Digital Democracy

In February, Dd brought together an unlikely mix of international software developers & designers, Haitian technical students and members of Haitian women’s organization KOFAVIV to host Haiti’s first Hackathon, a three-day event designed to encourage collaboration between these diverse actors in order to build out tools to support KOFAVIV’s efforts to turn the 572 Call Center into a national service for survivors of gender-based violence.

The following four months have passed quickly, and we’re thrilled to report that the spirit of the Hackathon – one of collaboration and coming together to create something for the greater good – is alive and well. In fact, hackathon participants embraced this spirit by identifying its roots in Haitian culture:

“This event has brought us back to a piece of Haitian culture, the ‘konbit’, that we have largely left behind. The Hackathon has showed us how this collaborative methodology can be transformed beyond agriculture into other realms to accelerate Haiti’s development.” – Richardson Ciguene, ESIH student

For the Dd team, few outcomes are more rewarding than for our own role in a program to become unnecessary. That’s the state of our Haiti Program – we have fully transitioned it into the capable hands of KOFAVIV’s leadership & tech team. Now, it’s also the state of hackathons in Haiti – Richardson and other students at ESIH are hosting the first official “Konbit Teknolojik” in June and we look forward to sharing news on how it goes.

This continuation of the hackathon model, without our direct involvment, is a reflection of the positive spirit of collaboration engendered by the event. In the post-event evaluations, Patrick Attié, the Director of ESIH wrote:

“The immediate benefit for us is in acquiring the know-how and methodology to be able to organize more hackathons in Haiti. We can use the hackathon methodology to solve specific problems that we have here that can be solved with technology.”

The Hackathon was made possible thanks to participants from Port-au-Prince and around the world, partners KOFAVIV, ESIH, Solutions, Geeks Without Bounds, Openflows, and Openbox, and sponsors Abundance Foundation, UNHCR Innovations, Arca Foundation, Channel Foundation, Knight-Mozilla Open News & Tropo.

For more details on the hows & whys of the first Haiti Hackathon, check out our FAQ below.

Dd’s Haiti Hackathon – FAQ

Port-au-Prince, Haiti: Starting March 8, 2013 the KOFAVIV Gender-based Violence Call Center received nearly 2000 calls over the course of a mere 48 hours. Thankfully, the influx of calls was not a result of a spike in violence in Haiti, but rather a response to a campaign launched by Digicel in honor of International Women’s Day to share information on the 572 Call Center with over 5 million mobile subscribers in Haiti.

During the month of March, call center operators fielded thousands of calls from throughout the country. Calls came both from women seeking support for specific cases of domestic and sexual violence and from citizens asking for general information on what the call center does and to do if an incident of violence ever does happen to them or those around them.

For our partner KOFAVIV, the promotion from Digicel was a major victory in their efforts to support survivors of sexual violence throughout the country. According to Wismide, one of the call center operators, “Even if callers aren’t victims at the time of the call, we hope they will remember 572 as a resource and share it with people close to them. The more people are informed about what to do, the more support survivors will have in their communities in the future.”

Calls in Context: Current Rates of Sexual Violence in PaP
KOFAVIV and other women’s organizations continue to be alarmed by the steady rates of sexual violence in and around Port-au-Prince. In the first 3 months of 2013 alone, KOFAVIV has documented 110 incidents. But despite the consistent influx of cases, community agents have noted some positive changes as a result of ongoing awareness-raising campaigns like this one. As Fania, one of the KOFAVIV Technology Agents, shared:

“It used to be the norm to stay in silence if you had been raped and even attempt to take your own life. This is still a common thing but little by little we are seeing that more women are reaching out and seeking help. Many already know to get to the hospital immediately. Even if they do it without telling anyone in their household, they know they have to get medical care to protect themselves.”

