[open-development] Open Development Fellowship

Mon Oct 7 03:59:33 UTC 2013

Thanks everyone for welcoming my first contribution. 

Linda you make a good point re empowerment. Thanks Caitlin for introducing me to Alam and Winters' work. As Claudia mentioned, development is happening everywhere all the time. I'd worked on an East of England Development Agency-funded project, now I'm in Asia working on basic human rights for indigenous peoples - actually not as different as some might think :)

This raises an important point - if local residents in say Croydon in London, England wanted to lead a community-driven open data project about crime and conflict resolution, how would that differ from residents doing the same thing in say Shwe Pyi Thar in Yangon, Burma? What differences are based on data and what are based on cultural assumptions? Does this open development project we're discussing only cover the latter, or both? If only the latter, we should be clear about why, using transparent goalposts. 

Given a global trend toward poverty being associated with inequality in middle-income countries, should the focus be only on low-income countries? Is income the indicator we want to base decisions on? Working with indigenous peoples who are not 'developed' based on income, but are 'developed' based on ecological knowledge, I'm conscious of what indicators show about priorities.

Now I'm getting too philosophical.  Practically speaking, how about a measurable objective like:
"at least half of the active members of the open development working group will be from or in places with a Human Development Index below the mean".

Also I noticed the original Google doc https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fVewD7Ui6fnULg1e3r2Y6m5n3yjQH3oBbOiPKZ6IwBE/edit# has now changed to have the wording I suggested for Goal #2, despite saying at the top of the page "Original Proposal (copied from pad)". I'd recommend keeping the original proposal intact, and/or transferring to a wiki or similar where participants can see the revision history, for transparency. 

It's useful to track things like this because it seems an aspect of this project will be changing thinking and behaviors of people already within the open development community, as well as developing knowledge, capacity and sharing among people outside of the community now. 

I look forward to more discussion :)

