Tag: Technology

How Technology Can Level the Playing Field for Rural Towns in America

Posted on by robbie

The sleepy town of Piedmont, Ala., sits at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, about 15 miles west of the Georgia border and what seemed to be dozens of miles from the edtech phenomenon that’s transformed communities and classrooms across the country.

But that changed in 2009 when Piedmont first began its foray into embracing technology and when the district adopted a one-to-one laptop program for older students. Since that point, the school district has been adding online courses, and in 2012, rolled out a wireless network blanketing the entire town. But unlike many school districts that have adopted similar high-tech learning strategies, Piedmont is not only aiming to help its children, but also hoping to revive a fledgling town that has seen the closure of several factories — leaving many without jobs. More than 9 percent of locals are unemployed and 25 percent of adults age 25 and older have less than a high school diploma.

“That’s always been the bigger picture,” says Matt Akin, superintendent of Piedmont City Schools. “What can we do to revive a community?”

With just 4,800 residents, the town’s median household income sits at about $33,000, which is about $20,000 lower than the national average; almost 37 percent of Piedmont’s children live in poverty. Which is why Akin and other community leaders are hoping embracing high-tech learning will attract more people to see the town as a great place to settle down.

As research shows, access to technology and the Internet in rural areas has the potential to close critical information gaps and helps residents access higher education and scholarship opportunities, online courses and other educational resources.

“Technology allows people in rural areas to reap the benefits of a rural lifestyle, while not sacrificing access to learning opportunities,” says Karen Cator, president of Digital Promise, a classroom technology advocacy group.

Though Piedmont educators have embraced technology in the classroom, they quickly realized that students were unable to translate the tech into their home lives with out access at home. Students were forced to sit outside the school to access the network in order to download videos or assignments, according to Piedmont Middle School principal Jerry Snow.

After receiving a federal E-rate grant to set up a wireless network in late 2011, Piedmont leaders moved on to resolve the next problem, which was a lack of technical experts or IT staff to help locals adapt. District leaders then began welcoming more student teachers to assist educators with technology, as well as partnering with local colleges.

Students laptops have also helped engage parent involvement, including helping them pursue their own opportunities, according to Akin. Parents use the wireless network and laptops to take their own online or GED courses, apply for jobs and access other resources. These types of outcomes are exactly what Akin was working toward.

But now he’s also expanded his goal to include addressing academic needs across the school district — including personalized learning approaches that test individual students and measure progress. Now, teachers vary between group lessons and monitoring individual work and students are assessed by online programs and also receive online lessons based on their academic levels.

“They can work at their own pace now,” Snow says.

While it’s still too early to tell whether Piedmont’s push for a more tech-savvy community will transform the entire town, some parents have seen improvements in their children’s grades and attention span in school. But Akin believes the multi-year effort will pay off in the long run.

“We just want kids to have the same opportunity that kids in other places have,” he says. “The opportunities that our kids have, and the opportunities that any kid has, shouldn’t depend on where they live.

 MORE: For Kids That Struggle with Reading, Digital Literacy Programs Show Promise

This City’s Police Want to Protect Your Right to Privacy

Posted on by robbie

What did the Seattle Police Department do when an activist requested their entire archive of patrol car videos — all 1.6 million videos? For the hometown of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, the answer was easy: Seattle’s cops went to the computer nerds.

Law enforcement agencies are promising body cameras will bring a new era of accountability by capturing cops’ every interaction on film in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York and other cities encouraged by Obama’s promise of $263 million in funding. But all that video presents a technical problem: how can a department possibly sort and release so many hours of footage? Stepping up its commitment to transparency and collaboration, Seattle’s police asked 80 local tech wizards from Amazon, Microsoft and Evidence.com to streamline the disclosure process at its first department-sponsored hackathon earlier this month.

“We’re having a conversation about transparency and privacy. How do the two intersect?” Sgt. Sean Whitcomb, a spokesperson, tells the The Seattle Times. “How can the Seattle Police Department share terabytes of information we’re storing?”

Citizens only feel cameras increase accountability if they trust the devices are used properly, if they cannot be switched off at critical moments or if the video won’t be buried by scandal-averse commanders. But police departments cannot simply post raw video of every arrest to YouTube. To protect individuals’ privacy, state law prevents police from releasing details like the faces of juveniles or sexual assault victims as well medical details or mental health history, explains Mary Perry, the police department’s counsel.

