- change - Mailing Lists

FW: Upcoming International Development Design Summits (IDDS)
by Richard Anderson 30 Jan '18

30 Jan '18

From: Mustafa Naseem [mailto:mustafanaseem@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2018 9:36 AM To: Richard Anderson <anderson(a)cs.washington.edu> Cc: Krista Nordin <krista.m.nordin(a)gmail.com> Subject: Fwd: Upcoming International Development Design Summits (IDDS) Hi Richard, One of the IDDS summits this year is concentrated on Financial Inclusion. It's taking place in Kenya from July 8-22. The deadline for applications is February 10th. Can you please share this on the change listserv, and with your contacts in the financial inclusion space in East Africa? Thanks so much! Best, Mustafa -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [IDDS Kenya 2018 Poster.png] The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) D-Lab <http://d-lab.mit.edu/> will be supporting three summits this year and applications<https://idin.formstack.com/forms/idds_2018_application> are now open! International Development Design Summits<https://www.idin.org/idds> (IDDS) are intense, hands-on, community-based design trainings that bring together a diverse group of people to teach them the co-creative design process and how to prototype low-cost technological solutions to improve the livelihoods of people living in poverty. IDDS originally started in 2007 and there have since been 22 summits in 12 different countries, involving 800+ alumni and creating over 100 successful projects / ventures. IDDS Kenya is July 8 - 22nd and will bring together 36 participants from all over the world to co-create innovative, viable financial products and services that expand access in the low-income space. We expect to produce 6 prototypes / ventures. Participant applications<https://idin.formstack.com/forms/idds_2018_application> are open and are due Feb 10, 2018. We encourage individuals from all backgrounds to apply as we strongly believe that innovation flourishes at the intersections of disciplines. Our diversity is one of our greatest strengths. Acceptance decisions are need-blind and need-based financial assistance is available for all accepted participants. These summits are programs of the International Development Innovation Network (IDIN)<http://d-lab.mit.edu/idin>, a consortium comprising MIT, Olin College of Engineering, Colorado State University, University California in Davis, KNUST in Ghana, USP in Brazil, and NTBC in Zambia. To learn more, check out the website<http://d-lab.mit.edu/idin>! For any questions, check out the IDDS Kenya website<http://iddskenya.com/about/about-us/> or email the organizers directly at iddskenya(a)gmail.com<mailto:iddskenya@gmail.com>.

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UW Change Seminar 1/30 in EEB 003: Digital Financial Services and the Impacts of Gender and Learnability on Adoption
by Esther Jang 29 Jan '18

29 Jan '18

Please join us for the Change Seminar next week on *Tuesday 1/30/2018* in *EEB 003*. *Who:* Samia Ibtasam, PhD Candidate in UW ICTD *What:* *Digital Financial Services and the Impacts of Gender and Learnability on Adoption* *When: *Tuesday, Jan 30th, 12-1pm *Where: EEB 003* *Abstract: * Worldwide, two billion people remain unbanked, the majority of whom reside in resource-constrained environments. While banks have limited reach due to high overhead costs of physical expansion, the global increase in mobile penetration has created opportunities to serve the unbanked using mobile-based Digital Financial Services (DFS). However, there are many factors that affect the understanding, adoption, and use of DFS including learnability of the systems and gender of the users. In this talk, we discuss ways in which previous exposure or domain knowledge improve learnability, and we recommend that metrics for learnability should include effectiveness and help sought, independent of usability. We also identify DFS adoption opportunities such as user readiness, interface improvements, and women's independence. We also discuss the role of gendered barriers in the readiness for and adoption of Digital Financial Services (DFS) and the impact of gendered roles in curtailing or enhancing the same. We present our analysis of the affordances or, lack thereof, in affordability of funds, the authority of transactions, access to technological devices, and agency of social and cultural mobility--all of which are prerequisites to fully utilizing DFS. *Bio: * Samia is a second a second year Ph.D. student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington and is advised by Richard Anderson. Previously, she worked as the founding co-director of Innovations for Poverty Alleviation Lab (IPAL) at Information Technology University, Pakistan and taught courses like DLab: Global Development, Human Centered Design, Design thinking, and Technology for Global Development. She has been working as a researcher in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) since 2010. She started her work with speech interfaces for low-literate users with Umar Saif, Roni Rosenfeld, and Agha Ali Raza. At IPAL, she worked to design Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health (MNCH) solutions including information systems, diagnosis applications etc. She also worked with Government of Punjab, Pakistan to redesign the Immunization card and create digital health records for the province of Punjab. Currently, she is using her knowledge of Human-Computer Interaction to work with unbanked people to design and adapt financial technologies and to expand financial inclusion. She is an Acumen Fund Regional Fellow for 2015 and sometimes tweets at @SamiaRazaq.

