Tag: data

The Tweet That Launched a Movement

Posted on by robbie

Two thousand and forty-four miles.
A distance that would take 677 hours to walk.
A distance that would take around 30 hours to drive.
A distance that technology immediately obliterated as four passionate citizens united against police violence.

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Just days after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014, civil rights activists DeRay Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie were on the ground in Ferguson, Mo., documenting on social media the unrest that ruled the streets. Shortly thereafter, the two connected with Brittany Packnett, the then-executive director of Teach for America in St. Louis.
As #Ferguson became a rallying cry on social media, Oprah Winfrey leveled a critique at the Black Lives Matter movement (which used Twitter to mobilize its followers), saying that it didn’t have clear goals, leadership or asks. Mckesson tweeted a reply, listing demands of the protesters.
Meanwhile, more than half a continent away, Samuel Sinyangwe spotted Mckesson’s response and felt compelled to reach out.
“I replied to the tweet saying that I could help develop a policy agenda that implements these demands in practice. I didn’t know who DeRay or anyone was,” says Sinyangwe, who was doing policy work for a nonprofit in Oakland, Calif. “As a policy analyst, I wanted to contribute policy.”
Two thousand and forty-four miles separated Sinyangwe from Mckesson and the other protesters in Ferguson. Yet Mckesson’s 140-character post forged a virtual connection and jumpstarted a conversation that would, in just a few short months, result in the formation of the far-left leaning nationwide organization WeTheProtesters.
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Initial phone calls between Sinyangwe and Mckesson (and later, Elzie and Packnett as well) focused on a shared understanding that data needed to inform policy making so that it would gain traction with both the public and government officials at all levels.
“What made it work was that we’re all committed to the same goals, and we each have a particular skillset that added value to each other’s work. It was all about the commitment to work; it was not about our own personalities,” says Sinyangwe. “I can analyze the data and identify policy solutions. DeRay can communicate that very well in relationships with media. [Joh]Netta can make sure the information — this sort of ivory tower research — is accessible to people and Brittany has institutional access to make sure these recommendations are embedded in some of the foremost institutions of government.”
Not surprising to the activists, their data mining uncovered systemic problems with policing use-of-force practices nationwide. Taking that information, they developed and launched Campaign Zero, a series of 10 proposed policing policy solutions, like ending broken windows policing, community representation, demilitarization and fair police union contracts.
“No other group had ID’ed solutions and grounded it in data and evidence,” Sinyangwe says.
Sinyangwe and company also leveraged data to create a second resource, a groundbreaking interactive map that provides comprehensive information (name, location, description of incident and a link to related, authoritative news coverage) for each police-involved shooting in the United States.
“In the beginning, it was all about convincing the country that it was a crisis — that police violence was happening everywhere, not just in St. Louis or Baltimore,” says Sinyangwe. “No one is going to read a 30-page report on this, but people will look at something that looks high quality and communicates [the information] in much less time.”
Using off-the-shelf technology (often free or free-trial versions) as they continued to collaborate virtually, Sinyangwe and his WTP cofounders built a tech-powered infrastructure that overcame geographic limitations. (“It was literally a period of months before I met everyone in person,” says Sinyangwe.) They shared information in Google docs and sheets, held meetings in Hangouts, designed infographics with Piktocharts and created data tables using Tableau.
Typeform proved to be particularly valuable to WeTheProtesters in recruiting volunteers. The group used the platform to increase its ranks by around 16,000 people in just two weeks. These helpers were then organized into groups and used Slack to communicate, building a bond in cyberspace.
WeTheProtesters is supported by Fast Forward, an accelerator for tech-focused nonprofits and a partner of Comcast NBCUniversal. Today, the group’s biggest challenge is scaling its systems so that more citizens can become effective advocates.
“Across the country, as I’m meeting people and speaking at various venues, people come up to me and ask, ‘How do I get involved?… I want to do something, but I don’t know what to do about it,’” says Sinyangwe. “In today’s day and age, when you see the hyper-targeting of every political campaign, there is no excuse to not have a pathway to get involved. People shouldn’t have to ask anymore.”
But just in case, WeTheProtesters created a Wikipedia-style guide known as the Resistance Manual. The crowdsourced webpage tracks local, state and federal issues, offers resources on effective organizing and lists upcoming teach-ins, town halls and marches across the country. It’s part of a wave of new digital tools created since the 2016 presidential election in response to people’s renewed interest in politics.
Sinyangwe believes that it’s possible to awaken and amplify more voices, “in part because of the tools that we have available to us, because of the platforms and technology and the creative ways we’re using it.”
If he’s right, this tech-driven era of activism may bring about a level of civic engagement unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
Additional reporting by Chris Peak.
This article is part of the What’s Possible series produced by NationSwell and Comcast NBCUniversal, which shines a light on changemakers who are creating opportunities to help people and communities thrive in a 21st-century world. These social entrepreneurs and their future-forward ideas represent what’s possible when people come together to create solutions that connect, educate and empower others and move America forward.

