Erasibo

Strata is a new conference focusing on the people, tools, and technologies putting data to work, providing data-driven insight to understand customer behavior, create better products, and gain true competitive advantage in the marketplace. Strata brings together decision makers, managers, and data practitioners for three days of training, sessions, discussions, events, and exhibits showcasing the new data ecosystem.

The rest of the videos are available here .

Thank you to Armand Du Plessis for pointing out this video. In this talk David Heinemeier Hansson (see below for bio) argues that constraints–fiscal, temporal, or otherwise–drive innovation and effective problem-solving. The most important thing, Hansson believes, is to make a dent in the universe with your company.

Danish-born David Heinemeier Hansson is the programmer and creator of the popular Ruby on Rails web development framework and the Instiki wiki. He is also a partner at the Web-based software development firm 37signals, based in Chicago.

Ruby on Rails provides a “basic development environment” for programmers, according to Wikipedia.org. Based on the programming language Ruby (developed by Japanese programmer Yukihiro Matsumoto in 1995), Ruby on Rails focuses on user interface and “convention over configuration”; meaning, developers can focus on the unique qualities of their Web site or program rather than the building blocks that every application may require. Released in 2004, Ruby on Rails has been incorporated into many applications used by some of the biggest companies, from Twitter to Apple’s 2007 release of Mac OS X v.10.5 “Leopard.”

Aside from his development of Ruby on Rails, Heinemeier Hansson also works as a partner for Web-based software development firm 37signals. Joining the company in 2003, he has helped develop Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack and other Web-based applications. Working in similar ways like Web-based e-mail services like Yahoo! e-mail and Google’s Gmail, 37signals hosts a broad range of IT services for companies, including project management to information-sharing. The firm’s software has been used by Kellogg’s, Sun Microsystems and even Obama ’08.

Hansson received his bachelor’s degree from the Copenhagen Business School in 2005. In that same year, he moved to Chicago and received Hacker of the Year honors for his work on Ruby on Rails from Google and O’Reilly Media. He runs a blog called LoudThinking.com.

Related Links: http://loudthinking.com/ http://37signals.com/

Sourced from: Standford Ecorner

An Egyptian anti-government protester holds a flag at Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo January 31, 2011. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

Podcast from http://marketplace.publicradio.org.

On today’s show, we talk with Jillian York from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She also writes for Global Voices Online and has been following the situation in Egypt closely.

Jillian says the idea that the entire internet was cut off was somewhat inaccurate. One internet service provider was able to stay online throughout all the protests although it’s unclear exactly why. But people have been piling on there as much as possible and also using dial up connections.

Prior to the big shutoff, protesters used all sorts of methods to lay the groundwork for the movement. There were hashtags planned on Twitter, Google Documents backups of Facebook accounts, it was all in the cloud. So by the time the internet was mostly taken down, the horse was already out of the barn.

Here are the current Wikileaks archives specifically about South Africa:

US Embassy Pretoria: http://wikileaks.za.org/origin/48_0.html
US Consulate Cape Town: http://wikileaks.za.org/origin/154_0.html

Bookmark this post (or the links) and check back for updates.

The rest of the video set is available on the Mashable website.

This hands-on workshop (by Nicholas Lamphere) will provide an introduction to the social web and current, popular tools and topics. Social Media has great applications for the public sector agencies.

I found this interesting article at govinthelab.com, on how Gov 2.0 technologies could be used to fight political corruption. If we had the data sets available to us in South Africa would we build something similar?

“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power.” – John Steinbeck

I recently came across a post stating that the House and Senate Ethics Committees Protecting the Most Corrupt Members of Congress.  While no one is surprised to read about corruption in government my question is how can we use government 2.0 technologies to add more transparency to government, making the fear of losing power greater than the gains made possible by corrupt behavior.

• Congressional Monitoring Applications.  If you are curious to see what your lawmakers in Congress are doing check out the Congress Application created by Sunlight Labs.  I have it installed on my Android mobile and can monitor how each person is voting, new laws as they happen, and much more.

• Pork Finder.  Many time complex pieces of legislation contain unrelated items in order to get others to vote for the bill.  If you’re interested in finding these anomalies without spending hours reading these bills check out the IBM Many Bills application created by IBM Research.

