Other News from Participating Centers

Using Kannada in technology made easier with smartphones

With the IT revolution, many believed that the younger generation would prefer to type and communicate in English than Kannada.
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was interviewed by the New Indian Express. The article was published on November 1, 2016.

Government Hacking: Vulnerabilities Equities Process

Join Mozilla and Stanford CIS for the second installment in a series of conversations about government hacking. Information from our first event, discussing the upcoming changes to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41, are available at that event’s page here.
November 16, 2016Room 290 - Stanford Law School

Tackling Corruption with People-Powered Data

Sandra Prüfer at Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth: “Informal fees plague India’s “free” maternal health services. In Nigeria, village households don’t receive the clean cookstoves their government paid for.

Conferência Desafio Brasil

Conferência Desafio Brasil09h00 até 18h00O Evento: Desafio Brasil é uma conferência organizada pelo Laboratório de Políticas Públicas da Fundação Getúlio Vargas (LAB FGV) e este ano conta com o apoio do Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade (CTS) da FGV Direito Rio. A edição terá enfoque na promoção de um debate sobre o papel da inovação e das novas tecnologias da informação na promoção de políticas públicas voltadas a três eixos: governo digital; economia digital e educação na era da internet.

All in Our Backyard - social justice in disaster response

One of the hardest lessons and ongoing challenges in digital disaster and humanitarian response is how to connect with a local population. While many digital response groups deal with this by waiting for official actors (like the affected nation's government, or the United Nations) to activate them, this doesn't always sit well with my political viewpoints. Some of these affected nations have governments which are not in power at the consent of the governed, and so to require their permission rankles my soul. But to jump in without request or context is also unacceptable.

Resultados do II Seminário Governança das Redes e o Marco Civil da Internet

A realização do II Seminário Governana das Redes e o Marco Civil da Internet: Globalização, Teccnologias e Conectividade foi um sucesso: mais de 45 trabalhos apresentados, 11 painéis de temática variada e uma média de 230 participantes, entre ouvintes, painelistas, autores, coordenadores de grupos de trabalho, apoiadores e comissão organizadora. Foram dois dias de apresentações, intensos debates, e muito conhecimento.

Where I stand today

(I promise this is one of the only two blog posts I will publish using primarily the first person.)
I am an activist, and technology and media are my favorite pretexts to start conversations about the core of our human experience. I love reflecting about concepts and their underlying ideologies, but asking teens whether they know someone who decided to untag themselves from a photo on Facebook is still my favorite way to ignite discussions on privacy.

How to Succeed in the Networked World: A Grand Strategy for the Digital Age

 in Foreign Affairs: “Foreign policy experts have long been taught to see the world as a chessboard, analyzing the decisions of great powers and anticipating rival states’ reactions in a continual game of strategic advantage.

Predicting judicial decisions of the European Court of Human Rights: a Natural Language Processing perspective

 et al at Peer J. Computer Science: “Recent advances in Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning provide us with the tools to build predictive models that can be used to unveil patterns driving judicial decisions. This can be useful, for both lawyers and judges, as an assisting tool to rapidly identify cases and extract patterns which lead to certain decisions.

Iceland’s crowd-sourced constitution: hope for disillusioned voters everywhere

 et al in The Conversation Global: “Western democracies are in turmoil. From Brexit to Donald Trump, to a general lack of trust in politics, disillusioned voters are expressing their frustration in strange ways. In Iceland, they are taking a more proactive, hopeful approach – and it’s a lesson to the rest of the world.

Consulting Is More Than Business

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Design Thinking for Educators

IDEO: “The Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit gives teachers the tools and methods they need to apply design thinking—discovery, interpretation, ideation, experimentation and evolution—in real-world scenarios….

Why design thinking? Hear firsthand stories about how design thinking can apply to education.

​NTU to expand the study of humanities and social sciences with two new schools from next year​

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Bangladesh Introduces ‘Smart’ National Identity Cards

On October 2, the Bangladeshi government inaugurated Smart National ID cards (NID) as part of their Digital Bangladesh initiative, aiming to distribute the cards to 100 million people in Bangladesh.

Behind Modi’s Heartwarming Diwali Ad for Soldiers, An App That’s Primed for Political Messaging

The campaign, which allows users to send Modi quotes on themes like Ayodhya and the perfidy of the Opposition, raises questions about the boundaries between government, party and personal promotion.
The article by Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty was published in the Wire on October 29, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Bridging the gap: Tech giants bring the internet to women in rural India

This Diwali is going to be a cracker of a festival for Nisha Chanderwal, a second year BA student.
The article by KumKum Dasgupta was published in the Hindustan Times on October 28, 2016. Pranesh Prakash and Rohini Lakshané were quoted.

Civic Crowd Analytics: Making sense of crowdsourced civic input with big data tools

Paper by  that: “… examines the impact of crowdsourcing on a policymaking process by using a novel data analytics tool called Civic CrowdAnalytics, applying Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods such as concept extraction, word association and sentiment analysis.

Nudges for Privacy and Security: Understanding and Assisting Users’ Choices Online

Paper by Alessandro Acquisti et al: “Advancements in information technology often task users with complex and consequential privacy and security decisions. A growing body of research has investigated individuals’ choices in the presence of privacy and information security trade-offs, the decision-making hurdles affecting those choices, and ways to mitigate those hurdles. This article provides a multi-disciplinary assessment of the literature pertaining to privacy and security decision making.

Essays on collective intelligence

Thesis by Yiftach Nagar: “This dissertation consists of three essays that advance our understanding of collective-intelligence: how it works, how it can be used, and how it can be augmented. I combine theoretical and empirical work, spanning qualitative inquiry, lab experiments, and design, exploring how novel ways of organizing, enabled by advancements in information technology, can help us work better, innovate, and solve complex problems.

Obama Brought Silicon Valley to Washington

Jenna Wortham at The New York Times: “…“Fixing” problems with technology often just creates more problems, largely because technology is never developed in a neutral way: It embodies the values and biases of the people who create it. Crime-predicting software, celebrated when it was introduced in police departments around the country, turned out to reinforce discriminatory policing.