Why Youthful Indiscretions Shouldn’t Result in Jail Sentences, How to Save Babies Born with Opioid Addictions and More

Posted on by robbie

 
A Prosecutor’s Vision For A Better Justice System, TED
Adam Foss, a prosecutor with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in Boston, recently asked a group of TED participants how many had ever drank underage, tried an illegal drug, shoplifted or gotten into a physical fight. While viewed by most as youthful indiscretions, these same offenses often land black and brown youth in criminal court, viewed as being dangerous to society. Which is why Foss is using prosecutorial discretion to dismiss minor cases that aren’t worthy of a criminal record.
Tiny Opioid Patients Need Help Easing Into Life, Kaiser Health News and NPR
In this country, addiction to heroin and prescription painkillers like hydrocodone, oxycodone or morphine continues to rise, even afflicting new moms. During pregnancy, these mothers must decide between getting clean and risking a miscarriage or delivering a baby that’s likely to experience drug withdrawal. With about 21,000 infants suffering from withdrawal each year, doctors in Rhode Island, nurses in Connecticut, researchers in Pennsylvania and public health officials in Ohio are all working on solutions to help these new families.

Website Seeks to Make Government Data Easier to Sift Through, New York Times
Just because the government releases endless pages of data to the public doesn’t mean it’s easy to turn those statistics into something that you can actually comprehend and use. DataUSA, an open source brainchild coming from the M.I.T. Media Lab, organizes and visualizes the information, presenting it in charts, graphs and written synopses. Thanks to this project, instead of just hearing a statistic of how many people in Flint, Mich., live in poverty, for example,  you can see it visually represented on a map.

The Surprising, Eco-Friendly Place to Store Data Servers, Safer Ways to Care for the Sick and More

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Why Data Farms Are Heading Underwater, CityLab
According to an animated Walt Disney classic, everything’s better, down where it’s wetter. That’s exactly what computer giant Microsoft learned when it submerged a data farm under the sea. Cold ocean temperatures eliminates the need for massive, energy-sucking cooling systems, which land-based servers require.
Hospitals Focus on Doing No Harm, The New York Times
When one hears that an estimated 98,000 and 440,000 people die because of preventable errors at hospitals, it’s easy to think that doctors are breaking their promise to do no harm. In response, healthcare facilities nationwide are implementing new procedures — from the somewhat common sense (practicing consistent hand washing) to the more complex, like immediate monitoring for symptoms of sepsis and changing hospital culture.
Here’s How Houston Boosted Mass Transit Ridership by Improving Service Without Spending a Dime, Vox
Thanks to overcrowding, late arrivals and seemingly constant price hikes, it’s no wonder that subways and buses get a bad rap. In the highway-riddled city of Houston, transit officials found a way to boost ridership: by emphasizing frequency over geographic scope. More importantly, however, was their discovery of a mass transit strategy that can be replicated coast to coast, at no cost.
 

What the Former Mayor of Indianapolis Wants You to Know About Government

Posted on by robbie

Stephen Goldsmith is the former mayor of Indianapolis and former Deputy Mayor of New York City for Operations. He sat down with NationSwell and shared his thoughts on how government can work more effectively with data, unions and the private sector.

