I Change My City

[Gautam John]

Janagraha's latest project looks interesting.

http://ichangemycity.com/

Looks like a way to centralise civic complaints and (hopefully) action as well.

The maps look kinda interesting:

http://ichangemycity.com/master_maps

And the find your ward thing is cool:

http://ichangemycity.com/find_your_ward

I wonder if they have an API... :)

- Gautam

[Thejesh GN]

On Apr 9, 2012 10:12 PM, "Gautam John" <gkj...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> And the find your ward thing is cool:
>
> http://ichangemycity.com/find_your_ward
>
> I wonder if they have an API... :)
>

No API yet. What kind of APIs are you looking?

[Gautam John]

On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 10:43 PM, Thejesh GN <i...@thejeshgn.com> wrote:

> No API yet. What kind of APIs are you looking?

I'm thinking you can do many many things:

1. I send you a coordinate and you tell me:
a. MP/MLA/Corporator
b. Ward
c. Nearest fire/water/polling booth/police station etc.
d. Complaints in a 2, 3, 5 KM radius tagged by type
e. Infrastructure rating

2. I send you a ward you tell me:
a. Corporator
b. Complaints
c. Rating etc.

And a write API to feed complaints et. al. back to you as well.

[Venkatraman S]

Why are these based on Google Maps and not OSM?

-V

[Anivar Aravind]

This must base on OSM .

[satyaakam goswami]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Anivar Aravind <anivar....@gmail.com> wrote:

This must base on OSM .

is there anyone out there from this project ? probably they are not aware of OSM or there must be some other reasons to it, lets hear from them then try to make that change to OSM happen.

-Satya

[Thejesh GN]

I am not actively associated with the project anymore. But I do still volunteer at Janaagraha once in a while. 

The map part of the application was developed with the help from ArcGIS and Google. Janaagraha also got a free NGO license from Google. 

I think it all came together. No political reasons as such.  I know the 'open' advantage of OSM. But as of now I don't see any reason/rush to switch to OSM.   

[Shekhar Krishnan]

I would be interested to help develop a generic framework and API that
can be used for similar purposes in any city in India.

It must have OSM integration and Indic localisation, and be easily
adapted to spatial and tabular forms in which we get data from
municipalities.

This site Mumbai Votes http://mumbaivotes.com/ was fairly decent during
the recently concluded municipal elections in Mumbai.

Also Zainab Bawa of HasGeek has been involved with Praja
http://www.praja.org/ which is a less shiny but more savvy version of
Janaagraha in Mumbai.

Best,

S.K.

--

Shekhar Krishnan
58/58A, Anand Bhavan, 2nd Floor
201, T.H. Kataria Marg (Lady Hardinge Road)
Mahim, Mumbai 400016, Maharashtra, INDIA

http://shekhar.cc
http://web.mit.edu/shekhar

[Maya Indira Ganesh]

I'm really pleased to see this initiative but it does seem like there is a lot going on there.

I'm interested in how this is being used (going to be used) to actually communicate with officials and promote advocacy around local issues. How is the data going to be leverage for campaigns or advocacy or to demand accountability? How is this being presented to officials and how are they reacting? Is there any specific collaboration with groups on the ground who work on more specific issues, or with journalists reporting on/investigating issues? Would love to hear more process stories of how data based initiatives are actually having an impact.

Thanks
Maya

On 10 April 2012 13:47, Shekhar Krishnan <she...@mit.edu> wrote:

I would be interested to help develop a generic framework and API that can be used for similar purposes in any city in India.

It must have OSM integration and Indic localisation, and be easily adapted to spatial and tabular forms in which we get data from municipalities.

This site Mumbai Votes http://mumbaivotes.com/ was fairly decent during the recently concluded municipal elections in Mumbai.

Also Zainab Bawa of HasGeek has been involved with Praja http://www.praja.org/ which is a less shiny but more savvy version of Janaagraha in Mumbai.

Best,



S.K.