A Critical Moment for the Call Center
Throughout the past months, KOFAVIV has found ample support for promotion of the call center number including organizational community outreach, Digicel’s campaign and a direct link from the Red Cross general info hotline – 733. But three years after the earthquake, women’s groups have struggled to find ongoing funding for the basic services the call center was designed to connect women to. Explained KOFAVIV co-founder Eramithe Delva, “Everyone is interested in data but we can’t forget that the call center has been successful because it is a way to connect women to the care they need. If we no longer have support for lawyers or social workers, where are we going to direct women when they call?”

While Dd’s partnership with KOFAVIV has focused on the technology and design of the call center and database, the success of these tools has relied on the strength of KOFAVIV’s core program: Organizing with survivors of sexual violence, providing psycho-social support, accompanying women and girlsto legal and medical services, and documenting the details of their cases.

In February, Dd worked with KOFAVIV, ESIH & other partners to host Haiti’s first Hackathon, where Haitian and international developers collaborated with KOFAVIV’s tech and call center agents to design a web-based map application so that KOFAVIV can more easily serve callers from across the country. The Hackathon represented the end of the direct implementation phase of our work to address GBV in Haiti. We have since focused on reporting on our work and supporting KOFAVIV’s full management of the technical systems we build together. Moving forward, Dd is continuing to work with KOFAVIV to spread the word about 572, focus on strategic use of data for prevention and stressing the urgent need to continue funding medical, legal, psychosocial services.

February 1-3, 2013 –  This weekend, Digital Democracy – along with partners KOFAVIV, ESIH & more – is hosting “From Local Solutions to National Systems,” a Hackathon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We’re thrilled to be convening a talented group of Haitian & international developers, designers and issue areas experts for the first Hackathon FOR Haiti to be hosted IN Haiti.

What is a Hackathon? A combination of the words “hack” and “marathon,” a hackathon is a convening of computer programmers and others (graphic designers, user experience experts, project managers and more) to build specific tech tools, rapid-style, over the course of a few days. Our upcoming, transnational collaboration will focus on developing tools to help scale the impact of our partner KOFAVIV’s work by nationalizing the 572-Call Center and digging deep into trends and visualization of data they have collected on incidents of gender-based violence over the past three years.

As we first blogged about in October, the Hackathon has two primary objectives:
1) design tools to improve the efficacy of the 572 Call Center by developing better ways to access and organize available information on valuable resources (like emergency care) outside the Port-au-Prince area.
2) improve the use and visualization of data on instances of rape and sexual violence throughout Haiti. New data visualization tools will allow for enhanced visual reports on cases received by KOFAVIV, the identification of new trends in existing data and improved advocacy for increased security for women & girls.

The Hackathon will be hosted at the École Supérieure d’Infotronique d’Haïti. Not only has ESIH opened their space for the event, nine of their 3rd & 4th year students will be participating in the hackathon. As Director Patrick Attie told us:

“The first Hackathon in Haiti represents an amazing opportunity for our students to be placed in a production situation, apply their  knowledge to solving real problems and meet other (Haitian and foreign) geeks, as passionate as they are about what technology can do to help improve the harsh living conditions in Haiti. A Hackathon is a culture that we absolutely need to be able to promote and perpetuate on our own. Remembering, after the earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12th, 2010, that most hacker events about helping Haiti took place outside of Haiti, the Hackathon brought to us by Digital Democracy should also demonstrate that this type of event can efficiently take place in Haiti.”

Hosting the Hackathon in Haiti is what attracted one of our international participants, Sara-Jayne Farmer of Change Assembly, a veteran of many Hack events and open-source communities. When applying to participate, she wrote, “I led the London CrisisCamp team that responded to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Like many crisismappers, that’s how I started, it’s a very special place for us all, and I couldn’t pass up the change to come help it again. I wanted to participate in the Hackathon because it supports Haitians helping Haitians in Haiti. And I’m looking forward to meeting and working directly with Haitian developers.”