Formal Student Survey Programs are Costly, But Now There’s a Free, Open Source Version for Schools

Posted on by robbie

In recent years, a lot of time, money and attention has gone towards fixing the American education system. Should there be more standardized tests? Perhaps we should change how math and English is taught? Maybe we should extend school hours?
These big-picture ideas — though well-intentioned — are missing one key component: What does the student actually think?
It’s important to listen to students’ thoughts about their schools and their teachers and use them to make improvements.
MORE: Ask the Experts: How Can We Fix Early Childhood Education?
One of the bests way to actually take note of students’ opinions is through the classic teacher evaluation — but unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The problem? A comprehensive classroom evaluation costs a startling amount of money. (Making it a luxury that students in low-income districts don’t have access to.) In Toledo, Ohio, for example, a peer review program this year cost $500,000, or about $5,000 per teacher. Additionally, as the New York Times points out, teachers are currently assessed through “standardized test scores and observations by administrators, but both measures have been criticized as too narrow, unable to shed light on the complex interplay between teachers and students on a day-to-day basis.”
It’s a problem that’s needs to be fixed.
Enter Panorama Education, a Boston-based data analytics company with the mission to improve this survey experience. In the past two and a half years, the program has already being used in more than 5,000 schools in 30 states.
They startup (which was recently backed with $4 million from Mark Zuckerberg, Google Ventures, Ashton Kutcher’s A-Grade Investments, SoftTech VC and Yale University)  offers the completely free, open-source Panorama Student Survey that allows administers and teachers to gain insight on how well they are performing in areas such as teaching, learning, classroom climate, engagement, grit and sense of belonging, EdSurge writes. The tests can be taken on paper or online.
ALSO: Here’s How Starbucks is Fixing the American Education System
After the survey is taken, Panorama analyzes the data and then follows up with the teachers and administrators — offering feedback about ways to improve teaching and the school.
“Our classroom surveys collect feedback that teachers use to grow, and our school surveys help educators improve their school as a whole,” the company says.
Leila Campbell, a humanities teacher at a charter high school in Oakland, Calif., discovered via the survey that her students were having difficulties connecting with her. So she decided to be more open with her class: “I do a presentation where I open up to them, making myself vulnerable about my college experience, and telling them why I’m working with them,” she tells the New York Times. “They start to get me as a human being. And they’re willing to follow me when I push them harder in history and English.”
“The surveys have been transformational in how I operate,” she adds. “I’ve grown tremendously from this data.”
DON’T MISS: This 6-Year High School Challenges Everything We Thought We Knew About American Education

To Increase Government Transparency, San Diego Joins the Open Data Movement

Posted on by robbie

Help Wanted: A chief data officer.
Employer: The California city of San Diego.
Earlier this month, the City Council’s Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee (ED&IR) approved an open data policy, which means the city will release its data sets, making them free and accessible and begin coordinating open data efforts between departments. To help facilitate this, they’re needing a chief data officer to help hit the ground running.
“It’s time for San Diego to join the open data movement — to get data out of silos at City Hall and realize its potential to spur economic development, improve municipal operations, and enhance public participation in government,” said Councilman Mark Kersey, Vice Chair of the ED&IR Committee.
The policy needs full City Council approval before officials expect it to go into effect no later than October 1 of this calendar year. The San Diego City Council first approved a resolution to create an open data policy in December 2013, when the ED&IR committee began seeking more public input to finalize a draft.
The new policy was presented by San Diego’s Open Data Advisory Group, which includes members of San Deigo’s tech industry. It’s also endorsed by San Francisco-based open data group Code for America, as well as the local advocacy group Open San Diego.
First on the list is to hire a chief data officer and modernize the municipal website, according to San Diego 6.
San Diego is one of dozens of cities across the country marching toward government transparency and connecting with the local tech sector to update the often-antiquated processes of municipality. Earlier this year, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence issued an executive order to create the Management and Performance Hub (MPH) to coordinate data across the state while Chicago’s Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT) has focused on open data through its massive online data portal. Meanwhile Boston and New York have implemented data dashboards, providing real-time reports on everything from crime to education statistics to help local leaders in governing. 
Though creating a policy is just the first step, San Diego’s role is an integral part of a national movement that will reshape how think about government and policy.
MORE: Why Local Governments Are Becoming More Data-Driven