But currently, removing a simple cut from a one-minute video “can take specialists upward of half an hour, whereas more complicated edits — like blurring multiple faces or pieces of audio — can take much, much longer,” an S.P.D. statement says. That’s a problem when the police are already burning an average of 7,000 DVDs every month and will have even more as body cams are rolled out for the entire force.

Technologies like image-recognition seem to be the police’s best bet for a quicker, cheaper way to systematically redact sensitive information. “Government agencies don’t jump out to me to be at the forefront of technology research,” says Simon Winder, head of Impressive Machines, a tech company focused on robotics, machine learning and recognition software. But with such huge tasks, cities are primed to adopt cutting-edge solutions. “There are so many ways we can yet use technology,” Seattle’s mayor Ed Murray responds. “We want to be the number one digital city.”

One of the recurring topics the hackers discussed was what to do when an algorithm makes an error in identifying a person or a frame of video, particularly because so many are shot in the dark of night or in the blur of pursuing a suspect. “The problem is you can’t just say ‘oops’ when you violate someone’s right to privacy,” says Brandon Arp, a software developer at Groupon who attended the hackathon. He proposed a “very conservative” system that hides more information from a clip than required by law but allows for a person to request a manual secondary review of individual redactions.

Ideas like this emerged over the five-hour brainstorming session (and free lunch) in the basement of police headquarters, prompting officials to predict they will become a national model. Officer Patrick Michaud says he was “blown away” by the hackathon. “Options came out of it, which is what we look for,” he tells The Seattle Times. “A different way to look for problems always works for us.”

DON’T MISS: This Is What Community Oriented Policing Looks Like
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The Health Care Company That Lets Its Shift Employees Choose When They Work

Posted on by robbie

Consistently ranked as one of the best companies to work for, WellStar Health Systems is strengthening its reputation with its new online scheduling tool: Smart Square.
Named to Working Mother’s 10 family-friendly employers list, Fortune Magazine’s list of top 100 employers and a six-time recipient of the “When Work Works” honor from the Society for Human Resource Management, WellStar is well-recognized as a flexible and accommodating employer, according to National Journal.
The nonprofit is a health care network employing more 12,000 in Marietta, Ga. With 83 percent of it employees being female, WellStar offers services to ease the balance between work and home life. In addition to a traditional pension plan, WellStar provides an on-site day care center and a concierge that coordinates dry cleaning pickups, oil changes and grocery shopping.
Smart Square, though, is what’s really transforming the lives of WellStar workers. The company’s nurses work long shifts and advanced knowledge of work hours is one of the most useful pieces of information employers can provide as it gives the employee time to schedule home duties. This is exactly what Smart Square helps with.
Erica Kilpatrick is a WellStar nurse who also juggles home life and caring for her mother, who is currently in the hospital. Due to this hectic lifestyle, Smart Square gives Kilpatrick the chance to plan her three 12-hour shifts according to her needs.
“Smart Square equalizes everything,” Kilpatrick tells National Journal. “I get called to where the greatest need is.”
How does it work? Up to eight weeks in advance, employees can start signing up for working shifts through Smart Square. (While they have the flexibility to work hours of their choosing, all employees must work the required holiday and weekend shifts.) Managers have the final say on scheduling approval, but the process is collaborative between employer and employee — rather than a dictation of hours that must be worked.
One disadvantage of the system? It can’t account for the unpredictability of life in the medical profession. Since the appropriate nurse-to-patient ratio must be followed, during hectic times, employees may be called in to work with only one or two days’ notice.
Despite this, though, Smart Square is still very efficient, especially since the app allows the nurses to manage their shifts and sign up for additional ones.
“It definitely has opened up that ability for the nurse to have a lot more control over his or her schedule,” Kris Betts, WellStar’s assistant vice president for workforce engineering, says. “It’s not, ‘I’m hiring you specifically for Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and you’d better be there on those days.’ This way is a lot more fluid.”
Which companies will be next to implement employee-friendly apps like this?
MORE: Could 3-D Printing Help Find A Cure For Cancer?

