Civictech in Academia

Civic Tech in Academia

Unless noted otherwise

Sameer Verma, Ph.D.Professor, Information Systems

College of Business, San Francisco State UniversitySan Francisco, CA 94132 USA

http://verma.sfsu.edu/ [email protected] Presented at:

Developing the Caribbean 2015University of the West Indies, Jamaica#DevCA2015

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@sameerverma

Caution: Large variance in context. Follow at your own risk!

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me

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Board of Directors

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Centre of ExcellenceMona School of Business

University of the West IndiesJamaica

http://coe-msb.org/about

Institutional Academic Partner

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Co-founder,One Laptop per Child, Jamaica

http://olpcjamaica.org.jm

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Advisory Board

http://slashroots.org

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SF State University (1899 - present)

• 29,000 + students

• Colleges: Business, Creative Arts, Education, Ethnic Studies, Health and Human Services, Humanities, Science and Engineering

• Campus:O Main Campus: 1600 Holloway Ave. San FranciscoO Downtown Center: 835 Market St., San FranciscoO Romberg Tiburon Center, Tiburon

http://www.sfsu.edu

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Commons Initiative - Mission

• Two-fold:O To connect people, so they can communicate their ideas,

and collaborate on projects in the digital commons space at SF State. (inward)

O To foster an environment where SF State commons can participate in the commons worldwide. (outward)

http://commons.sfsu.edu

@SFStateCommons

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Two-fold mission

Drupal at

SF StateDrupal Worldwide

for instance...

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Downstream - Upstream

Campusprojects

Worldwide Commons

for instance...

How?

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Not a committee

A community initiative.

Open to all:

Students, Staff, Faculty

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Lenses

• EducationO How to bring “commons” into the classroom.

• TechnologyO Neat stuff happens on campus. Share!

• OutreachO Sustained collaboration and participation.

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Advisory Board

Upstream connections

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Alexis Rossi, Internet Archive

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Alolita Sharma, Wikimedia

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Asheesh Laroia, Openhatch

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Brian Behlendorf, Apache

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Stefano Maffulli, Openstack

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Tim Vollmer, Creative Commons

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OpenData, OpenGov, CivicTech

• Openly available data. Free to use, reuse, share-alike. Provide attribution.

• Government data available to the public. Increase transparency and accountability.

• Use of technology for civic engagement in the public and private sector.

Civic EngagementSocial Justice, Equity, Resilience

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Ad hoc experiences

• Interest began off-campus

• Uncoordinated experiences

• Discovery through Commons InitiativeO Like-minded students, staff, faculty

Let's hack something!

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Hack nights and Hackathons

• Hack nights at Code for America

• San Francisco and Oakland brigades

• National Day of Civic Hacking

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Hackathon in 2013

• Organize event

• Coordinate with National Day of Civic Hacking

• 8 challenges

• 1st time experience

• No student teams

#HackForChange

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My students

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Student team goes to the White House!

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Hackathon in 2014

• More organized

• 10 challengesO 2 from campus

• 4 teams have our students

• High school participation!

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More involved and consistent

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Project #FeelBetter http://feelbetterca.org/

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Academic project(s)

• What can we do withO Open DataO Open GovO Civic Tech

• Courses, Internships

• Hackathons

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Statistics 101

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What p-value?

Inferential or Descriptive Statistics

http://rocketscienceofwallstreet.blogspot.com/2012/04/nassim-nicholas-taleb-against-gaussian.html

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Biases

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Experimental course

• Four students

• Embedded as observers at SF Brigade (Code for America)

O 4 weeks observation phaseO 4 weeks participation phaseO Organize hackathon.O Report.

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Problems

• Oversupply of tools and apps

• Little re-use

• Reinvention O Free Software FoundationO Open Source InitiativeO Creative Commons

• Wide variance in skills

• Lack of consistency

• More Tech, less Civic

• Low SustainabilityO Bring into the classroom?

Rich history. Learn from it?

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Civic Tech leads to Civic Engagement

Focus on local problems

Civic tech may or may not be driven by open data

Sustainability is key

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Open Data @ SF State http://data.sfsu.edu

• A to Z Index

• Bike Routes and Racks

• Building Location

• Ewaste Collection Sites

• Sustainability Features

• Water Bottle Filling Stations

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Hackathon 2015

• Focus on:O EducationO HealthcareO Resilience

• http://hackathon.sfsu.edu

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Workshop: Civic Tech and Smart Cities

• June 8, 2015

• Scope: Sciences, Engineering, Business

• Focus: Research, teaching and service

• http://commons.sfsu.edu

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And so it continues...