How Maryland Decreased Its Infant Mortality Rate in Record Time

Posted on by robbie

People knock local governments for bureaucracy and red tape, but Maryland deserves an equal amount of fanfare for its data-driven — scratch that, successful data-driven — push to lower the statewide infant mortality rate.
With his state’s numbers well above the national average, Governor Martin O’Malley managed to lower it two separate times, both ahead of schedule. In 2007, he set five-year deadline to reduce Maryland’s infant mortality rate by 10 percent. When that goal was achieved a mere two years later, with 8 fatalities per 1,000 live births down to 7.2, O’Malley honed in on the main area of concern: The continued-high numbers of African Americans dying in infancy. Again, he aimed for a 10 percent reduction, this time by 2017. Finding success again, he reached that milestone five years early.
The fruits of O’Malley’s efforts are easy to see. According to Governing, between 2011 and 2012, the state’s infant-mortality rate among African-Americans declined by 14 percent, to 10.3 per 1,000 live births. Also in 2012, Maryland’s infant mortality hit a record low of 6.3, down by 21 percent since 2008 and about the same as the national rate for 2012.
How did O’Malley manage do this so hyper-effectively? It all comes down to data. O’Malley tasked the state’s health serves to identify and funnel resources into areas with the highest infant-mortality rates. Two areas, Prince George’s County (which lies just east of Washington, D.C.) and Baltimore, demanded the most attention.
Baltimore, the state’s largest city, had some of the most grave infant-mortality issues. To address these problems, the state worked with local organizations like B’more for Healthy Babies, which is led by the city’s health department. For instance, B’more’s Sleep Safe initiative uses the media, community outreach and provider education to reduce sleep-related deaths. With the second leading cause of death among city infants being preventable sleep-related complications, this was proof of targeted problem-solving.
In-home education and social services for pregnant women and new mothers also were cornerstones of the Baltimore initiative. The city’s infant-mortality rate has dropped every year since B’more for Healthy Babies began in 2009, falling by 28 percent from 2009 to 2012, Governing reports. In 2012, Baltimore’s infant mortality for the first time fell below 10 per 1,000 live births. Notably, the disparity between African-American and white infant-mortality rates declined by 40 percent during that time.
Prince George’s County saw the creation of a similar “Healthy Women, Health Lives” program that took a comprehensive approach to the overall health of women of childbearing age.
Governing makes a point of noting how a lower infant-mortality rate is good for more than just immediate families.

Infant mortality is far more common among premature, low-birth-weight (LBW) and very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) babies. Including the costs of delivery-related hospital stays, transfers and readmissions, the expenses for a normal-birth-weight Maryland baby totaled $8,703 in 2009, compared to $45,543 for an LBW baby and $239,945 for a VLBW baby. As the number of LBW and VLBW babies declines, the health-care savings help pay for the resources used to reduce infant mortality overall.

The B’more for Healthy Babies and Healthy Women, Healthy Lives programs focus on both education and health resources. As the state’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene realized that many uninsured women were delivering babies without any prenatal care, they charged local health departments with implementing a program called “Quick Start.” This allows uninsured women to get timely prenatal care appointments while awaiting Medicaid eligibility determinations.
With better prenatal care comes better-informed mothers and healthier babies. Call it a win-win.
 
 

Can Big Data Reshape City Governments?

Posted on by robbie

When it comes to the nebulous term “big data,” U.S. cities are finally leaning in.
Though aggregating data and statistics seems to be a fool-proof trick to understanding the source of, and resolving urban problems like crime, traffic, pollution, and things of the like, city leaders have been slow to plug in.
“There was a time — the past 20 years, actually — when two large computer monitors in the mayor’s office would have been as welcome as a Walmart executive pitching a store in Boston,” Michael B. Farrell wrote for the Boston Globe last week. “Longtime occupant Thomas M. Menino famously shunned e-mail and didn’t even allow a PC to clutter his desk.”
How can a mayor get a full picture of his or her jurisdiction without even an e-mail address? Exactly. That’s not to say that Boston’s leadership has been completely in the dark, though. For years, Boston and other cities have been pored over crime, traffic, and potholes statistics to find areas for improvement. This kind of big data has been useful for enacting new laws and determining their effectiveness.
But Martin J. Walsh, Boston’s new mayor as of January 6, has embraced big data head on and brought it right onto his desktop. He has two 46-inch screens — called dashboards — that sit atop a metal stand, which display data about all things Boston — from the percentage of school buses arriving on schedule to how many potholes were filled in the past week to the number of calls flooding the city’s 24-hour hot line.
This way, he gets real-time reports from his city’s departments.“It’s really a way to have the department heads push to deliver better services to the city of Boston,” Walsh told the Globe. Watching his social media streams and hotline activity allows him to witness what issues need addressing right away and to see what’s working.
The dashboards originated with former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who pushed his staff to use computers to discover previously overlooked issues and find solutions to ones that had long proved frustrating. The Globe found an instance in which this was particularly useful:

