Stanford University

Information Technology

Journalism from below in the Digital Age with P. Sainath

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The People's Archive of Rural India combines text, audio, video, and photographs to present what is both a living journal and a growing online archive. It's a unique and ambitious movement to document the diversity of rural India, home to 833 million people speaking 780 languages. PARI, http://www.ruralindiaonline.org/, is aimed at recording the everyday lives of everyday people, to document the stories from what Sainath has called the “continent within a sub-continent”.

The site was launched in December 2014. The website is not-for-profit, free to view and all the contributors – journalists, writers, film-makers, editors, translators, engineers, lawyers and accountants –  are volunteers. The website hopes to grow by public participation.

About the speaker
Over a career spanning 34 years, Sainath has won over 40 awards for his reporting, including the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award and the first Amnesty International’s Global Human Rights Journalism Prize in 2000. His book, Everybody Loves a Good Drought, has remained a non-fiction bestseller for decades and was declared a Penguin Classic in 2012. He is currently teaching two courses in the Program for South Asian Studies at Princeton University.
 
The People's Archive of Rural India, http://www.ruralindiaonline.org/, combines text, audio, video, and photographs to present a living journal and a growing online archive. It's a unique and ambitious movement to record everyday lives and to document the diversity of rural India, home to over a billion people speaking 780 languages. Launched in December 2014, the website is not-for-profit and free to view.  All the contributors – journalists, writers, film-makers, editors, translators, engineers, lawyers and accountants –  are volunteers. The website hopes to grow by public participation.
 
More on the archive:
 

The event is organized by Asha at Stanford and a similar event will be organized at UC Berkeley by the School of Information.

7:00 PM | Tuesday, May 5, 2015

"The Great Room"

Donald Kennedy Commons
Escondido Village
Comstock Circle, Stanford University
https://web.stanford.edu/dept/rde/cgi-bin/drupal/housing/frontdesk/kenn…


6:30 PM | Wednesday, May 6, 2015
210 South Hall
School of Information
UC Berkeley

Free and open to the public.
 

7:00 PM | Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Donald Kennedy Commons
Escondido Village
Comstock Circle, Stanford University

https://web.stanford.edu/dept/rde/cgi-bin/drupal/housing/frontdesk/kenn…

Design Thinking, Social Change and Governance Revolution in India

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ABSTRACT
Delivering public services effectively by Vivek S.

Tamil Nadu is among the few states in India that provides basic public services such as schools, water, electricity, primary healthcare and transport almost universally.  These services function remarkably well, making a significant difference to the lives of people. In many cases, the state has achieved better outcomes than other states of India, but with comparable budgets. 

In this talk, Vivek will argue that the effectiveness of Tamil Nadu's administration can be linked to underlying processes akin to 'human centred design' that has been popularized by the Design school at Stanford, among others. This form of design thinking is slowly but surely making its way to other parts of India leading to a small revolution in governance in India today.

The talk will be based on his recently published book, Delivering Public Services Effectively: Tamil Nadu & Beyond.

 

SPEAKER BIO

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Vivek Srinivasan joined the CDDRL Liberation Technology Program as the program manager in February 2011 after completing his Ph.D. in social sciences from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Prior to this, he worked with campaigns on various socio-economic rights in India, including the right to food, education and the right to information. Based on these experiences Srinivasan has written (and co-authored) extensively on issues surrounding the right to food, including Notes from the right to food campaign: people's movement for the right to food (2003), Rights based approach and human development: An introduction (2008), Gender and the right to food: A critical re-examination (2006), Food Policy and Social Movements: Reflections on the Right to Food Campaign in India (2007).  

In working with these campaigns, he realized the widespread disparities in the provision of basic public services in India. This led him to examine how Tamil Nadu, a southern Indian state, developed extensive commitment to providing such services to all its residents in his doctoral dissertation.  Oxford University Press published Srinivasan’s book based on the dissertation entitled, "Delivering services effectively: Tamil Nadu and Beyond" in 2014.

As a full-time activist, he also experimented with various IT platforms to make the campaigns effective. This interest brought him to the Liberation Technology Program at Stanford where Srinivasan is currently leading a research project entitled "Combating corruption with mobile phones".

Vivek Srinivasan

Encina Hall
Office C149

(650) 561-6039
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picture-4171-1416339295.jpg PhD

I joined the Liberation Technology Program as the Manager in February 2011 after completing my Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Prior to this, I worked with campaigns on various socio-economic rights in India, including the right to food, education and the right to information. Based on these experiences I have written (and co-authored) extensively on issues surrounding the right to food, including Notes from the right to food campaign: people's movement for the right to food (2003), Rights based approach and human development: An introduction (2008), Gender and the right to food: A critical re-examination (2006), Food Policy and Social Movements: Reflections on the Right to Food Campaign in India (2007).  

In working with these campaigns, I realised the widespread disparities in the provision of basic public services in India. This led me examine how Tamil Nadu, a southern Indian state, developed extensive commitment to providing such services to all its residents in my doctoral dissertation.  Oxford University Press published my book based on the dissertation entitled, "Delivering services effectively: Tamil Nadu and Beyond" in 2014.