What about local level government?  This is where the push for publishing data in open formats becomes critical.  The upfront cost to publish open data may, in some cases, be high.  However, cost reduction is generally seen as fewer people need to visit town/city halls to request documents.

How does it reduce potential corruption?  Take a look at Washington, DC where the local budgets,and up to date spending information, is published for everyone to see. If your expenses are showing up on a public facing web site are you more likely, or less likely, to make responsible choices?

We have a long way to go and corruption will never be eliminated. However, we live in a world where corruption can more easily be made visible.

John

We are always looking for ways in which smart people try to innovate in business, especially businesses which some may see as being no go areas. Urban Khana for us is one such business.

UrbanKhana (http://urbankhana.co.za) is a dinner delivery service in Cape Town. The company is just a few months old and is showing promise.

A few days ago I started following @Pigspotter on Twitter.  He sends out tweets informing his followers about where the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police  Department (JMPD) have set up speed camera traps and the like – on his profile he says “Let’s help each other expose where cops are hiding and trapping daily”.

In the space of a few short days @Pigspotter has achieved the impressive sum of + 7,000 followers as well as police hunt. @Pigspotter claims that he gets his information from the public all around Johannesburg and his is providing a community service by tweeting the locations of the JMPD. The “case” the Police want to charge him with appears to be one of defeating the ends of Justice, according to the JMPD spokesperson Wayne Minnaar:

“It’s wrong for him to inform people of the whereabouts of the officers on duty because drunk drivers will use other roads and cause accidents which could lead to innocent lives being lost….he could also warn criminals to evade the police, making it easier for them to escape….this is illegal and we could charge him for obstructing and defeating the ends of justice.”

If things were as clear cut as spokesperson states it, we all should be wagging our fingers at @Pigspotter, but things are never that clear cut.

The City of Johannesburg (COJ) has seen some interesting results from the JMPD and speed cameras, so its almost understandable (almost) to see them react this way, from the COJ IDP 2010:

The effective deployment of electronic and manual speed cameras at high-accident hotspots have resulted in more
than seven million fines being issued for speeding, roadblocks and roadside checks have resulted in 353 000 fines for vehicle defects (unroadworthy vehicles), 15 000 fines for driver duties, and 107 020 fines for driving without a valid driver/learner licence.

The media were very quick to pick up the story , I think @AkiAnastasiou was approached first by @Pigspotter and thereafter the rest of the Media (online and radio in particular) jumped on the story. The story is topical because @Pigspotter has tapped into a public issue that the City of Johannesburg (and government in general) haa not figured out how to approach; corruption in the police force (both SAPS and Metro Police).

@Pigspotter is broadcasting the collective frustrations of the public, who are perceived to be tired of being picked on and abused by a poorly educated and corrupt JMPD.

Maybe @Pigspotter is our Dark Knight? Ok, he’s not and he has not gone about with his crusade in the most elegant of manners, but can you blame him? I’ve had Metro Police “ask” me to buy him chicken (yes chicken) even though I had done nothing wrong and it was a routine stop. I’m not the only one with these kinds of stories.

In their study into Metro Police corruption in 2008 The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) found the following:

• Ekhuruleni and Johannesburg do not have civilian oversight committees
• All MPD anti-corruption bodies are primarily reactive in nature
• Metro cops across the country are supplementing their income by more than R30 000 a week – through corruption and extortion.

FAULLPRES181108

Combine the high levels of corruption the average citizen has to put up, the high levels of crime that the Metro Police are supposed to combat and a brash, unsympathetic Metro force who do not inspire trust, is it any surprise that @Pigspotter is so well followed?

Overseas police forces are embracing twitter and the ability to connect with citizens, so instead of this “hunt” mentality should the JMPD not be working with the likes of @Pigspotter to improve both the anti corruption but traffic management and broader crime management efforts? I just wonder if this is not going to be another opportunity lost, because those in public office need to silence a critical (and rude) voice?

** I hasten to add that the ISS also point out that corruption is a two way process, South Africans seem very willing to offer or pay a bribe.

Crime situation in the RSA April to March : 2001-2008