On 04/10/2012 12:12 PM, Thejesh GN wrote:

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 11:12 AM, satyaakam goswami <saty...@gmail.com

<mailto:saty...@gmail.com>> wrote:

   On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Anivar Aravind

   <anivar....@gmail.com <mailto:anivar.aravind@gmail.com>> wrote:

       This must base on OSM .


   is there anyone out there from this project ? probably they are not
   aware of OSM or there must be some other reasons to it, lets hear
   from them then try to make that change to OSM happen.

   -Satya


I am not actively associated with the project anymore. But I do still
volunteer at Janaagraha once in a while.

The map part of the application was developed with the help from ArcGIS
and Google. Janaagraha also got a free NGO license from Google.

I think it all came together. No political reasons as such.  I know the
'open' advantage of OSM. But as of now I don't see any reason/rush to
switch to OSM.

[Thejesh GN]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 1:47 PM, Shekhar Krishnan <she...@mit.edu> wrote:

I would be interested to help develop a generic framework and API that can be used for similar purposes in any city in India.

Have a look at

http://www.mysociety.org/projects/

Probably we can alter or enhance.

 

On 04/10/2012 12:12 PM, Thejesh GN wrote:

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 11:12 AM, satyaakam goswami <saty...@gmail.com

<mailto:saty...@gmail.com>> wrote:

   On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Anivar Aravind

   <anivar....@gmail.com <mailto:anivar.aravind@gmail.com>> wrote:

       This must base on OSM .


   is there anyone out there from this project ? probably they are not
   aware of OSM or there must be some other reasons to it, lets hear
   from them then try to make that change to OSM happen.

   -Satya


I am not actively associated with the project anymore. But I do still
volunteer at Janaagraha once in a while.

The map part of the application was developed with the help from ArcGIS
and Google. Janaagraha also got a free NGO license from Google.

I think it all came together. No political reasons as such.  I know the
'open' advantage of OSM. But as of now I don't see any reason/rush to
switch to OSM.

[Gautam John]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 10:52 AM, Anivar Aravind

<anivar....@gmail.com> wrote:

> This must base on OSM .

Why? I thought the value of FOSS was that one could make a *choice*.

Given that they have a free license from Google, other than
philosophical reasons, why should anyone switch?

[Gautam John]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 1:47 PM, Shekhar Krishnan <she...@mit.edu> wrote:

> I would be interested to help develop a generic framework and API that can
> be used for similar purposes in any city in India.

While you are at it, we're building something similar (specific to
education but can be repurposed) at http://klp.org.in/visualization
https://github.com/klpdotorg/KLP-klpwww

It's very much a work in progress but collaboration and inputs are
welcome - d...@klp.org.in

[Gautam John]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 2:30 PM, Maya Indira Ganesh
<maya....@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm interested in how this is being used (going to be used) to actually
> communicate with officials and promote advocacy around local issues.

I hear you. The closure of the feedback loop is rather important,
what? And I would be interested in learning how that is happening too.

[Srikanth Lakshmanan]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 16:53, Gautam John <gkj...@gmail.com> wrote:

Why? I thought the value of FOSS was that one could make a *choice*.

I don't think value of FOSS is about giving choice, its about 4 freedoms mentioned here[1]. Choice may come from free culture and I agree with you about having a choice. 

So to put it in another way, why should i be fed with only Google maps. Can I have the choice of seeing through OSM as well? This is not very difficult technically with libraries like mapstraction. (The debate of which one to be defaulted can be had later ;) )

 

Given that they have a free license from Google,

Nitpick, Google gave them license free of cost, didn't give them a free license. Makes a world of difference since we are taking about FOSS / philosophy on the same thread.

 

other than
philosophical reasons, why should anyone switch?

IMO The philosophical reason about FOSS / non-FOSS is not the one that matters here, its about the ability to make changes to map, especially in a country like India where geography of city changes everyday. How often google's map change and who changes (approves) them. I don't think map maker community is any bigger than OSM community(which itself is small). Google maps might be the Britannica soon enough when there is sufficient map data & community around it.