As a full-time activist, I also experimented with various IT platforms to make the campaigns effective. This interest brought me to the Liberation Technology Program at Stanford. I am currently leading a research project entitled "Combating corruption with mobile phones".

Visiting Scholar
Former Academic Research & Program Manager, Liberation Technology
Academic Research & Program Manager, Program on Liberation Technology Academic Research & Program Manager, Program on Liberation Technology
Seminars

Julie Cordua speaks on child exploitation and sexual abuse imagery

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Julie Cordua, executive director of Thorn, a non-profit organization founded by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, spoke passionately on the topic child exploitation and sexual abuse imagery for the Stanford Program on Human Rights’ Winter Speaker Series U.S Human Rights NGOs and International Human Rights on February 4, 2015.

Cordua addressed the Stanford audience about the importance of technology for acting as the “digital defenders of children." She provided a chilling account of child sexual exploitation, first describing the problem and then going on to challenge preconceived notions about it. For example, she highlighted that in order to tackle the issue, it must first be understood that it concerns a highly vulnerable population; most child victims of sexual exploitation come from extremely abusive backgrounds and many have been sexually abused by one or more parents.

Cordua emphasized that technology innovations have contributed to a proliferation of child exploitation and sexual abuse imagery through the use of encrypted networks that make it extremely difficult to hunt down perpetrators and find victims. Cordua feels that while technology is intensifying the problem, technology is also the solution.  Examples she gave were the development of algorithms that aim to track perpetrators and their victims and advertisements that encourage pedophiles to seek help.

Helen Stacy, director of the Program on Human Rights, queried Cordua on Thorn’s relationship with the government and private sector, as well as on Thorn’s approach for testing the efficacy of their programs. Cordua responded that Thorn does not apply for government funds so as to maintain independence over their projects but that they actively cultivate strong relationships with politicians and law enforcers. In relation to evaluation metrics, Cordua acknowledged that metrics are especially difficult in such a cryptic field as it is nearly impossible to know what numbers they are dealing with from the onset. Questions from the audience included effective strategies for changing the conversation of pedophilia in the public sphere, the emotional stamina required for pursuing such work, and strategies for connecting with and providing a safe platform for victims of child sexual exploitation.

Dana Phelps, Program Associate, Program on Human Rights

 

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Julie Cordua, executive director of Thorn, speaks at Stanford
Dana Phelps
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Digital Humanitarians

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Abstract

The overflow of information generated during disasters can be as paralyzing to humanitarian response as the lack of information. Making sense of this flash flood of information, "Big Data", is proving an impossible challenge for traditional humanitarian organizations; so they’re turning to Digital Humanitarians: tech-savvy volunteers who craft and leverage ingenious crowdsourcing solutions with trail-blazing insights from artificial intelligence. Digital Humanitarians take online collective action to the next level—particularly when spearheading relief efforts in countries ruled by dictatorships. This talk charts the rise of Digital Humanitarians and concludes with their collective action in repressive contexts.

 

Speaker Bio

Patrick Meier is the author of the book " Digital Humnitarians: How Big Data is Changing the Face of Humanitarian Response." He directs QCRI's Social Innovation Program where he & his team use human and machine computing to develop "Next Generation Humanitarian Technologies" in partnership with international humanitarian organizations. Patrick was previously with Ushahidi and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He has a PhD from The Fletcher School, Pre-Doc from Stanford and an MA from Columbia. His influential blog iRevolutions has received over 1.5 million hits. Patrick tweets at @patrickmeier.

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School of Education

Room 128

Patrick Meier Director of Social Innovation at QCRI

Conference Report: Coalition Against Corruption [Jan. 2014]

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CoCo 2014 was the inaugural edition of the Coalition against Corruption (CoCo) conference co-hosted by The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, Bangalore and Sunlight Foundation, Washington DC. 

CoCo brought together participants from over fifteen countries and across a wide spectrum comprising researchers and academics, elected representatives, government officials, practitioners, civil society organisations, technologists and citizens. 

Over three days, we engaged in conversations on a wide range of issues on the following corruption types: 

  • Corruption in public resource allocation
  • Political financing and lobbying
  • Corruption in public procurement
  • Retail corruption in public services for citizens

CoCo 2014 explored these corruption-types in an innovative format across the themes of rule of law, tools of transparency and accountability and the impact of grassroots pressure groups and digital platforms. 

Besides the four plenaries, CoCo allowed plenty of time for short presentations, for showcasing practitioner successes and for open group discussions. Part of the agenda was also an “Unconference” session for surfacing and discussing critical challenges that went beyond the four corruption-types in focus at CoCo. 

For more information on the conference and its sponsors, please see here. 

Below is the link for the conference report. 

