Post on 19-May-2015
description
UN GLOBAL PULSEHarnessing innovation to protect the vulnerable
Robert KirkpatrickDirector, UN Global Pulse
Executive Office of the Secretary-GeneralUnited Nations Headquarters
New York, NY
Twitter: @unglobalpulse | www.unglobalpulse.org
In 2009, leaders needed real-time informationto respond to the global economic crisis• Which population groups are most
vulnerable?• Which are already being impacted?• How are they coping?
Answering these questions turned out to be a problem.
The Invisible Descent into Poverty
Crisis
Hard-to-track erosive effects of slow-onset crises
Irreversible Harm
(vast oversimplification)
Household-level statistics take years to collect and years to validate.
2-5 year-old figures just don’t cut it in a global crisis.
The Crisis Information Gap
?
First data becomes available
…and we only find out about years too late
Without accurate information to inform social protection policies, vulnerable
people slip through the cracks…
Data, Data Everywhere!Can we close the information gap with new kinds of data?
Services as sensors?
Mobile Services as Human Sensor Networks
When our lives change, we change how we use services
Flashing
Voice Calling
SMS Texting
SIM Top-offs
Mobile banking
Money transfers
Microloan repayments
Tower hopping
Health hotlines
Agriculture hotlines
Educational services
Employment services
Social networking
SMS Search
Citizen reporting
Food vouchers
Anywhere you are doing global development…
Agricultural hotlines as sensor networks?
In Spain, searching for “work in Germany”
Worldwide Arabic searches for “work in France”
Can online search reveal an intention to relocate for work?
Sketch for a “Flu Trends for Migration”
Digital Smoke Signals
Mobile Services Data
Social Media
Online News
Crowdsourced Reports
Remote Sensing
What can
tellus
about
economic stress,depression, anxiety
lost jobs, job-seeking?affordability of food, fuel,
rent, or education,Increases in debt,frustration, dashed
hopes, broken dreams, domestic strife,
road rage…
Detecting crisis-related anomalies in collective behavior
?
Making Sense of Digital Smoke SignalsWhat we can learn from Public Health outbreak surveillance:
1. Aggregate, fuse and analyze real-time data from a variety of sources
2. Combine human expertise with intelligent software to detectpatterns of concern and form hypotheses
3. Crowd-source preliminary reports of causes and impacts from local government, teachers, community health workers, radio hosts and alert them to possible risks and recommended coping strategies
4. If community leaders confirm hypotheses, work with government to collect and validate additional statistical evidence, as required.
5. Government now has the evidence needed for national response and global advocacy
Data Philanthropy?
• Individual Privacy
• Data Security
• Data Sovereignty
• Intellectual Property
Making it Safe for Everyone InvolvedDeveloping a robust framework for protecting:
UN Global PulseAn innovative blueprint for crisis awareness in the 21st century
FRAMEWORK: researching approaches to integrating new data with traditional indicators
PLATFORM: tools for real-time collaborative analysis & collective reasoning
LABS: building capacity for real-time crisis monitoring at the country-level
Thank you!
Robert KirkpatrickDirector, UN Global Pulse
United Nations Headquarterskirkpatrick@un.org
+1 (650) 796-5709
Twitter: @unglobalpulse | www.unglobalpulse.org