cheers, Cobi

On Oct 5, 2556 BE, at 5:22 PM, Caitlin Bentley wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
> 
> It's a bit ironic how the initial desire to gain more ownership and engagement from a more diverse group of regionally separated people starts to sound arrogant no matter which way we name it ;)  
> 
> I started using majority world instead of developing world via Niall Winters -> http://www.lkl.ac.uk/niall/MobileLearningInTheMajorityWorld-PREPRINT.pdf
> 
> Who likewise found it through -> "Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam coined the term majority world to refer to what had been called the ‘Global South’ or ‘developing world’. Majority world “defines the community in terms of what it is, rather than what it lacks.”
> See: http://www.appropedia.org/Majority_world 
> 
> If the purpose of using this term is to target regional geographies it seems OK, however, it then seems a bit cringy to call 'the rest' the minority world though. 
> 
> In any case, regarding the document and added points via Katelyn. I think it's brilliant to support fellows in boosting activities that they are doing related to this field, and I would be keen to focus this first round of fellowships on outreach in particular. A theme might be appropriate for outreach activities to provide some talking points to help fellows engage people and organisations. I think all themes are relevant and keeping them all would give the fellows some leeway to pursue networks according to their own interests. 
> 
> Defining research questions I find might be a bit hasty considering the point seems to be to gain more diversity first before developing a greater sense of community interests. As was noted, that there are already many people and organisations practicing open development but using or speaking different language, and so perhaps left out of the conversation. Research questions might create too much distance at the start. IMHO. 
> 
> I would be happy to help with any French facilitating/West Africa outreach for fellows.
> 
> Best, 
> 
> Caitlin 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 5:52 PM, Claudia Schwegmann <claudia.schwegmann at okfn.org> wrote:
> Dear all
> Thanks Katelyn for getting us moving again! And thanks a lot, Cobi for challenging us. Your comments are highly welcome. 
> 
> Cobi, you are 100% right about the geographical quirkiness of "global south". I guess this term was born out of a wide-spread unease with the term "developing country"  - after all, all societies are developing. I agree that wording is important - but I cannot think of terms that I personally would be totally happy with. Maybe as a group we can find better terms.
> 
> On the bursary question: I don't think the list of bursary is online. Maybe a bit of background info on this is helpful - apologies if all this is known to everybody. Before the Helsinki OKfest Tim Davies, who used to facilited this group, invited people to help with the organisation of the OKFest development stream. Following this invitation a self-selected group on this people got together to prepare the OKfest, to look for funding for travel bursaries and to organise events at the okfest. So in this case we are just talking about travel bursaries - for people from developing countries / the global south / .... There was a call for applications was made on this list, people from all over the world sent in applications. The preparation group defined criteria for selection (such as gender, regional representation, involvement in activities on the ground, ..) and selected applicants accordingly. There were about twelve recipients of travel bursaries from Argentina, Uruguay, El Salvador, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, India (?), Nepal, Cambodia ...
> 
> I wholeheartedly agree that the process for a fellowship scheme should be as transparent as possible. The choice of fellows should be based on transparent principles and not on personal contacts. The joint decision on selection principles and on fellowship modalities should be part of the process.
> 
> Looking forward to hear what other people think ....
> Claudia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Claudia Schwegmann
> Open Knowledge Foundation Germany
> 
> Tel/Fax +49 (0) 5130 609691
> Mobil +49 (0)163 326 6504
> Twitter @OpenAidGermany
> Skype Claudia.Schwegmann
> 
> Die Open Knowledge Foundation setzt sich für offenes Wissen ein! Sie auch? 
> 
> 
> 2013/10/4 Cobi <cobi at aippnet.org>
> Hi Katelyn, 
> 
> thanks for sharing this - here are my thoughts on reading the proposal document and your update, based on what struck me most.
> 
> I think referring to "southern" ownership reflects European ownership of this project currently, and perpetuates assumptions about where is developed and where is developing. 
> The latest maps of development indicators help illustrate this:
> http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/map/
> Brazil, for example, is north relative to Chile, likewise Indonesia to Australia. I would recommend removing language about north/south divide and replacing subjective directional language with language about the issues being addressed. An example would be changing  "building southern ownership of open development agenda" to something like "empowering people in developing places to lead open development". 
> 
> To see an example of the same agenda without geographical emphasis (with the exception of reference to the East-West Institute, further highlighting the quirks of geography-based agendas), you could check out: 
> http://www.opendevelopmentcambodia.net/about/
> 
> Replacing "Cambodia" with 'global' or 'as the world develops' gives a sense of how open development can be presented in a way that doesn't perpetuate the idea that Europe has the answers to the rest of the world's problems, which can alienate people from other continents. 
> 
> Perceptions that most poor people live in French-speaking Africa reflects European priorities. A visualization of data on the world's bottom billion shines light on this:
> http://www.ids.ac.uk/project/the-new-bottom-billion
> (re European aid priorities, see p3 http://www.bond.org.uk/data/files/EU_aid_facts.pdf)
> 
> It might be that there is less engagement with open ideas in Africa, justifying two fellows there. However it would be good to use the working groups' impressions as research questions to find out. Perhaps an aspect of research could be building an evidence base about where civil society and governments are engaging with open development philosophies, then deciding where fellows should be recruited based on gaps. 
> 
> I couldn't find info online about who received the bursaries to attend OKfest 2012 - perhaps making existing information open is a step that will help inform new proposals (or more accessible, if it's online but I couldn't find it). 
> 
> Given that OKFN is based in Europe and has established partnerships in certain countries, it's fair enough if these are the factors are used to make decisions. But it's important to be aware and transparent about whether decision-making is based on data or on personal networks and cultural assumptions. Self-awareness about this will ensure the group reflects the principles of open development we're aiming for. 
> 
> I hope no-one finds this too confronting and takes my thoughts in the constructive spirit intended :)
> 
> cheers, Cobi
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Oct 3, 2556 BE, at 6:38 PM, Katelyn Rogers wrote:
> 
>> Dear Colleagues, 
>> 
>> As many of you are already aware, the Open Development group began drafting a proposal to develop an Open Development Fellowship Scheme, based loosely on the Open Science Panton Fellows, early this year. 
>> 
>> At OKcon, I had the opportunity to meet with people interested in taking this idea forward. You can find the original proposal and the meeting recap here. 
>> 
>> New Developments (please provide feedback!) 
>> Local Group Project Administration: While the Open Knowledge Foundation has been suggested as a suitable host organisation of the house for the fellowship scheme, ultimately we would like to see the project to be managed by one of our local groups. The Brazil local initiative is likely to be the best fit. What do others think about the project administration being carried by a local group? Would the Brazil local group be a suitable choice? 
>> Research Questions: As Open Development is a emerging field of study, we discussed developing a few broad research questions to help define the scope of the fellowship. Is this a good idea? Would people be interested in participating in developing these questions. 
>> Themes: I also thought that we could organise the fellowship around the themes that were developed by the group in Geneva. Would it make sense to organise the fellowship around one, or two, or all of these themes? 
>> Open Development OKcon hosted by local group. Going forward, the OKcon conference model is one that we would like to see taken up and used by our local groups. The original proposal mentioned organising an event in the "south",where, presumably, the fellows could present their work as well as connect with the larger open development research community. Would an OKcon like event organised by an OKF local group be an a good option for such an event?
>> Next Steps: 
>> Gauging Interest: We were hoping to reach out to bursary recipients from OKfest 2012 to begin to gauge interest and get feedback from potential fellows. How else would you suggest gauging interest?
>> Proposal - In order to draft the proposal we need to determine how we are going to select the fellows, how we are going to recruit the fellows, where the fellows should come from (more information in document). The input of the group on these points is warming welcomed! 
>> Please get in touch if you are interested in helping to take this fellowship scheme proposal forward and I look forward to all of your comments!  
>> 
>> All the best,
>> Katelyn  
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Katelyn Rogers
>> Working Groups Community Manager  | katelyn.rogers at okfn.org  | Skype: katelynjrogers
>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>> Empowering through Open Knowledge
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> -- 
> Caitlin Bentley, PhD Candidate
> Department of Geography
> Royal Holloway, University of London
> Surrey TW20 0EX  UK
> +44 (0) 79 7739 6421
> Caitlin.Bentley.2010 at live.rhul.ac.uk
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> http://www.ict4d.org.uk

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