[1]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software#Definition 

--
Regards
Srikanth.L

[Neha M]

The closest the website has to say is 

"ichangemycity is a locational online social networking platform for civic action. The site uses the power of the internet to connect people locally, and helps them discuss and act on their civic issues. By helping people come together and collaborate as an online community, it transforms citizens into change agents."

No info on how the actual complaints will be addressed and by whom. This would be useful if it became more than a platform for venting rage at officials. 

Anyone know of any case studies/evidence on how previous initiatives (eg I paid a bribe) have worked in terms of closing the feedback loop? 

--
Neha Mujumdar

[Arjun Ram]

Posting on this based on discussions with Gautam on Twitter.

Neha, I think you hit the nail on the head. We (Localbeat - formerly TaazzaGO at http://www.localbeat.in) have been down this path before. We let our users report citizen issues around them while consuming other information such as news, events, deals on the go. While the initial interest/usage were great, we came to the same stumbling block of closing the loop. While iPaidaBribe is known to be one of the successfully campaigns  IMHO the impact could have been significantly higher than 15K reports across the board.

IMHO, the value of NGO's is helping close the loop on the other side with officials and learn to partner with folks. While they have very capable folks like Thej helping them out, their impact to the ecosystem can be significantly higher if they become the pipe and use their clout to decrease the friction with the official structure.

In our prior experience, we havent seen evidence of such and have been bogged down by branding issues & such.

I really like the work the PR legislative is doing with the MP data on their site.

My 2 cents. BTW we are working addressing issues/suggestions brought up Gautam.

--
Neha Mujumdar

--
Arjun Ram

[Anant Maringanti]

Hi all,

I have followed this thread with curiosity. Although I am trained as a geographer I am barely comfortable with the technology and techniques of cartography. The politics of cartography and information is more like my domain.

So, bear with me if my question sounds naive or uninformed.

From what I can make out, there are two responses in this thread both dealing with the effectiveness of these new interactive platforms. And both speak of the feedback loop being closed as the critical gap.

In both it seems to me that the role of the NGO remains the same: the NGO makes it possible to close the loop between the citizen-subjects and the bureaucracy. In other words the NGO is the arbitrator between two parties that are not able to speak to each other. (That is probably the basis for the branding battles - two NGOs competing with each other for that role of being the sole arbitrator.)

But couldn't there be other roles possible for the NGO or whatever agency it might be that hosts the platform ? Say for example, enabling a community of users to interpret spatial patterns to develop new action agendas and action repertoirs ? 

I ask this because I have been watching with growing anxiety at all the new data platforms and I have interacted with some of the people who have created them.There seem to be so many of them in the pipeline everywhere. promoted by government-government and government-NGO and government-corporation initiatives to throw open the flood gates of data. Branding and ownership do seem to be important issues in many of them.

My anxiety stems from the fact that as it happens in RTI campaigns - unless the platforms are developed with a political vision and the platforms are developed to generate new insights - one could end up with some useful data access and portability and a lot of junk data.

For example, what happens if we figure out how to use ward level mapping exercises to make sense of tax incentive funds and see how infrastructural risks are distributed across the city as it gets increasingly financialized ?

Or if we can figure out how tanks and tank beds and the inflows and outflows into them are changing leading to chronic flooding and public health risks without significantly improving the structural features of housing access to  the urban poor ? And build on that to push for new planning and regulating instruments that strengthen the claims of the katcha abadis ?

Can someone point me to any  experiences of how these new platforms have led to  possibilities of the above kind in any field because I am really keen on learning how to build a network of such platforms ??

anant

[Gautam John]

On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Anant Maringanti <anan...@gmail.com> wrote:

> But couldn't there be other roles possible for the NGO or whatever agency it
> might be that hosts the platform ? Say for example, enabling a community of
> users to interpret spatial patterns to develop new action agendas and action
> repertoirs ?

> Branding and ownership do seem to be important issues in many of them.

Anant, I could not agree more. Any platform should not be held hostage
to ownership.

