keen interest in utilization of evidence for learning and public engagement. I have worked with regional, government and donor organizations including Twaweza East Africa and its education programme Uwezo, and DFID funded Strengthening Evidence Based Decision Making (SEBDM) Programme hosted by the Office of the Prime Minister of Uganda. I am driven by the desire to create a more transparent, accountable, social just and thriving entrepreneurial world. Data/evidence have been the heartbeat of my career.
In my theme at UNLEASH, I will have keen interest in discussing how we can create better cities utilizing data and technology. For example, I will be interested in how we can harness data and technology to create better social, economic and environmental status for the 50% of the world’s population living in cities. I will pay a lot of attention to co-creating solutions for improving urban citizen engagement, and transportation and mobility, the two sub-themes that coincide with the initiatives that I am working on. Also the challenges in urban centres in any country, whether social, political, economic, environmental spillover into the rural areas, I will therefore be happy to explore how our solutions link with the challenges in our rural and peri-urban areas.
In my country, Uganda, the urban population, according to the National Population and Housing Census 2014 report by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), has been increasing overtime from about 1.7 million in 1991 to nearly 7.4 million in 2014, and according to the World Bank, it will hit 20 million people! This rapid urbanization has come with both challenges and opportunities and if we utilize data and technology, we can sustainably urbanize and generally create a better Uganda.
For example Uganda’s access to technology has grown. Access to mobile phones, according to Uganda’s communications commission, has hit nineteen (19) million, and access to internet has equally increased and so has access to other communication and engagement channels. Equally, there are many actors who are generating a lot of evidence (data) on a number of things that affect urban populations including the quality of services, environment, housing, culture etc.
If we exploited this opportunity in ways like feeding citizens with information that will empower them to hold government accountable, as well as encourage government to be responsive especially on issues like urban challenges, and getting the citizens to act, we will perhaps urbanize more sustainably.
These somewhat crazy ideas can turn into unconventional solutions to global challenges and fast track the attainment of global goals. UNLEASH will provide an opportunity that I think we missed during the era of the Millennium Development Goals which ended in 2015, of not more deliberately working with private actors and innovators whose work directly or indirectly makes a contribution (whatever magnitude) to dealing with the challenges of our age. Many of us are spread across the world, in our small worlds, with disjointed efforts and limited opportunity to scale and dream together. I think that UNLEASH will be making a great contribution towards solving this challenge.
I am looking forward to putting my energetic, warm, open-minded, disruptive and ingenious self to use at this event. I am excited about meeting the other like-minded talents, exploring Copenhagen and Aarhus and talk global goals! I will definitely share my experience in another article, should you be interested, please look out for it sometime, late August. There will be several updates online, catch them at #UNLEASHLAB2017
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