How Deep-Fried Food Can Reduce Our Fossil Fuel Addiction

Posted on by robbie

You’d expect that oils from McDonald’s deep-fryer traps, fat from slaughtered pigs and cattle and the grease caught in city sewer traps would be pretty much useless, right? But two researchers are investigating how to recycle all those leftover oils and fats into biodiesel motor fuel, an alternative that can reduce our dependence on oil.
After a decade in the lab, two Minnesota chemical engineers are designing a plant that will convert yellow and brown grease into fuel. With so many experiments, they’ve found a way that’s cheaper and more energy-efficient than the alternatives, like soybean-based biodiesel. Kirk Cobb and Joe Valdespino, the brains behind Superior Process Technologies, a little-known chemical company in Minneapolis, will soon have their ideas put into practice at a full-scale refinery near downtown Los Angeles that can churn out 20 million gallons of biodiesel annually.
“Our process is superior to the traditional method,” Valdespino tells the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “It saves energy. It increases yield. It enables you to use cheaper feedstocks,” he says, referring to the raw material inputted to machines.
Biodiesel took off after major environmental legislation in 2005 and 2007 and a farm bill in 2008 that contained several incentives. At the last count by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the country has roughly 100 producers, with most output clustered in the Midwestern states of Texas, Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. Most of them rely on soybean, canola and corn oils for their raw material — about 2.2 billion pounds worth just in the first half of this year. Animal fats (403 million pounds) and other recycled grease (535 million pounds), on the other hand, lag behind in the industry.
Cobb and Valdespino are hoping greater efficiency will change that. The pair became friends fifteen years ago while working for a paper company in Savannah, Ga., where they converted resin from the pulp of pine trees into profitable adhesives, plastics and inks. After 24 years on the job, Cobb left to work on biodiesel at Superior Process Technologies in 2004 and hired Valdespino in 2007.
Since then, they’ve been laying the groundwork for a tactic that diverges from the rest of the field. Other refiners add sulfuric acid to remove fat, but that reaction creates water which contaminates other key compounds like methanol and must be removed — a “really messy” and “very limited” business, Valdespino says. Their company adds glycerol at around 450 degrees, enough heat to evaporate the water and skip the extra step of eliminating impurities.
“People misconstrue higher temperatures with higher energy use,” says Cobb. “That is not the case.” Cobb says the plant will be able to do the job better — using six times less energy than the standard method — and provide diesel to large customers like airliners and the Navy at lower prices.
Almost all the industry’s innovation had been fueled by hefty support from the federal government, but most of those tax credits, loans and grants recently expired. Cobb and Valdespino are hoping the incentives return, so that for once, greasy fat can actually do something good for America.

Making the Invisible Wounds of War Visible

Posted on by robbie

How do you treat an illness that you can’t see?
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that 11 percent of soldiers who served in Afghanistan and 20 percent of veterans of the Iraq war come home with PTSD. This ailment, which some refer to as an invisible war wound, has been linked to grave problems, including veteran homelessness and suicide. But now, testing is underway using new technologies that just might enable doctors to see the impact of both PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury.
In San Diego, the Veterans Research Alliance raised $30,000 to fund a study by the V.A. using the magnetic encephalograph and high-definition fiber tractograph (two devices that allow researchers to view and record electromagnetic waves in the brain), something that has never before been possible.
Gery Schulteis of VA Healthcare Systems tells ABC 10 News, “With a traumatic brain injury, there may be gaps in the neurological connections in the brain. These devices may be able to detect that and in turn help lead to new treatments.”
Steve Lewandowski of Veterans Research Alliance adds, “Before, people were calling this an invisible injury. After this moment, it will no longer be invisible.”
The study is starting small, involving 10 special warfare veterans. Schulteis says, “We’re still going to be a ways away from having a new treatment, but hopefully this will be the gateway to a much larger study.”
With PTSD afflicting 7.7 million American adults, according to the National Institutes of Health, any breakthrough in its treatment would be welcome.
MORE: Meet the Marine Turned Doctor Helping Veterans Overcome PTSD

Can You Teach Someone How to Be Creative?

Posted on by robbie

How do you teach a concept to a child?
For Jeremy Boyle and Melissa Butler, the answer is to put in their hands. That’s the idea behind Children’s Innovation Project, the duo’s program that introduces public school children to the world of technology and innovation.
Boyle is resident artist at Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab and Butler is a kindergarten teacher. When the two met in 2010, they realized that children needed to learn how to be innovative and creative, and in this world that meant technology. So, they formed the Children’s Innovation Project with the purpose to familiarize elementary school children with technology and set them “on a pathway” of comfort and understanding of it, reports the Atlantic.
Boyle and Butler determined that the best way to start was to focus on one area, so they chose electricity and circuits. Boyle designed all of the tools — wires, blocks and accessories — while Butler created the curriculum, which contains precise language and building the habits of asking questions, critical thinking, perseverance and coherent explanations are the cornerstones of the curriculum.
The Pittsburgh Allegheny K-5 public elementary school is an example of the project at work. In one kindergarten class, all of the students sit in an “innovation” circle each holding a length of wire bookended by small alligator clips on each end. The children are then encouraged to analyze, play and explore the wire to determine its purposes and uses. Collaboration is encouraged as the students work with each other and their teacher to experiment.
Throughout all of the activities, students must use the correct language. For instance, “clips” must be referred to by their name, not “these things.”
Students continue with the program through elementary school, and as they progress through the grades, tasks become more difficult. Around fourth grade, students actually start building their own schematics, according to the Atlantic.
While the practical and tangible skills are important to Boyle and Butler, it’s the intangible ones that are the most important. Through the program, Boyle and Butler are trying to instill the qualities of curiosity, inquisitiveness and wonder. In some of the older grades, students will even bring in old or broken toys and take them apart just to observe the parts and understand how it works — demonstrating how important that childlike sense of wonder really is.
MORE: The Three Things That Innovative Thinkers Do As Children