> Can someone point me to any  experiences of how these new platforms have led
> to  possibilities of the above kind in any field because I am really keen on
> learning how to build a network of such platforms ??

Take a look at http://www.klp.org.in - we are just getting started but
are also beginning to expose the underlying data sets too.

[Nisha Thompson]

You have just described the holy grail of platforms! The great goal everyone wants to accomplish. I think the sharing platforms and creating a network so to say is valuable. Maybe we can start by just sharing platforms but in terms of impact and successes that might take a little longer to collect.

Nisha

On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 12:38 PM, Anant Maringanti <anan...@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Nisha Thompson
Mobile: 962-061-2245

[Anant Maringanti]

Thanks Gautam. I looked at the site and have a bunch of questions. I will write an email to you later.

Nisha, sharing platforms sounds good. Although I am not quite sure what exactly you mean by that. Allow others to use an existing platform ? Share the technology and help others build their own because there is no reason to replicate the developmental effort each time ? Either way, it sounds like a good idea.

I think the main thing however, is the challenge of figuring out what sorts of questions to ask, what kinds of insights to look for etc. This would depend on a) the specificity of the city / place etc b) the kind of data that one is looking at or is able to generate c) the kind of politics that the local groups are pursuing d). the group having the ability to ask interesting and useful questions that can be realistically answered and visually represented.

To illustrate, when I looked at klp.org.in the first thing that struck me is that - so much of the school education politics in Hyderabad revolves around land. Government schools  have been under tremendous pressure to shut down, to club with each other to run shift schools etc. And at least some of this pressure has had to do with the fact that government schools own land. So, over the years we have seen a gradual decline in school performance so much so that closing them down begins to look like the only sensible thing to do. And all this happens against the backdrop of research findings by the Cato institute etc. to show that the poor prefer private schools because they are more ubiquitous and more accountable. In this context, what can one do with a platform like klp.org.in  ??

I think conversations of that kind will really be very helpful to foster a data and tech savyness with vision and also facilitate a sort of directed play with data will become possible. And simultaneously also democratize knowledge production in some real sense. ??
anant

[Nisha Thompson]

Let me clarify: by sharing I mean on this list, we share platforms we use, want to see, are creating. I know a lot of that is happening already. But maybe we can get a list going and then we can reply to that thread with questions that are present. And then write a blogpost and put it up on the DataMeet blog that hasn't really been using but lately there have been a lot of interesting conversations and debates we should be able to share in some way. 

Back to the question answer platform impact question. 

This is what I struggle with on the data project for India Water Portal. The questions people have -  we don't have data to explore and the data we have leave a lot to be desired.  So it might be an interesting exercise to just gather questions and see what collectively we can answer on whatever platforms and already exists. 

I'm really fascinated by your example regarding gov school performance and land grabbing. What data do we need to answer this question? What exists? Can data even really answer this?

At what point did school performance start going down? Can we match it with economic indicators? Can we add a infrastructure and sanitation layer to it? And Budget? 

This is when things start to get interesting.  

[Maya Indira Ganesh]

Anant

Thanks for your valuable comments. This is the kind of thing I'm personally interested in and trying to do through some projects at Tactical Tech.
I think what you're talking about is really key and is part of the loop we aren't closing.
On the one hand there is the really basic need to aggregate information towards a kind of accountability that is based on  an input-output sort of model. THen there is the approach that reflects on an issue sideways. And this is where I think the real storytelling or creativity or play, as you put it, with data comes in. What you're saying about land acquisition and school closures is interesting, that there is perhaps a larger story there that needs to be investigated/exposed, perhaps through some creative triangulation. Maybe by looking at patterns of what happens to public institutions on prime land over a period of time in a particular area and that the issue is not about a bias against educational institutions, or a lack of government engagement with education but is about something else entirely. So an advocacy strategy that pushes for education reform ends up being quite narrow if it is just about the right to education. Evidence can be useful in showing that the issue is about the interplay of other powerful factors in the delivery of public services, and then this becomes a platform for advocacy.