In addition to students from ESIH, local participants will include a development team from Dd’s partner Solutions, creators of Noula.ht, the technical team from KOFAVIV with whom we have worked closely over the years, mappers from COHSMA & more. Joining the Haitian developers to lend skills & expertise is a great group of international participants, coming from Prague, New York, San Francisco and Seattle. Our international participants include:

• Willow Brugh of Geeks Without Bounds, who is helping facilitate & coordinate the event.
• Mariann Urban, software programmer working on data & maps for UNHCR Innovation unit (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).
• Mark Libkuman & Eric Goldhagen of OpenFlows, open source software developers who have worked closely with Dd over the past two years to build KOFAVIV’s database, and most recently conducted technology trainings in Haiti in December.
• Sara-Jayne Farmer, aforementioned crisis-mapper extraordinaire, data guru & CTO of Change Assembly.
• Juan Müller, veteran NYC Hackathon-goer, software developer at ChallengePost.
• Ben Wilkins, longtime hacker for social good, UX engineer at One Medical Group.
• Wendy Fong, freelance visual designer and multimedia studies instructor at City College of San Francisco.
• Two issue area experts – Blaine Bookey of Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, UC Hastings College of the Law & Sasha Prokopets of Hastings to Haiti Partnership, UC Hastings College of the Law. Note: It was through Blaine & the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti that Dd was first introduced to KOFAVIV, three years ago. We feel so blessed to still be collaborating!
• Dd Advisor Marquise Stillwell and Deepthi Welaratna of OpenBox.

I’ll be flying down with many of the other NYC-based participants this morning, and of course, leading us all over the next few days will be Emilie Reiser, Dd’s irreplaceable Haiti Program Director. There’s excitement all around from both the Haitian & international participants. As Blaine wrote,

“I am participating in the Hackathon because I have already seen the incredible impact of the call center, not only for the women but also for the groups organizing for change, and am thrilled to think of more, innovative ways to eradicate gender-based violence.”

For Juan, who will be traveling to Haiti for the first-time, there was another reason to join.

“I’m usually quite excited about hackathons and humanitarian ones in particular. That’s why when I heard about Dd’s efforts in Haiti I knew I had to join. I’m very much looking forward to helping improve the sense of safety (hopefully many) women in Haiti have.”

For Dd, the Hackathon represents the final step in our fully transitioning the tech system we have built over the past three years into the capable hands of our partner KOFAVIV. Success – to us – means systems that last long beyond our departure. We’re excited that the Hackathon represents an opportunity to bring very bright minds together to build technical solutions in the place where they will be implemented, with an emphasis on building local capacity to maintain and continue adapting these tools. Although Hackathons for humanitarian purposes take place all over the world, they happen more rarely in places like Haiti, and we’re keen to learn what works and what doesn’t in this context. In adapting the format to build tech solutions in the places where they are needed, our emphasis is supporting Haitian participants’ ability continue fostering innovation to address the challenges facing their country.

Finally, we are grateful and indebted to all the sponsors and partners who make the Hackathon possible, both for supporting the event and believing in the vision of a Hackathon in Port-au-Prince in the first place. From our founding sponsor the Abundance Foundation to co-hosts ESIH (École Supérieure d’Infotronique d’Haïti) and KOFAVIV, partners Solutions, Geeks Without Bounds, Openflows, Openbox, and sponsors UNHCR Innovations Arca Foundation, Channel Foundation, Knight-Mozilla Open News & Tropo.

Follow #HaitiHack this weekend to join the activities virtually!

Digital Democracy is thrilled to announce we have been named as one of eight winners of  the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight News Challenge on Mobiles. Support from Knight Foundation will enable us to launch Remote Access this spring, an initiative aimed at empowering remote and off-the-grid communities with a toolkit to report environmental and human rights threats. Our pilot program will focus on supporting indigenous communities monitoring oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon.

Please check out our official press release and additional information below. Tune in tomorrow (Friday, Jan. 18th at 12:30pm ET) for a livestream presentation of the winning projects, at knightfoundation.org/live.

What is Remote Access?

The goal of Remote Access is to adapt existing hardware & open-source software tools to the specific needs of communities living in remote areas – those living on the front lines of the struggle for land, resources and agency over their lives. Our approach is to bridge the gap between innovative organizations developing cutting edge tools/applications and vulnerable communities who desperately need to elevate their voices. Combining existing tools into a mobile “Swiss Army Knife,” Remote Access will streamline the process through which users collect, manage and share information, empowering them to be in charge of their own information as they document pressing human & environmental rights abuses.

