Presented at the UNGAID workshop - ICT and e-Knowledge for the Developing World, Shanghai, China, 27 September 2010

1. Harnessing Collective Intelligence for Sustainable Development Stuart Macdonald EDINA & Data Library University of Edinburgh [email_address] ICT and e-Knowledge for the Developing World , Shanghai, China, 27 September 2010

3. Harnessing Collective Intelligence One of Tim O'Reilly's seven principles in the noteworthy 2005 article, What Is Web 2.0 . “ the synergistic and cumulative channelling of the vast human and technical resources now available over the internet to address systemic problems” * Collaboration of people’s knowledge, web technologies and information for the common good! * Harnessing Collective Intelligence to Address Global Climate Change (2007), Malone, T.W. & Klein, M.,Innovations: Technology, Governance and Globalization, Summer 2007, Vol. 2, No. 3, Pages 15-26. URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/itgg.2007.2.3.15

5. Crowdsourcing - a large group of people or volunteers (‘the crowd’) who individually do a small amount of work to complete a larger task Citizen science - individual volunteers or networks of volunteers, many of whom may have no specific scientific training, who perform research-related tasks such as observation, measurement or computation. Mashups / APIs - the combining (“mashing”) of two or more pieces of complementary data or functionality to create a new web application or service. This is usually achieved through the use of an Application Programming Interface (API). Open Access – a ‘technological ideology’ whereby access to scholarly output via the Internet is free for all to read and use Socio-technical concepts

8. Kopernik – http:// www.thekopernik.org – an on-line store of innovative technologies (e.g. solar powered products, water purification devices) Samasource – http://samasource.org - aims to bring small amounts of computer-based tasks (‘microwork’) to women, youths and refugees living in poverty. Services include data entry, book digitisation, audio transcription, video captioning. Samasource forms partnerships with local organisations that provide computers and basic training. Grameen Foundation – http:// grameenfoundation.org – provides micro-lenders in poor communities access to the capital they need to make micro-loans to women who want to start a business. The GF Application Laboratory provides services using mobile technologies which allow people to access information on topics such e.g. through text messages a farmer can receive tips on treating crop diseases, learn local market prices, get advice on preventing malaria.

10. Mashups and APIs Ushahidi – http://www.ushahidi.com – provides a free and open source platform for aggregating information from the public for use in a crisis response. Any person or organization can use to set up their own way to collect and visualize information. Core platform will allow for plug-in and extensions so that it can be customized for different locales and needs The Ushahidi platform allows anyone to gather distributed data e.g. SMS, RSS, email, digital photograph, microblog entry and visualise it on a map or timeline.

11. Submit an incident Category of incident RSS, email, mobile Images of missing people Person finder tool OpenStreetMap visualisation of reported incidents

12. Open Access HINARI (World Health Organisation) – http://www.who.int/hinari/en/ HINARI provides free or very-low cost online access to more than 7000 major journals in Biomedical and related social sciences to local, Non-profit institutions in developing countries. Institutions in countries with GNI per capita below $1250 are eligible for free Institutions with GNI per capita between $1250 - $3500 pay $1000 p.a. Eligible categories of institutions include: universities, research institutes, teaching hospitals, government offices, national medical libraries

13. Examples of enterprising technologies Delay (or Disruption) Tolerant Networking (DTN) - technical solution to create continuous connectivity across networks operating in mobile or extreme terrestrial environments. Multiple Mice – In developing countries children often don’t have access to individual computers. Research in rural India showed that with shared computers there are clear patterns of inequality for children based on who controls the input. UC Berkeley and Microsoft Research India have developed multiple mice. They found that children learned more in shared modes with multiple devices than they did even when each child had a dedicated computer. Ruggedized computers - specifically designed with robust and simple components to operate in harsh environments, such as extreme temperatures, and wet or dusty conditions. Audio Wiki – a repository of spoken content that can be accessed and modified via low-cost telephone and is accessible to illiterate Users create, edit and listen to content without having to read any text using a hybrid of keypad navigation and speech recognition

15. Thank You [email_address] EDINA National Data Centre: http://edina.ac.uk Credits: All images are CC Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic or Attribution 2.0 Generic: CC image by ecstaticist courtesy of Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecstaticist/1337749333/ CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Image courtesy of Inveneo: http://wiki.inveneo.org/index.php/Image:Solar-battery-computer.gif CC image by Sean McGrath courtesy of Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcgraths/3597037843/ CC image by Blogging Dagger courtesy of Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/bloggingdagger/3937076329/ Image courtesy of Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/laszlo-photo/1899390628/ CC image by Malkav courtesy of Flickr – http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2370/2262952280_0b03c07db9_o.jpg CC images by Grant MacDonald courtesy of Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/grantmac/2734755871 CC image by Tuis courtesy of Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/tuis_imaging/515380689/ CC images by M. M. Alvarez, T. Shinbrot, F. J. Muzzio, Rutgers University, Center for Structured Organic Composites courtesy of Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/11304375@N07/2326596014/ Open Access logo, originally designed by Public Library of Science CC image by Ecstaticist courtesy of Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecstaticist/321582062/ CC images by philippe Put courtesy of Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/34547181@N00/4203882645/sizes/z/in/photostream// CC image by monkeyc.net courtesy of Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/photos/monkeyc/216415962/