We discovered something similar in a project we're doing with sex wokers in Calcutta and Phnom Penh. The Calcutta group set out to document violence and rights abuses against sex workers but couldn't seem to understand the role of violence by local gangs and hired thugs until they realised that brothels are located on prime land. They used to be on the outskirts of the city but are not quite central and are being eyed by developers very keenly. So there are many kinds of intimidation and distinct patterns of eviction/relocation at play. The issue is then not necessarily of moral objections to sex work in an area but to the fact that they're sitting on prime land (and have been for 150 years). SO the challenge then was to actually look at land ownership, land sale, and the change in ownership patterns in particular areas, what has been acquired/built in a paticular area around a brothel that drives prices up and makes it difficult for the urban poor (people forget that sex workers are also part of the urban poor and the urban underclass) to survive there, forcing them to move? Thugs and gangs end up then playing a small role when you see them as extensions of the land mafia. It also becomes easier/different when you make a case for advocacy around sex worker rights, which is already so loaded and appropriated. IT becomes an issue of land grabbing an about evictions rather than a struggle around moralities.

The tragedy was the the NGO we're working with had absolutely no capacity to do this kind of playing with evidence and constructing stories that are larger. The point of the project though was to help them gain this capacity and do creative things with data, rather than just produce some boring sixty page report (or yet another interactive map) of where violence happens.

Maya

[Gautam John]

On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 4:38 PM, Anant Maringanti <anan...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Nisha, sharing platforms sounds good. Although I am not quite sure what
> exactly you mean by that. Allow others to use an existing platform ? Share
> the technology and help others build their own because there is no reason to
> replicate the developmental effort each time ? Either way, it sounds like a
> good idea.

If I might share a thought here. Given, that in India, we all work
with such a dramatic paucity of date, governmental, open or otherwise,
and that because of that we have very few, if a growing number, of
platforms, it does make sense, logical but not always business, for
people to collaborate and share in ways that leverage each others data
sets and allow for platform reuse too. No sense in recreating the data
and platform wheels, no?

[Gautam John]

On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 5:26 PM, Maya Indira Ganesh
<maya....@gmail.com> wrote:

> The tragedy was the the NGO we're working with had absolutely no capacity to
> do this kind of playing with evidence and constructing stories that are
> larger. The point of the project though was to help them gain this capacity
> and do creative things with data, rather than just produce some boring sixty
> page report (or yet another interactive map) of where violence happens.

Or make it possible for other organisations to tell those stories?

[Thejesh GN]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 6:38 PM, Neha M <nehamu...@gmail.com> wrote:

The closest the website has to say is 

Anyone know of any case studies/evidence on how previous initiatives (eg I paid a bribe) have worked in terms of closing the feedback loop? 

I remember Janamahiti report by Janaagraha in collaboration with Transport Department. It used to be available on ipab. I have a saved copy @ http://www.scribd.com/doc/89254969/Janamahiti-Report-English

--

Thanks,

Thejesh GN

http://linkedlist.in Bangalore is a monthly newsletter of cool things for hackers, writers and designers to do in Bangalore.

[Maya Indira Ganesh]

Gosh, would love to.

[Balaji Subbaraman]

I would be more happy to set-up a shared platform on Knoema for our
datameet group to supports all sorts of open data initiatives.
The platform can be a shared/common platform to explore data online,
upload data, share data, build charts/reports online, share reports to
others, allow people to comment, discussion, exchange views, download data
and data collection to support all our open data initiatives.

I am sure, making data open is very important and our responsibilities
doesn't ends there. The data must convey a meaningful information and must
drive the changes in our society that many of us (as citizen/social
activist/researchers/policy makers/philanthropist ) are dreaming & driving
towards building better India. and we definitely need to have a common
platform for that.