Cities Need to Learn These 5 Lessons About Parking Meters

Posted on by robbie

American cities are realizing the importance of an efficient parking system. And as a result,  new technology, smartphone apps and other innovations cropping up across the country.
But as UCLA’s “prophet of parking” Donald Shoup notes in ACCESS magazine, there are a few simple ways municipalities can get more residents on board with pesky parking regulations. The author of the 2005 book “The High Cost of Free Parking” shares five strategies that American cities should implement in order to making parking meters popular.
Use pay-by-plate technology
While many communities have replaced traditional parking meters with designated kiosks that enable drivers to pay by credit card or cash, Shoup suggests more cities should embrace tying a credit card to a license plate and allowing people to pay via smartphone.
Though more common in Europe, pay-by-plate systems have emerged in several U.S. cities, including Pittsburgh. Two years ago, Pittsburgh rolled out a system that asked drivers to submit their plate numbers at the kiosks and then pay by credit card or cash. The concept removes the process of printing new receipts to display on car dashboards and allows drivers to re-park their cars in the same zone without repeating the transaction. Police officers can also scan a plate to see if its driver has paid rather than searching for payment receipts. The new system has led to an increase in parking revenue for Pittsburgh, according to Shoup, as well as a decline in tickets issued as more people are using the easy process rather than taking the risk of receiving a ticket.
Offer discounts for greener cars
Environmental concern is increasingly playing a bigger role in new government initiatives, and Shoup explains that cities should implement green incentives into parking systems. For example, drivers can receive a discount for smaller cars that take up less space. By rewarding tiny sets of wheels, the city encourages residents to reduce the amount of emissions — saving on environmental cost.
Charge fees based on size
Streets come in all different sizes and so do parking spaces. Which is why Shoup suggests cities consider charging fees based on car length. Aside from the fact that smaller cars tend to be more fuel efficient, Shoup adds that they enable more cars to park in the same amount of space than large vehicles allow for.  In many cases, street parking does not have lines to demarcate car spaces, which is why charging more for larger cars would discourage people from driving bigger cars in the city. “Most people who can afford to buy a longer car can probably afford to pay more to park it,” Shoup says.
Give residents a price break
Members of a community already pay taxes for local street maintenance and municipal parking garages, so rewarding them with a resident discount is not too much of a stretch. Local discounts can also help garner support for adding more parking meters to manage the system. Miami Beach, for example, gives its citizens a lower meter rate than non-residents and visiting tourist ($1 versus $1.75 per hour). That system also encourages locals to shop closer to home to receive the rate — ultimately decreasing driving and congestion.
Be charitable with earnings
While much of collecting parking fees is about making more revenue, Shoup adds that it can take on a different type of investment. Communities can be more innovative by donating portions to local nonprofits or park rehabilitation programs. For example, the Ventura, Calif., neighborhood used parking revenue to pay for safety patrol, as well as to implement public WiFi.
MORE: How an Innovative Parking Program May Cut Downtown Traffic by One Third