Why?

Many human rights abuses and environmental crimes continue unchecked for a simple reason: they go unreported and unnoticed in the world’s most fragile ecosystems and hard to reach places. In remote areas with limited access to technology and communication, communities are particularly vulnerable to threats to their lives & environment.

Technology advances – cheap digital cameras, handheld GPS & modern mobile devices and applications – have opened up tremendous opportunities for empowering communities to document environmental and human rights issues. However, many existing tools are too complex, do not work in a disconnected environment, and lack a bottom-up approach that empowers vulnerable populations to collect, control & disseminate their own data.

Yangon, Myanmar: The last time I was in Myanmar (aka Burma), the country was ruled by a military government. It was fall 2009. Elections were on the horizon, but most people I met were skeptical about what they might yield. Mobile phones and internet access were increasingly popular but relatively hard to come by – cyber cafes were crowded, and places to access wifi were few and far between.

But within the burgeoning technology community there was an eagerness to transform the country, and a commitment to doing so as a community. And so when, as part of an informational meeting with members of the Myanmar Bloggers’ Society and Myanmar Computer Professionals’ Association, Mark and I mentioned BarCamp, a kind of technology “unconference” increasing in popularity elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the bloggers and computer programmers got excited about the potential for this kind of conference to engage the local tech community. Mark and I were excited by their excitement: Pulling off a BarCamp in Burma seemed unlikely, but we were learning that not everything in the country was as black and white as it may have appeared from the outside. The potential BarCampers were clearly dedicated, so we spent some time discussing the merits and challenges of BarCamp (can you really pull off a conference where most of the schedule is determined the day of?), connected them to BarCamp friends in Bangkok, and headed back to New York City, full of thoughts and questions about the complex realities taking shape in Myanmar. Many of these were ideas we were careful not to talk much about for the past few years, in the interest of protecting people’s security and privacy. But we had reasons to feel cautiously optimistic about the trajectory of the country, in no small part due to the amazing spirit of the people we met. Their dedication to working for a better future, despite the odds, encouraged us to believe that something more was taking place, underneath the surface of this beautiful but politically-fraught country.

And then, something astonishing happened.

After a few initial hiccups, and questions over the merits of planning a BarCamp, the volunteer organizers gained momentum, and scheduled a BarCamp for January, 2010, despite the threat of events being shut down due to elections scheduled for later that year. Merely scheduling a BarCamp was an impressive astonishment, but in the weeks leading up to the actual event, as I watched from afar, something incredible happened – more and more people registered, creating a snowball effect, and driving the number of BarCamp Yangon participants higher than any other BarCamp in the world – ever. In the end, 2700 registered for BarCamp Yangon 2010, and estimates raised as high as 3,000 participants total.

Fast forward three years, and a core group of organizers – plus scores of volunteers – have been diligently planning for BarCamp Yangon 2013 – the best one yet. I’m one of a couple dozen foreigners privileged enough to attend, and, in true BarCamp style, I’m looking as forward to what I’ll learn as what I’ll give. BarCamp Yangon has become deservedly famous in the intervening years, from breaking the world record on BarCamp to Aung San Suu Kyi’s opening address at BarCamp 2012. But the real essence of the event isn’t about breaking world records or speeches by Nobel Peace Prize Winners. The real essence of BarCamp is how thousands of people can come together and collaboratively plan an event in real-time, the skill-sharing that happens, the friendships that are made.

It is an honor and privilege to be here in Yangon for the next few days to finally experience the magic of BarCamp Yangon in person. Follow along via twitter, and let me know what you most want to know from my time here!

Happy International Human Rights Day, everyone. This year, the focus of Human Rights Day — on Monday & beyond — is the rights of all people to make their voices heard, regardless of their age, gender, race, religion, geography or economic standing. In honor of that mission, we want to share with you a new report, #ICT4HR, co-authored by Molly Land, Patrick Meier and Dd’s co-founders Mark Belinsky & Emily Jacobi.