Imagine that you have many datasets that are readily available to explore
on line and building charts out of it. This saves many of our effort of
downloading data, understanding data and trying make meaningful
information out of it. Many a times, we ended up having a need of more
than one dataset to build meaningful information. There again, things are
getting complex by unifying both datasets before making any charts out of
it. Also, making sure, the data is latest and maintaining repository over
the period.

For all the above common problems that we have, Knoema platform is just
simply solves these problems.

We can discuss more on our upcoming Apr 25th meeting in Bangalore and I am
sure most of us wants such common platform.

I am even going to the extent of proposing the platform as
www.opendataindia.org, with tag line of "Empowering every Indian through
Facts & Figures"

Technically speaking, I can set-up this platform in a week time and make
it available for us to use and we have done this in the past.
You may visit http://opendatauganda.com/, http://opendataforafrica.org/,
http://opengovernanceindia.org/

Let me know your views and me & my team are making serious commitment
here.

Regards
Balaji
Director, India
Knoema
+91-897-122-3232
www.knoema.com
http://blog.knoema.com

[Anant Maringanti]

Maya:

I can relate to the Kolkota story. I think the distinction you seem to suggest between two different types of data work is important. We need to find devices to keep the two separate and noise levels low because they need very different approaches. Actually, I would go so far as to say that it will be really useful if we can come up with a sort of glossary for our own clarity. Also, I think it will be useful to write up notes on what it takes to make data related initiatives actually work. I mean what does it take for a durable local network/platform to be established ? How does one explain the actual workings of these networks ? For example, it would be very interesting to pin down different ways of explaining the fact of the Kolkata NGO not having the capacity ?   I mean, how you explain it has consequences for where you go from there, wont it?

Nisha: To be honest, I made up that schools and land issue on the fly. I do not mean that I lied, but that it is a hunch. The context for that hunch is this: There are a number of groups which could potentially generate data on schools in Hyderabad. There is Save Education Campaign, there are teachers unions, there are a number of NGOs working on child labour and girl child education related issues and so on. Then there are people doing research on education. Each time, I meet anyone of them, I drool. I think, oh my god. Each of these guys is a walking GPS unit. If I can just sit them down and extract data from them and put it onto a map, I can tell somany stories about the world. But of course, it just doesnt happen like that. Each of them also has a bunch of stories. Each of them is directed by a powerful script and each of them also wants to write a small new script.

So, to answer "what kind of data do we need and can data even answer the question", I think it is definitely worth exploring what the officially available data can reveal. I think the sanitation and other infrastrucures layers can reveal a bunch of other stuff about schools and no somuch about the land. But let that be for now...

I think it is also requires generating new data and as Maya suggests it needs some sort of creative triangulation. Ultimately, this sort of work is both about gaining insights and about collective framings. (In Maya's case, if the local group has stakes in representing it only as a moral issue around women's bodies, then the fact that it also has to do with caste, land price, AIDS prevention funds etc. will tend to remain concealed. Then, what needs to be done is to look for chinks in the story that is visible and see what that reveals).

I would love to hear more about what you are struggling with in India water portal's data project. I have some ideas on how to work collectively to address the way we think about data, questions and answerabilities of questions and so on. This is definitely a very important issue for my work in Hyderabad where we have recently launched an initiative - Right to the City Foundation and under that Hyderabad Urban Laboratory.

Finally, Maya, on that Kolkata story - something similar happened in Hyderabad in 1998 but with a further twist.The real estate spike coincided with a shift in international funding priorities from child labor eradication to AIDS prevention triggering all sorts of scrambles in the governmental and non governmental agencies. This meant that the attacks on the women  came in the garb of rescue and rehabilitation packages and branding of select women as AIDS patients etc. Those who did not accept the deal  or were just not considered valuable enough for rescue operations were assaulted by other means. It makes me tremble even now as I recall the details. Harsh Mander documented some slices of the story in his book Unheard voices (he did not make the connections as starkly as I am making). I look forward to seeing how your intervention there has shaped up / is shaping up.


anant

[Anivar Aravind]

Thanks Anand for writing  on the politics of data . This part is missing in most of the opendata discussions  in recent past

Anivar