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A potential new Liberationtech tool...
by Yosem Companys 26 Jan '18

26 Jan '18

Google Is Testing a New App That Would Let Anyone Publish a Local News Story By WILL OREMUS JAN 26, 201812:36 AM Google is testing a new tool for people to report and publish local news stories, called Bulletin. A website first spotted online Thursday describes Bulletin as “an app for contributing hyperlocal stories about your community, for your community, right from your phone.” It’s designed to make it “effortless” to tell “the stories that aren’t being told” via your smartphone. It’s not just for techie early adopters: “If you are comfortable taking photos or sending messages, you can create a Bulletin story!”, the site says. The app is in a “limited pilot” in just two cities: Nashville and Oakland. Google confirmed the project Friday morning. “This is very much in the testing phase and aimed at hyperlocal stories and events for people to share, and for local media to take advantage of,” spokeswoman Maggie Shiels told me. “People everywhere want to know what is going on in their own backyard at a very local level, ranging from local bookstore readings to high school sporting events to information about local street closures.” Sami Cone, an author and blogger, reported via Twitter that she had been invited to Google’s announcement of the new tool in Nashville on Thursday. (Hat tip: Stefan Constantinescu*.) She published a blog post and a smartphone video of the launch event on YouTube. The announcement appears to have flown entirely under the radar of the national media and tech press—perhaps illustrating a point that Google hoped to make. Both Oakland and Nashville have burgeoning tech industries and are Google Fiber cities. But they also have high poverty rates and lie beyond the klieg lights of the big media hubs. A Google spokesman at the Nashville launch event, whom Google identified to me as product manager James Morehead, described Bulletin in the video as a progressive web app—a website that looks and functions like an app. “Creating a website, creating a blog is a pretty high bar for a lot of people,” he said. So a team of designers at Google asked the following, he said: What if it was effortless to capture these stories publicly from our smartphones? What if it was possible to publish them instantly to the web without having to do any setup? And what if it was accessible to anyone in our community. So, not just the people we know—there are excellent tools for connecting content to people we know. But connecting content to people we know and to people we don’t know but who share a particular interest. That’s what we’re trying to do with Bulletin. It sounds like a super-lightweight content management system, aimed at amateur journalists or anyone else who wants to live-blog a news event or report a news story in a way that has a chance to reach a broad audience. Examples from the presentation included “extraordinary volunteers,” “high school sports,” “weather events,” “civic meetings,” and “social justice,” among others. An app screenshot on the Google Bulletin site shows a post with the headline, “Winter storm floods river, wipes out Nelson Road.” Morehead said the company will work with local news organizations to help them find and potentially publish some of those stories, giving credit to their authors. The author controls the content and can take it down anytime they want. It’s hard to say without more information how useful this will prove. But it’s part of a trend of the big tech platforms beginning to look at how they can help to repair the news economy that they disrupted. Facebook this week began testing in Olympia, Washington, a local news and events page that highlights stories from local media. There’s been a lot of hype over the years about how tools such as Twitter and Facebook mean that anyone can be a journalist. But Google’s tool could make that more of a reality than a myth. It’s true that social media posts can go viral, but that’s usually when they have national or global appeal of some sort. Google appears to be looking for a way to help people publicize worthwhile stories of more modest, local interest, which has not been one of social media’s strong suits. There are also, of course, some risks involved in promoting amateur news reporting. The potential for misinformation is probably higher when the reporters lack professional credentials or a news organization to verify and stand behind their work. It’s unclear what kind of editing, if any, will be a part of the undertaking. It’s easy to see the need for such a tool, however. For people without a large following, even a newsworthy tweet or YouTube video can fall flat. Just look at Sami Cone, who as far as I can tell had the world exclusive on the launch of Google Bulletin. At the time that I wrote this, her tweets about it had garnered just one like; her YouTube video, 11 views. *Update, Jan. 26, 2018, at 12:10 p.m.: This post was updated to add confirmation and comment from Google. *Correction, Jan. 26, 2018, at 12:10 p.m.: This post originally misspelled Stefan Constantinescu’s last name. https://slate.com/technology/2018/01/google-is-testing-bulletin-an-app-that…

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Fwd: [TIER] UCT Computer Science Hiring Lecturer/Senior Lecturer
by Matt Johnson 25 Jan '18

