We are actively engaged in the dialogue and debates of our space: on issues of social justice, global development, and democratic innovation, and on the ethics and methodological evolution of design, mediation, and co-creation practice. More of our writing can be found at Medium.
This week, Emily Herrick will participate in the Design for Good webcast series hosted by the Professional Association for Design (AIGA). Under the theme of citizen-driven policymaking, Emily will share her experience applying human-centered design and communications strategies to support criminal justice reform in the US and international open government initiatives. She and conversation partners, Tomas Ives, from the Government of Chile, and Chelsea Mauldin, Executive Director of the Public Policy Lab, will examine how design skills can enhance civic participation and transparency among underserved communities. Join the live webcast at 12:00 pm EST on Friday, March 17th.
From February 27th to March 3rd, Reboot will participate in Social Media Week in Lagos, Nigeria. This week-long conference provides opportunities for leading media actors in Nigeria to collaborate, as well as to share how existing and new media and technology can support social accountability and civic engagement efforts. Follow along at #SMWLagos2017.
Reboot is honored to be a grantee of John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s $5 million fund for journalism and media to advance anti-corruption efforts in Nigeria. As part of MacArthur’s On Nigeria portfolio, Reboot will support media and journalism organizations in understanding and engaging audiences, developing sustainable business models, strengthening investigative and data-driven reporting, and collaborating with advocacy groups over three years. Read more about the award and other grantees here.
From February 17th to 19th, Emily Herrick and Lauren Gardner contributed as organizers and participants to the NYC Service Design Jam. Over 48 hours, participating teams researched, designed, and prototyped new services based on this year’s theme of communication and connection. The NYC Jam was only one of concurrent 100 global service design jams aiming to grow the field of service design and customer experience. For a recap of the event see @NYCservicejam.
On February 25th, Panthea Lee will serve as the judge for the NYC OpenRecords Virtual UX Hackathon. Contestants will submit ideas for improving the OpenRecords platform, a tool which Reboot helped concept to support the New York City government’s processing of Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests. Register here if you are a UX professional interested in improving civic technology and participating in the hackathon.
From February 22nd to 24th, Nicole Anand will participate in Verge NYC, a student organized conference on transdisciplinary design at Parsons in New York City. As an advisory board member, Nicole will lead conversations on Youth empowerment and civic engagement. This year’s conference focuses on how to uncover and disrupt power dynamics with the goal of illuminating traditionally invisible social groups and environments. Register to attend the event or follow along on with #VergeNYC.
From February 20th to 23rd, Adam Talsma will attend a regional learning workshop hosted by West Africa Civil Society Institute in Accra, Ghana. Adam will share Reboot’s approach to supporting effective local civil society and government partnerships in strengthening accountabile governance. The annual workshop convenes civil society representatives from across West Africa to exchange lessons, challenges, and opportunities for collaboration on social accountability.
On December 15th, Nicole Anand will present a keynote for the Data for Social Innovation conference in Turin, Italy. Nicole will discuss how to extract value from data for improving public services, using examples from our work with Wikimedia and the OGP subnational program to illustrate Reboot’s approach to social innovation. The conference will focus on themes of education, unemployment, and poverty reduction, and you can sign up to attend here.
From December 7 to 9, Panthea Lee, Zack Brisson, and Nicole Anand will be attending the OGP Global Summit in Paris. On December 8th (9AM local time), Zack will co-facilitate a roundtable where subnational pioneers will reflect on lessons learned from their experience developing open government commitments. Nicole will facilitate a workshop on December 9th (3:30 pm local time) with five subnational government pioneers to share how they co-create for open government. Follow the conference at #OGP16 and #OGP16Summit.
On December 7th, Adam Talsma will join a webinar panel hosted by Health Communication Capacity Collaborative on real-time activity monitoring and reporting. Adam will present on My Voice, an SMS-based, patient-feedback platform, to show how Reboot built real-time data into institutional decisionmaking processes to improve primary care services in Nigeria. Register here to attend the webinar at 9am EST.
On November 30th in Abuja, Ijeoma Mba and Adam Talsma will lead a workshop at the SDG Conference 2016, a national conference on evaluating Nigeria’s advancement toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Ijeoma and Adam will use Reboot’s My Voice project as a case study to show how collecting citizen feedback can help institutions better measure their progress toward meeting the SDGs and adapt their programs responsively. Follow along at #SDGNigeria.
From November 22 to 23, Nonso Jideofor joined the Open Data Party, an initiative of Connected Development [CODE] and eHealth Africa, in Kano, Nigeria. Nonso led two workshops: on using the design process to implement open data programs, and on using mobile phone surveys to make data current and compelling in service design. Check out the Party recap at #OpenDataParty.
On November 17th, Panthea Lee will speak at Doing Development Differently: Two years on, what are we learning? convened by ODI and Harvard University in London. She will discuss applying DDD principles in open government programs, policies, and operations alongside Duncan Green from Oxfam, Taylor Brown from Palladium, and Jonathan Beloe of the IRC.
From November 13th to 15th, Zack Brisson will attend Bloomberg’s Africa Business Media Innovators conference on inclusive and successful journalism throughout Africa. Held in Naivasha, Kenya, this year’s gathering of global industry, data, technology, foundation, and new media leaders focuses on data. Specifically, they will explore how access, analysis, and distribution of public data in business and financial journalism can support open governance, business development, and social and economic growth. Follow along at #ABMI2016.
Erin Wispelwey joins the Reboot team as a communications intern. She brings a broad range of international development, public health, and communications experience, as well as an MSc in research methods in political economy and development from the University of London- SOAS. Prior to graduate school, she did community health work as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia, and used design research methods to connect newly diagnosed patients to care at the University of Virginia’s HIV clinic. Erin looks forward to learning more innovative ways to address structural injustices through human-centered design and communicating these innovations to others.
On Friday, October 28th, Zack Brisson will speak on how feedback can be used in open government and adaptive management at the Feedback Summit in Washington, DC. In the “Feedback Ninjas” breakout session, Zack will join a panel of subnational open government champions from Austin, TX and Elgeyo Marakwet County, Kenya on reframing participation within and outside government. Zack will also share insights from our research with USAID on decisionmaking for adaptive management at the plenary session “Adapting Beyond the Status Quo.”
In Abuja on October 19th, Reboot and BBC Media Action will host a dynamic conversation with media, development agencies, and donors on the role of media in Nigeria’s governance. Moderated by radio host Affiong Bassey, “Talk Your Own: Media for Governance” will explore how Nigerian media can better engage audiences, provide trustworthy information, foster public dialogue, and contribute to development. If you’re interested in attending, email us at talkyourown@reboot.org.
In Washington, DC from October 3rd-4th, Panthea Lee and Emily Herrick will speak at MERL Tech, a gathering of development practitioners to discuss the future of technology for monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning. Panthea will deliver a keynote on principles for integrating learning data throughout program implementation, and Emily will co-facilitate a workshop on ethical considerations throughout the data lifecycle.
On September 24th, Emily Herrick and Lauren Gardner will join a panel on “Creating Connections Through Design” at the student-led Better World by Design conference in Providence. Under the theme Interplay, Emily and Lauren will share how they facilitated uncommon connections in education and civic engagement.
Zack Brisson will moderate a panel entitled “Development Data Visionaries: The Future of Data Work at Aid Agencies” at Bloomberg’s Data for Good Exchange in New York City on Sunday, September 25th. Merrick Shaefer (USAID), Manuel García-Herranz (UNICEF), Tariq Khokhar (The World Bank), and Molly Jackman (Facebook) will discuss how aid agencies are using data science to meet the growing need of doing development differently.