The report, led by New York law professor Molly Land and sponsored by the World Bank Institute, examines the question of how Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can effectively promote the implementation of Human Rights. Highlighting three case studies, the report looks at the use of tools like mobile phones and social media by human rights advocates in Kenya, the Dominican Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although new technologies have been heralded for their impact in activism and government, Philip Alston explains that there has been “little sustained work…by the human rights community as a whole to apply existing technologies or to study their potential uses and problems.”

The #ICT4HR report begins to bridge that gap by clarifying the key opportunities and challenges of ICT4HR, and offering recommendations to address risks associated with incorporating ICT into the fight for human rights. After four years working directly with communities to develop their digital literacy, Dd has no doubt about the potential power of ICT4HR. With the release of #ICT4HR on Human Rights Day 2012, we at Dd are both celebrating our successes in helping to make voices heard, and reflecting on the hard work yet to be done. Check out the #ICT4HR report and video and help us continue to spread the word.

Today we’re launching a campaign to share our partners’ stories, bring your voice into the conversation & work together to redefine possibility.

Our partners tell us collaboration with Dd has made things possible that they once considered impossible. 

Things like: 

• Hosting the largest Barcamp in the world in Burma/Myanmar.
• Building & running the 1st 24-hour hotline for sexual violence in Haiti.
• Using data to protect survivors of rape in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti.
• Making the first phone call from a remote community in Chiapas, Mexico to get news on eviction threats.

For the rest of the year you’ll hear directly from Dd partners about the POSSIBILITY you help us create. Join the Conversation: Send us your thoughts & questions via Google+, Facebook or #DdPossible on Twitter.

Hear directly from our partners in Haiti in this video.

Check out the photos of our celebration of #DdPossible & 4 years of Digital Democracy from New York in November.

Make it possible: Help Dd continue to work with communities by making an investment in Dd today. We will thank you here to show our <3.

Your tax-deductible contribution will make an immediate and profound impact. 

[This post is excerpted from a letter sent Friday, November 2, 2012 via the Dd Newsletter (Sign Up Here!) following the devastation of Hurricane Sandy & includes links below to articles by Emily published in the Huffington Post about our partners in Haiti.]

Dear Friends,

Over the past weeks, a powerful storm impacted Digital Democracy’s partners & team, in both Haiti and New York City. From flooded tent camps in Port-au-Prince to millions without power on the Eastern seaboard, the storm’s wind and rain forged a deadly path that connected our seemingly disparate communities.

The reality is that extreme weather events resulting from climate change connect us all. A storm that devastates southern Haiti can also flood the NYC subways. Rising food prices as a result of the summer’s drought in the Midwest will affect economic markets around the globe.

As Americans head to the polls next week, I’m struck by the size of the questions we currently face and the opportunities we have within and beyond electoral politics to shape our futures. In such times of uncertainty, the task before us is to combine our talents, resources and wisdom to collaborate on our vision of a future where all people are able to influence the decisions that govern their lives.

For the Dd team, that means we’re learning from our partners in Haiti and focusing on the intersection of environmental and human rights. Natural disasters connect us all but they impact marginalized communities most urgently. We believe that to fulfill Dd’s mission to empower marginalized communities, we cannot ignore how climate change further isolates the most vulnerable members of societies around the world. That is why we are so thrilled to be investing in a new initiative in 2013. Remote Access focuses on building tools that allow remote, vulnerable and indigenous communities to better collect and share their data on human rights & environmental threats.

Hurricane Sandy reminds us our survival depends on our on and offline social networks. I hope you will read more about the way our Haitian partners responded to the storm (in two parts published by the Huffington Post: Part 1 & Part 2) and continue contributing your talents, ideas and resources to co-creating the future where we all wish to live.

In gratitude & solidarity,
Emily Jacobi
Executive Director

• How are Haitian women organizing to address and prevent rape and sexual violence?
  