 

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Is There Such A Thing As A "Direct" Cash Transfer? [Dec. 2014]

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Vivek Srinivasan, Program Manager, Program on Liberation Technology, CDDRL, Stanford University

Rajendran Narayanan, Cornell University

Sai Chand Chintala, Society for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency

Dipanjan Chakraborty, IIT Delhi

Rajesh Veeraraghavan, University of California, Berkeley

Vibhore Vardhan, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

In this article, we focus on three forceful arguments that have been made in favour of “direct” cash transfers: One, cash can be delivered directly to the beneficiaries by removing many layers of intermediaries that are typically involved in delivering other benefits such as subsidised food in the Public Distribution System. It has been argued that since intermediaries are often corrupt, transferring cash directly to beneficiaries will eliminate corruption. Two, technology could be used at all steps of the transfer of benefits and thus we can track the flow of money from start to end, which will make the flow of cash entirely transparent. Three, direct transfers are instantaneous. These arguments have been used by proponents to build support for direct cash transfers alternative to other forms of benefits transfer. We examine these claims empirically.

 

 

 

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What Industry and the Social Sciences can Learn From Each Other

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Speaker Bio

I am a population scientist working on collecting, validating, and analyzing new and existing survey data. My research focuses on internet use in developing countries and making population estimates from sampled populations on- and off-line. Prior to joining Facebook I did graduate study in sociology at Chicago, Oxford, and the LSE. I did further work at the Harris School of Public Policy, the American Journal of Sociology, NORC, and the Center for TIme Use Research.

Interests

Demography, survey methodology, sociology, time diary data
 

 

This event is part of the Liberation Technology Seminar Series. 

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School of Education 

Room 128

Michael Corey Population Scientist, Facebook
Seminars
Liberation Technology Seminar Series

Using Behavioral Economics and Information Communication Technology to Combat Polio in Pakistan

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Speaker Bio

14120 Michael Callen
Michael Callen

Assistant Professor, Public Policy

Harvard Kennedy School

 

 

Michael Callen is assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. His recent work uses experiments to identify ways to address accountability and service delivery failures in the public sector. He has published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, and the British Journal of Political Science. He is an Affiliate of Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD), the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), the Jameel-Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), the Center for Economic Research Pakistan (CERP), Empirical Studies of Conflict (ESOC), and a Principal Investigator on the Building Capacity for the Use of Research Evidence (BCURE): Data and evidence for smart policy design project. His primary interests are political economy, development economics, and experimental economics.

This event is part of the Liberation Technology Seminar Series. 

**** NOTE LOCATION****

School of Education

Room 128

Michael Callen Assistant Professor, Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Seminars
Liberation Technology Seminar Series

Mobiles, Minds and Money: Mobile technology as a platform for implementing financial behavior change

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Abstract

The global ubiquity of mobile phones presents an opportunity to explore the potential of this technology as a tool for implementing lasting behavioral change on a large scale employing techniques from behavioral economics.  This talk presents a 6 month long pilot project carried out by Juntos Finanzas in conjunction with a large Colombian bank to determine whether behavior change messaging delivered via responsive SMS can alter the savings behavior  of first-time banking customers in Colombia. We discuss the results of the intervention, the technological and design techniques used and show a strong correlation between receiving behavior change messaging and increased savings.  We explore the potential uses of these techniques in other areas such as public health and the pros and cons of SMS vs native mobile apps as a platform for delivering behavior change content.


 

 

Speaker Bio

Amer Dahmash is a software engineer at Juntos Finanzas in San Carlos, California.  His interests lie in the use of mobile computing to overcome problems in infrastructure in under-developed and low-income areas.  Prior to working with Juntos, Amer cofounded Regalii a venture-backed startup based in Washington Heights in Manhattan working on mobile remittances.

 

This event is part of the Liberation Technology Seminar Series. 

****NOTE LOCATION***

School of Education

Room 128

Amer Dahmash Software Engineer, Juntos Finanzas
Seminars
Liberation Technology Seminar Series
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Human Rights in the Age of Hyper-Surveillance

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enrique piraces 1 370x410 Enrique Piracés

 

 

 

Abstract

For decades, security experts, privacy advocates, and whistleblowers have warned us about the growing surveillance capacity of states, the risk of technology in the hands of organized crime, and the increasing role that corporations play in violating citizens’ rights to privacy and anonymity.  As we start to grasp the scope and scale of unchecked surveillance, it is important to underscore the need to understand its potential long-term consequences for human rights organizations and the development of free media. Human rights defenders and journalists work in environments where resources are scarce and adversaries have the upper hand. In the context of human rights documentation and journalistic work, the implications of technically advanced surveillance can be tremendous.

Speaker Bio

Enrique Piracés is Vice President of the Human Rights Program at Benetech. He has been working at the intersection of human rights, science, and technological innovation for more than 10 years. His focus has been both the implications of the use of technology in the context of human rights as well as the opportunities that new scientific and technological developments open for NGOs and practitioners. He is an advocate for the use of open source and strong crypto as the baseline for human rights documentation and journalistic work.

****NOTE LOCATION****

School of Education

Room 128

Enrique Piracés Vice President, Human Rights Program, Benetech
Seminars
Liberation Technology Seminar Series
Date Label
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