When Cities Get Connected, Civic Engagement Improves

Posted on by robbie

With tighter budgets and fewer resources, local governments are turning to technology to stay connected to residents and improve their systems. According to the Digital Cities Survey published by Government Technology magazine, four major tech trends are visible across most of the participants, which range from cities with populations of 50,000 to more than a million.
1. Open data
Transparency is important for governments and thanks to technology, it’s easier to achieve than ever. Leading the pack of cities with easily accessible data records is New York City. The Big Apple started its open data system in 2012 and now has 1,300 data sets available for viewing. Chicago ranks second with over 600 data sets, while San Francisco scores the highest rating in U.S. Open Data Census for open data quality.
Open data isn’t limited to the country’s biggest cities, however, as mid-size Tacoma, Wash., offers 40 data sets and Ann Arbor, Mich,. has financial transparency data that is updated daily, according to Governing.
2. Stat programs and data analytics
These types of initiatives originated in the 1980s with the NYPD merging data with staff feedback, but have expanded to other cities. Louisville, Ky., now has Louiestat, which is used to spot weaknesses in performance and cut the city’s bill for unscheduled employee overtime.
Governing reports that data analytics are also a popular tool to gauge performance. In Denver, Phoenix and Jacksonville, Fla., local governments use them to sort through all their data sets in search of patterns that can be used for better decision-making.
3. Online citizen engagement
As social media becomes more prevalent in daily life, governments are getting on board to stay connected. Through social media sites and online surveys, local governments are using social media to engage their residents in local issues.
One such city is Avondale, Ariz. (population of 78,822), which connects a mobile app and an online forum for citizen use. Citizens can post ideas on the forum and then residents can vote yay or nay.
4. Geographic information systems
Although it’s been around for a long time, cities are updating the function of GIS to help make financial decisions that will, in turn, improve performance, public transit and public safety as well as organize social service and citizens engagement activities.
Augusta, Ga., recently won an award for its transit maps, while in Sugar Land, Texas, GIS is used for economic development and citizen engagement with 92 percent survey respondents citywide.
Based on all this, it seems that cities have embraced the tech craze.
MORE: Which 3 Cities are Fighting Poverty Through a Tech Cohort?

How This Company Is Using Gaming To Teach Job Skills

Posted on by robbie

It’s a common belief that young people play too many video games. Interestingly, one company thinks it’s found a way to tap that love of gaming to fight youth unemployment.
Cognotion founders Jonathon Dariyanani and Joanna Schneier knew something must be done to combat employee apathy and unemployment. Their unique solution? A series of software programs that combats employee turnover through the use of interactive games and simulation trials. The software teaches the hard skills required for the job, but also soft skills, such as how to convey empathy to annoyed customers or to analyze situational clues to solve a problem.
In 2013, 73 million youths were unemployed worldwide, according to the International Labor Organization, and in July the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 14 percent youth unemployment rate compared to 6.3 percent overall. Cognotion’s founders felt like something needed to be done.
“We really felt that after waiting for 10 years for disruption to the system, that a lot of the human potential which could be unlocked through the use of educational technology hadn’t yet [been invented],” Dariyanani tells Next City.
Right now, Cognotion has software for hotel clerks, government workers, retail cashiers and customer service representatives, and recently developed a medical game regarding the Ebola virus to train 20,000 doctors and nurses.
“We find that when we present the same industry-specific, job-specific information that’s contained in a training manual to somebody in the form of a game or with a mentor, it increases absorption, comprehension and retention,” Dariyanani explains to Next City. “We believe these sorts of products provide trackable, actionable and immediate educational benefits, so you’re meeting the learner where they are.”
MORE: The Program Giving Workers Without College Degrees a Leg Up

If You Protect Your Smartphone With This Case, It Could Save Your Life

Posted on by robbie

What’s so important about two Carnegie Mellon graduates and their small startup Lifeshel? For starters, they’re developing technology that has the potential to alter the fate of assault victims.
Lifeshel‘s first product, which will debut in 2015, is a smartphone case and app called Whistl. The case fits onto the user’s phone and has buttons on it that activate a 120 decibels alarm (sound that’s the equivalent of sitting in the front row seat at a rock concert) and contact law enforcement and emergency contacts when pressed. Accompanying the alarm is an LED strobe light meant to disorient the attack and alert help in the area. The app also takes a video and audio recording of the incident to prevent later confusion and discrepancies.
The app uses Bluetooth technology that provides location information to law-enforcement and emergency contacts (that have been programmed in), according to The Atlantic.
To safeguard against an attacker disabling it, a personalized security gesture or ID combination is needed.
Post-college, co-founders Jayon Wang and Alan Fu developed Whistl after seeing the effects of assault on their college campus, namely on their friend Lean Yingling who was attacked while running.
“[We] “knew people on campus who had been sexually assaulted, whose cases were never properly resolved because there was no evidence,” Wang tells The Atlantic. “There was no concrete data that showed when something happened and how it happened.”
Their device could change all that. So far, Lifeshel conducted a successful 20-unit trial at Carnegie Mellon, which was greeted with positive feedback from the participants.
Although there’s still much change that needs to happen in regards to the cultural mindset of sexual assault, Whistl is a step in the right direction.
MORE: Can Nail Polish Prevent Date Rape?