25 Jan '18

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Melissa Densmore <melissa.r.densmore(a)gmail.com> Date: Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 3:09 AM Subject: [TIER] UCT Computer Science Hiring Lecturer/Senior Lecturer To: hci4d(a)googlegroups.com, TIER <tier(a)tier.cs.berkeley.edu>, ictd-researchers-in-africa-network(a)googlegroups.com, ictdevers < ictdevers(a)googlegroups.com>, gaia <GAIA(a)irtf.org>, africhi(a)googlegroups.com [image: Inline image 1] The Department of Computer Science <http://www.cs.uct.ac.za> seeks to fill a permanent academic position at Lecturer or Senior Lecturer level. Our BSc Honours degree is accredited by the British Computer Society and we have a large cohort of MSc and PhD students. The Department hosts the UCT Centre in ICT for Development <http://ict4d.cs.uct.ac.za>, and also specialises in visual computing, high-performance computing, digital libraries and artificial intelligence. A minimum requirement will be a PhD degree in Computer Science or a relevant area. Exceptional candidates with an MSc degree will be considered at Lecturer level and will be expected to register for a PhD. Applicants should provide clear information about their research and teaching experience, as this will also influence the level of appointment. The successful candidate will be expected to develop and teach Computer Science courses, to carry out research, to contribute to departmental administration and to supervise postgraduate students. The annual remuneration packages for 2018, including benefits, are as follows: Lecturer: R639 848 Senior Lecturer: R786 717 An allowance for scarce skills will be offered. To apply, please e-mail the following documents in a single pdf file clearly indicating the level you are applying for, to Ms Tracy Moore at recruitment04(a)uct.ac.za - Application Form <http://forms.uct.ac.za/hr201.doc> (download at http://forms.uct.ac.za/hr201.doc) - Letter of motivation - Curriculum Vitae (CV) - A teaching statement - A research statement Please ensure the title and reference number are indicated in the subject line. An application which does not comply with the above requirements will be regarded as incomplete. Telephone: 021 650 3003 Website: www.cs.uct.ac.za Reference number: *E18106* Closing date: 16 February 2018 UCT is committed to the pursuit of excellence, diversity and redress achieving its equity targets. Our Employment Equity Policy is available at http://www.uct.ac.za/downloads/uct.ac.za/about/policies/eepolicy.pdf. UCT reserves the right not to appoint. _______________________________________________ TIER mailing list Website: http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu TIER(a)tier.cs.berkeley.edu https://www.millennium.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tier

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UW Change Seminar 1/23 in EEB 003: Martin Lukac, Nexleaf- "IoT for Development: Getting Data Flowing to Drive Impact"
by Esther Jang 23 Jan '18

23 Jan '18

Please join us for the Change Seminar this week on *Tuesday 1/23/2018* in *EEB 003*. *Who:* Martin Lukac, CTO of Nexleaf Analytics *What:** IoT for Development: Getting Data Flowing to Drive Impact* *When: *Tuesday, Jan 23rd, 12-1pm *Where: EEB 003* *Abstract: *At Nexleaf, we believe that most development interventions could benefit from access to useful, automated ground-up data. Everyone wants more and better information. Funders want it for M&E, multinationals want it for hitting targets (like the SDGs), and countries and NGOs want it to confirm that their undertakings are actually leading to improved outcomes. Our approach is to create data-gathering technologies and applications with a strong use-case for people working on the ground. Then, with the data we gather, we can also begin to see system-wide problems, identify potential solutions, and test the effectiveness of those program fixes. That's how Nexleaf's approach leads to rapid iteration and verified improved impact. This talk will focus on how this approach informs our work in two sectors: global immunization and clean household energy. *Bio: *Martin Lukac is a Founder and the Chief Technology Officer of Nexleaf Analytics. Martin holds a B.S. from Haverford College, and received his Ph.D. from UCLA for innovations in wireless seismic and acoustic sensing systems. He previously served as a Visiting Scientist at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Martin’s research experience includes building, deploying, maintaining, and evaluating embedded systems for seismic, structural, environmental, and public-health applications. At Nexleaf, Martin leads all aspects of the technical design and architecture of Nexleaf’s sensing systems and connected devices. He has personally deployed device prototypes across Southeast Asia, Africa, and beyond. His work has led to one patent and several more in the works.