In one case, New York officials analyzed building data to determine which were more susceptible to fires, and then dispatched inspectors to those properties. Boston has undertaken similar efforts to target negligent landlords and to cut down on traffic congestion.

With Walsh’s term still in its infancy, his big data push will take time to truly manifest itself. But he has huge software and technological improvements to thank for enabling his mission. In a way, the true potential of big data couldn’t have been accessed during Menino’s long term, anyway. But today’s smartphones, powerful computers, and evermore effective data platforms make it easier to track trends. Even more exciting is the possibility of predictive data services, which may able to detect crimes before they happen.
Until then, Boston, along with other cities, as Government Technology outlines, may help lead the way in hacking into city problems — and how to fix them, stat.

To Change Public Education, This Nonprofit Is Hacking the System

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In order to effectively change American education, it’s imperative to understand what schools, students and their teachers are lacking. DonorsChoose, an online nonprofit that has channeled more than $220 million to classroom projects, has been collecting data on the country’s educational needs and charitable donations for the past 13 years, gathering a treasure trove of information into giving in the U.S. education system. Now, for the first time, DonorsChoose, in partnership with Looker, a software company that focuses on data discovery and business intelligence, is releasing this unprecedented data collection to the public, free of charge, through their Hacking Education initiative, in order to allow citizens to generate their own insights into the state of public education.
MORE: The Radical School Reform That Just Might Work
Starting today, anyone with a valid email address can request access to explore DonorsChoose’s more than 20 million records, which Looker has combined with public education data. This allows people to learn about what schools need and which causes donors are more apt to support. “Exploring and analyzing our data through Looker has helped us develop strategies to increase charitable donations to schools,” Charles Best, CEO of DonorsChoose said in a press release announcing the initiative. “By identifying giving trends, we can better restructure and target our fundraising.”
DON’T MISS: The Surprising Secret to Improving Math Skills
So what factors do drive funding to schools in need? Here are some examples [PDF] from DonorsChoose’s 2013 Giving Index — a report that analyzes 340,000 donors, $60.2 million in donations and more than 130,000 school projects during the course of the year:

  • People are far more likely to donate funds to schools within 25 miles of their zipcodes.
  • Elementary education received the most funding, topping other grades by more than $3 million.
  • Literacy and language projects received 42 percent of funding, followed by math and science, which received 30 percent. Health and sports received the least amount of funding, with 3%.
  • 50 percent of projects requested basic school supplies and books.
  • STEM projects were most funded for older students (grades 9–12).

These types of insights — many and more of which can be found through DonorsChoose’s Hacking Education initiative — can chart the course for research, spending and fundraising to help teachers find the tools they need to provide students with the quality education they deserve.
ALSO: Is This the Pinterest of Math and Science Education?

The Next Revolutions in Health and Fitness Are Tiny, Nearly Invisible and Absolutely Amazing

Posted on by robbie

These revolutions are going to be tiny. Some of them are almost invisible. But technology is bringing major changes to health and fitness, from daily workout trackers to crucial preventive techniques. Workout trackers are about to get even more amazing, with devices that track not just your speed and incline data, but extreme data like G-Force. And webcam personal trainers will take some of the cost barriers and time commitment issues out of daily workout routines. Meanwhile, fitness equipment isn’t the only thing that’s getting easier and easier to bring into your own home; medical devices are coming there too. Checking, recording, and analyzing your vital signs will be possible with a wearable sticker so thin it’s basically a “tattoo,” and online methods of sharing information with your doctor will transform doctor’s visits and annual physicals forever. But can you imagine a small implant that can predict a heart attack within three or four hours before it might happen?