• How can critical services be extended to survivors across the country?
  
• What is the role that technologists, designers & data wizards can play in strengthening the capacity of Haitian technologists & community organizers?

On February 1-3, 2013, Digital Democracy is hosting a Hackathon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, inviting local and international developers & designers to address these questions. Focused on supporting the life-saving work of Haitian women’s organization KOFAVIV, the hackathon will help them expand their services to survivors of rape & gender-based violence across Haiti.

Made possible thanks to the Abundance Foundation and ESIH (Ecole Supérieure d’Infotronique d’Haïti), and with facilitation of Willow Brugh of Geeks Without Bounds, the Hackathon is focused on developing tools to help scale the impact of our current systems in two areas, resulting in outputs that will dramatically improve the work of our partners.

WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE HACKATHON?

1) EXPAND THE 572 CALL CENTER TO NATIONAL SERVICE
Last fall, KOFAVIV launched Haiti’s first Emergency Response Hotline for Gender Based Violence (GBV). In May, 2012, the hotline transitioned to 24 hour service and currently provides women survivors of violence free access to information on services for medical, legal and psychosocial care in Port-au-Prince. In order for the Call Center to serve national clients, operators need easy access to a map of resources outside of the Port-au-Prince area.

Output:
•  Build a web platform to map/aggregate information on service providers throughout the country. Skills in SMS, GIS, and Drupal are especially useful.

2) BETTER VISUALIZE DATA
Since 2010, Dd has worked with local partners to develop a cloud-based database to digitize information on incidents of violence. The system currently includes 50+ points of data on over 1,000 reports of rape and domestic violence in Haiti between 2010 and 2012. KOFAVIV is seeking to improve their ability to use data to advocate for increased security for Haitian women & girls.

Output:
•  Identify new trends in existing data and develop creative ways to visualize data for advocacy and outreach. Skills in design, big data, and community engagement especially useful.

HOW CAN YOU GET INVOLVED?

If you or someone you know has skills in the following and would be interested in participating, please submit an application here (bit.ly/PaPhack). Specifically, we’re looking for participants skilled in:

• Drupal
• Front end design
• Graphic design
• Dynamic code
• Dataviz
• Big data
• Mapping / GIS

Participation in the Hackathon includes travel, lodging, food and transport in country. All logistics taken care of by Digital Democracy. Sponsoring an international participant ($5,000) covers the cost of that participant plus helps cover the overall costs of the event. For some exceptional candidates, partial or full scholarships may be available. For more information on participants, please email Haiti Program Director Emilie Reiser – Ereiser(at)digital-democracy(dot)org.

2. Spread the word!

Help us promote the Hackathon – share this link with folks who you think would be a great fit.

3. Become a Sponsor!

Help make the Hackathon possible. We are looking for additional financial and promotional sponsors. To discuss potential sponsorship, contact Executive Director Emily Jacobi – ejacobi(at)digital-democracy(dot)org.

At Digital Democracy, we’re passionate about the opportunities new technologies create to disrupt how information is communicated & shared, especially across traditional divides – urban/rural, rich/poor, majority/minority, and many more. However these opportunities also come with new challenges & risks – when marginalized groups use new tools that amplify their voices, they can also encounter new obstacles. That’s why we emphasize digital literacy to help our partners understand new tools, digital organizing to use those tools to address pressing human rights challenges, and digital citizenship to connect communities with power structures.

Along the way we’ve learned that it’s not enough to connect remote & vulnerable populations with new technologies – we often work with them to adapt & tweak these tools to fit their needs. That’s how we realized the important role that tool-building plays in achieving our mission to empower marginalized communities to use technology to fight for their human rights.

We’re thrilled to share a proposal we have drafted for a new initiative called Remote Access. Remote Access is an initiative to build a mobile reporting platform for remote & indigenous communities to document environmental and human rights issues – from oil spills to political violence – and engage with a global audience. Read the full proposal on the Knight News Challenge website, and get in touch with your ideas, questions & recommendations on how we can best collaborate to meet the needs of remote & threatened populations around the world.