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Refugee & Forced Migration HCI Research: Resource Request
by Amirah Majid 22 Jan '18

22 Jan '18

Apologies for cross-posting! Dear Fellow UW Change Community, I am a UW doctoral candidate in the Information School writing on behalf of myself and some of my HCI colleagues focusing on the technology related issues of people experiencing forced migration, such as refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced, and the undocumented. This year at the ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work (GROUP) we came together in a workshop called, ‘Refugees & Technology: Determining the Role of HCI Research’, links below. As a result of this workshop we would like to build a curated list of scholarly resources that support generative and ethical research in the area of Forced Migration - HCI studies. We intend to make this list publicly available in order to support this growing research area. We are asking for your help! If you know of HCI-related refugee or forced migration work, or other resources that you think could inform and support this work, could you send us the citation or link? Resources we are looking for include scholarly texts, projects, conferences, or anything else you think could help. Bookmark the workshop website for updates to this community resource! Thank you in advance for your help! Sincerely, Amirah Majid on behalf of the workshop participants. Please send replies to: amirah(a)uw.edu. Links: ACM GROUP Conference, https://group.acm.org/conferences/group18/ Refugees & Technology: Determining the Role of HCI Research Workshop, http://displaced-hci.info/ *___________________* *Please note: I check and respond to e-mail once daily, weekdays only, at 4:00 P.M. PST. * *A. M. Majidأميرة ماجد‬‎* she/her pronouns PhD candidate: multi-cultural computing & refugee informatics Information School, University of Washington Seattle USA https://users.resist.ca/~amirah/

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UW Change Seminar 1/16 in EEB 003: Negin Dahya, Exploring the Role of ICTs in Refugee Education
by Philip Garrison 13 Jan '18

13 Jan '18

Please join us for the Change Seminar this week on *Tuesday 1/9/2018* in *EEB 003*. *Who:* Negin Dahya, Assistant Professor, The Information School, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies *What: **Exploring the Role of ICTs in Refugee Education: Teaching and Learning Networks in Kenyan Refugee Camps* *When: *Tuesday, Jan 16th, 12-1pm *Where: EEB 003* *Abstract: *The study of information and communication technology in development settings is a rich and complex field of research and practice. Mobile phones have become a crucial part of this landscape, amplifying possibilities for information sharing, formal and informal education, and for building community networks locally and globally. Refugee camps are unique and hazardous environments where each limited resource available can have lasting and meaningful implications for individual lives and for the make-up of entire communities. The focus of this talk will be on the role of mobile technologies to support teachers in their ongoing, in practice professional development, and specifically with regard to changing the social and cultural beliefs and practices related to girls going to school in the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps in Kenya. *Bio: *Dr. Negin Dahya is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington Information School. She completed her PhD in Education at York University (Toronto, Ontario). Dr. Dahya’s research is focused on the social and cultural context of technology use among girls and women of color in North America and internationally. Her research has explored how girls of color in North America use digital media in educational settings, as well as how digital and social media influence educational opportunities for refugee girls and women in refugee camps in Kenya. Dr. Dahya is part of the Digital Youth Lab at the University of Washington Information School and serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the UW Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies. She is also an Affiliate Faculty at The Center for Communication, Difference & Equity in the UW Department of Communication and serves on committees for the non-profit organization Reel Grrls and The Inter-Network Agency for Education in Emergencies.

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Fwd: Student Fellow Applications Now Open - UW Data Science for Social Good summer program
by Trevor Perrier 10 Jan '18

10 Jan '18

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sarah and Micaela <exec-director(a)escience.washington.edu> ***Please Forward*** *Data Science for Social Good Student Fellow applications are now open!* [image: Inline image 1] Are you interested in using data-driven discovery for societal benefit? The University of Washington eScience Institute <http://escience.washington.edu/>, in collaboration with the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative <http://cascadiadata.org/>, is excited to announce the summer 2018 Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) <http://escience.washington.edu/dssg/> program. The program brings together Student Fellows with data and domain researchers to work on focused, collaborative projects for societal benefit. *Sixteen DSSG Student Fellows* will be selected to work with academic researchers, data scientists, and public stakeholder groups such as government officials, academic researchers, non-profit organizations, and the general public, on data-intensive research projects. *Who: *Graduate students and advanced (junior/senior) undergraduate students are invited to apply. Spring 2018 graduates are eligible for this program. Students who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents are eligible to apply as long as their visa status allows them to work in the U.S. *We cannot sponsor student visas for this program.* *What: *Each student will be part of a team working full-time on a research project that has concrete relevance and impact. Students are expected to work closely and collaboratively with team members onsite for the duration of the 10-week program. Projects will have an applied social good dimension and involve analysis and visualization of data from areas such as public health, sustainable urban planning, environmental protection, disaster response, crime prevention, education, transportation, governance, commerce, and social justice. Click for summaries of projects from the Summer 2015 <http://escience.washington.edu/get-involved/data-science-for-social-good/ds…> and Summer 2016 <http://escience.washington.edu/dssg/project-summaries-2016/> and Summer 2017 <http://escience.washington.edu/dssg/project-summaries-2017/> DSSG programs. *Where: *Most work will be conducted on the UW campus in the WRF Data Science Studio <http://escience.washington.edu/wrf-data-science-studio/>, but some field excursions in the City of Seattle or King County may also be involved. *When: *This is a 10-week long, full-time program beginning June 11th and ending August 17th 2018. *Compensation: *Students will be given a stipend of $6,500 for the 10 weeks. *Desired qualifications:* - Demonstrated experience in issues related to social good - Research experience with quantitative or qualitative tools - Strong academic record - Previous programming experience *How to Apply: **CLICK HERE FOR THE APPLICATION FORM <https://form.jotform.com/80044460734148>. *Please note: a copy of your CV and unofficial transcripts are required to complete the form. Questions may be directed to exec-director(a)escience.washington.edu. *Application Deadline: *February 12th at midnight Pacific Time ***Please Forward*** -- Sarah A. Stone, PhD Executive Director | eScience Institute Campus Box 351570 University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 Follow us on Twitter <https://twitter.com/uwescience> and Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/uwescienceinstitute/>! _______________________________________________ Cs-grads mailing list Cs-grads(a)cs.washington.edu https://mailman.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/cs-grads

