Crowdsourcing and human development

Zambrano, Raúl; Eymann, Simone

doi:10.1145/2691195.2691223

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…This allowed survivors of the earthquake to text for help, and for emergency response units to quickly and efficiently locate and respond to incidents. These platforms, and others, have also been used to respond to a range of natural and humanitarian crises, including earthquakes, election tampering, refugee crises, the spread of epidemics, and more (Weyer et al 2019;Zambrano 2014). Even within this relatively well-developed area of research, though, many gaps remain.…”

Section: Volunteer Geographic Information In the Global Southmentioning

confidence: 99%

Volunteer geographic information in the Global South: barriers to local implementation of mapping projects across Africa

et al. 2020

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The world is awash in data-by 2020 it is expected that there will be approximately 40 trillion gigabytes of data in existence, with that number doubling every 2 to 3 years. However, data production is not equal in all places-the global data landscape remains heavily concentrated on English-speaking, urban, and relatively affluent locations within the Global North. This inequality can contribute to new forms of digital and data colonialism. One partial solution to these issues may come in the form of crowdsourcing and volunteer geographic information (VGI), which allow Global South populations to produce their own data. Despite initial optimism about these approaches, many challenges and research gaps remain in understanding the opportunities and barriers that organizations endemic to the Global South face in carrying out their own sustainable crowdsourcing projects. What opportunities and barriers do these endemic organizations face when trying to carry out mapping projects driven by their own goals and desires? This paper contributes answers to this question by examining a VGI project that is currently mapping public libraries across the African continent. Our findings highlight how dramatically digital divides can bias crowdsourcing results; the importance of local cultural views in influencing participation in crowdsourcing; and the continued importance of traditional, authoritative organizations for crowdsourcing. These findings offer important lessons for researchers and organizations attempting to develop their own VGI projects in the Global South.

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Section: Volunteer Geographic Information In the Global Southmentioning

confidence: 99%

Volunteer geographic information in the Global South: barriers to local implementation of mapping projects across Africa

et al. 2020

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“…For the purposes of this paper, ICTs are instead deemed to be enablers of development processes (Zambrano and Eymann, 2014). ICTs have the potential to amplify existing programs and initiatives, bring new solutions to old problems and foster democratic governance and institutions.…”

Section: Ict For Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taming the Beast: Harnessing Blockchains in Developing Country Governments

Zambrano¹

2020

Front. Blockchain

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Amid pressing demands to achieve critical sustainable development goals, governments in developing countries face the additional complex task of embracing new digital technologies such as blockchains. This paper develops a framework interlinking development, technology, and government institutions that policymakers and development practitioners could use to address such a conundrum. State capacity and democratic governance are introduced as drivers in the overall analysis. With this in hand, blockchain technology is revisited from the perspective of governments in the Global South, identifying in the process key traits and proposing a new typology. An overview of the status of blockchain deployments in the Global South follows, complemented by a closer look at country examples to distill trends, patterns and risks. The paper closes with a discussion of the findings, highlighting both challenges and opportunities for governments. It also provides basic guidance to development practitioners interested in enhancing current programming using blockchains as an enabler.

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“…The approach has been arguably even more impactful in the Global South, where it has proven useful for overcoming gaps in official data sources and information and communication technology services in times of crisis (Zambrano, 2014;Zook et al, 2010). Across Africa, crowdsourcing has been employed to map various phenomena, including election violence, agriculture support, outbreaks of disease, and response to natural disasters (United Nations Economic Commission, 2017;Yilma, 2019;Zambrano, 2014). Further, crowdsourced maps can be utilized as political advocacy tools by making small-scale efforts more visible to larger funding or political bodies in the Global South (Young, 2017;Young and Gilmore, 2017).…”

Section: Literature Review: Crowdsourcing and Mapping In Librariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Benefits of crowdsourcing for libraries: A case study from Africa

et al. 2020

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Many libraries in the Global South do not collect comprehensive data about themselves, which creates challenges in terms of local and international visibility. Crowdsourcing is an effective tool that engages the public to collect missing data, and it has proven to be particularly valuable in countries where governments collect little public data. Whereas crowdsourcing is often used within fields that have high levels of development funding, such as health, the authors believe that this approach would have many benefits for the library field as well. They present qualitative and quantitative evidence from 23 African countries involved in a crowdsourcing project to map libraries. The authors find benefits in terms of increased connections between stakeholders, capacity-building, and increased local visibility. These findings demonstrate the potential of crowdsourced approaches for tasks such as mapping to benefit libraries and similarly positioned institutions in the Global South in multifaceted ways.

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Crowdsourcing and human development

Cited by 6 publications

References 6 publications

Volunteer geographic information in the Global South: barriers to local implementation of mapping projects across Africa

Volunteer geographic information in the Global South: barriers to local implementation of mapping projects across Africa

Taming the Beast: Harnessing Blockchains in Developing Country Governments

Benefits of crowdsourcing for libraries: A case study from Africa

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