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UW Change Seminar 1/9 in EEB 003: Mobile solutions for women, adolescent and children's health in Kenya
by Esther Jang 08 Jan '18

08 Jan '18

Please join us for the Change Seminar this week on *Tuesday 1/9/2018* in *EEB 003*. *Who: *Trevor Perrier (UW CSE) and Dr. Keshet Ronen (UW DGH) *What:* *Mobile solutions for women, adolescent and children's health in Kenya* *When:* Tuesday Jan 9th at 12-1pm *Where: EEB 003* *Abstract:* Since 2012, researchers at UW Department of Global Health, UW CSE and the University of Nairobi have been exploring mHealth solutions that engage Kenyan women to support their healthcare. In this talk, we present a history and overview of our suite of collaborative projects, referred to as Mobile WACh (Mobile solutions for women, adolescent and children's health). We present projects that employ our custom-built *semi-automated bidirectional SMS system* to support women's maternal child health, adherence to HIV treatment in pregnancy and family planning decision-making. We discuss future directions and new studies exploring the use of group messaging platforms such as WhatsApp. *Bio:* *Trevor** Perrier* is a PhD student in CSE working on connecting end users to domain experts in Kenya. He was been working with the UW Department of Global Health on the Mobile WACh suite of projects as the primary developer. Prior to joining UW, Trevor was a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa and Liberia, where he first gained a deep understanding of the prevalence and potential impact of mobile technology. *Keshet** Ronen*, PhD, is a research scientist in the UW Department of Global Health. Her research interests include HIV prevention and treatment in women, adolescents and underserved populations, and the integration of biomedical and systemic interventions to achieve health equity. Since 2015, she has been working with the Mobile WACh team on developing and evaluating mobile health (mHealth) interventions to support HIV care in Kenya.

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ACM COMPASS 2018 Updates: Submission site, Associate Chairs, PC
by Richard Anderson 08 Jan '18

08 Jan '18

Dear All, The First ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies (ACM COMPASS) is excited to announce the list of associate chairs for the different tracks: SYSTEMS: Nick Feamster, Princeton University Ellen Zegura, Georgia Tech HCI: Ed Cutrell, Microsoft Research Tapan Parikh, Cornell Tech DATA SCIENCE/AI: Stefano Ermon, Stanford University Lakshmi Subramanian, New York University APPLICATIONS: Richard Anderson, University of Washington Bistra Dilkina, University of Southern California The HotCRP submission site is now live: https://compass2018.cs.washington.edu/submit/ We are excited to announce a strong and diverse PC of 100+ accomplished researchers covering different sub-fields. We are expecting a few more additions to the PC. The PC is online at: https://acmcompass.org/committee/ The first deadline for the 2018 conference is soon on Jan 12, 2018 and the second deadline is on Feb 16, 2018. The conference will move towards a rolling deadline model beyond these two deadlines. We wish to emphasize that the new conference has an expanded focus to explicitly welcome work on all under-represented and/or marginalized communities worldwide and to include work on sustainability, gender equality, health, education, poverty, accessibility, conservation, climate change, and economic growth, among others. We are looking forward to your submissions. thank you, Richard, Ellen and Lakshmi

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