Software Startups -- A Research Agenda

Software startup companies develop innovative, software-intensive products within limited time frames and with few resources, searching for sustainable and scalable business models. Software startups are quite distinct from traditional mature software companies, but also from micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises, introducing new challenges relevant for software engineering research. This paper's research agenda focuses on software engineering in startups, identifying, in particular, 70+ research questions in the areas of supporting startup engineering activities, startup evolution models and patterns, ecosystems and innovation hubs, human aspects in software startups, applying startup concepts in non-startup environments, and methodologies and theories for startup research. We connect and motivate this research agenda with past studies in software startup research, while pointing out possible future directions. While all authors of this research agenda have their main background in Software Engineering or Computer Science, their interest in software startups broadens the perspective to the challenges, but also to the opportunities that emerge from multi-disciplinary research. Our audience is therefore primarily software engineering researchers, even though we aim at stimulating collaborations and research that crosses disciplinary boundaries. We believe that with this research agenda we cover a wide spectrum of the software startup industry current needs

Impact in networks and ecosystems: building case studies that make a difference

open accessThis toolkit aims to support the building up of case studies that show the impact of project activities aiming to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. The case studies respond to the challenge of understanding what kinds of interventions work in the Southern African region, where, and why. The toolkit has a specific focus on entrepreneurial ecosystems and proposes a method of mapping out the actors and their relationships over time. The aim is to understand the changes that take place in the ecosystems. These changes are seen to be indicators of impact as increased connectivity and activity in ecosystems are key enablers of innovation. Innovations usually happen together with matching social and institutional adjustments, facilitating the translation of inventions into new or improved products and services. Similarly, the processes supporting entrepreneurship are guided by policies implemented in the common framework provided by innovation systems. Overall, policies related to systems of innovation are by nature networking policies applied throughout the socioeconomic framework of society to pool scarce resources and make various sectors work in coordination with each other. Most participating SAIS countries already have some kinds of identifiable systems of innovation in place both on national and regional levels, but the lack of appropriate institutions, policies, financial instruments, human resources, and support systems, together with underdeveloped markets, create inefficiencies and gaps in systemic cooperation and collaboration. In other words, we do not always know what works and what does not. On another level, engaging users and intermediaries at the local level and driving the development of local innovation ecosystems within which local culture, especially in urban settings, has evident impact on how collaboration and competition is both seen and done. In this complex environment, organisations supporting entrepreneurship and innovation often find it difficult to create or apply relevant knowledge and appropriate networking tools, approaches, and methods needed to put their processes to work for broader developmental goals. To further enable these organisations’ work, it is necessary to understand what works and why in a given environment. Enhanced local and regional cooperation promoted by SAIS Innovation Fund projects can generate new data on this little-explored area in Southern Africa. Data-driven knowledge on entrepreneurship and innovation support best practices as well as effective and efficient management of entrepreneurial ecosystems can support replication and inform policymaking, leading thus to a wider impact than just that of the immediate reported projects and initiatives

Global Risks 2015, 10th Edition.

The 2015 edition of the Global Risks report completes a decade of highlighting the most significant long-term risks worldwide, drawing on the perspectives of experts and global decision-makers. Over that time, analysis has moved from risk identification to thinking through risk interconnections and the potentially cascading effects that result. Taking this effort one step further, this year's report underscores potential causes as well as solutions to global risks. Not only do we set out a view on 28 global risks in the report's traditional categories (economic, environmental, societal, geopolitical and technological) but also we consider the drivers of those risks in the form of 13 trends. In addition, we have selected initiatives for addressing significant challenges, which we hope will inspire collaboration among business, government and civil society communitie

When Government Gets It Right: How a Strategic Visioning Process Aligned Nested Government Systems to Champion Local Relevance and Determination

This theme issue of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies addresses government/civic partnerships. Do government services always orient toward hierarchies of domination? Our answer is a resounding no. This article offers as evidence the actions of one government funder that removed hierarchical barriers, working in partnership with diverse grantees to envision a program that prioritizes community relevance and participation. Even as our article revolves around a strategic visioning event, it is a culmination of a government funder living out its guiding principles of mutual respect, joint problem solving, and valuing diversity, as well as the values, experiences, and collaborative spirit that diverse grantees brought. Our collective stories offer a clear example of how a partnership-based government program can engage and promote the strengths, needs, and priorities of the community not only because it is the appropriate and respectful approach, but also because it leads to stronger program results

A Reflective Investigation of Pivotal Moments That Open New Ways of Thinking for Artists Leading to Creative Change

An integration of the researcher’s own experience as a creative professional with that of other artists suggested that there are occasions in a creative practice that are experienced as pivotal, moments when something opens up and an apparent change takes place. Looking beyond art practice, researchers such as Land et al. (2010), Mezirow (1997), and Cranton (2016) have addressed the concept and importance of transformational learning in adults, leading toward a significant shift in the perception of a subject. In order to understand the moments that trigger pivotal experiences for artists, two qualitative studies took place: a pilot study (Alarcón, 2012) and the present study, which includes the narrative accounts of three women painters residing in Tacoma, United States; Paris, France; and Cape Town, South Africa. The research question assumes that artists experience Pivotal Moments in the ongoing development of their work and asks what the narrative accounts of three artists reveal about: (a) the moments that trigger their experiences of creative change or transformation; (b) the nature of these pivotal moments; and (c) how the moments coalesce within the dynamics of the creative act itself. Analysis of the interview data suggests that moments of change are revealed in terms of a set of four Pivots or turning points. In Chapter V, the Pivots are examined as they emerged within the artists as a group, then explored as experienced by each artist individually. The nature of these moments of change is revealed through preparation, location, process, and disruption, and a set of Sub-Pivots housed under each of the main ones. The thematic analysis in Chapter V also revealed the characteristics of these pivotal moments as ritualistic, interconnected, and dynamic. It was also unveiled that they express an inherent dynamic in the ability to turn things around in a creative practice such as painting. Pivotal Moments coalesce within the dynamics of the creative act through the ongoing development of the artist’s work. Finally, this study reveals multiple perspectives on content and suggestions on how we can support the richness of Pivotal Moments as related to Art Education

Computer Science and Technology Series : XV Argentine Congress of Computer Science. Selected papers

CACIC'09 was the fifteenth Congress in the CACIC series. It was organized by the School of Engineering of the National University of Jujuy. The Congress included 9 Workshops with 130 accepted papers, 1 main Conference, 4 invited tutorials, different meetings related with Computer Science Education (Professors, PhD students, Curricula) and an International School with 5 courses. CACIC 2009 was organized following the traditional Congress format, with 9 Workshops covering a diversity of dimensions of Computer Science Research. Each topic was supervised by a committee of three chairs of different Universities. The call for papers attracted a total of 267 submissions. An average of 2.7 review reports were collected for each paper, for a grand total of 720 review reports that involved about 300 different reviewers. A total of 130 full papers were accepted and 20 of them were selected for this book.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Three Essays On Climate Change Adaptation In Rural African Communities

Climate change is one of the defining challenges of the present era, bringing new risks and exacerbating existing vulnerabilities across the world. While there is a broad recognition that solutions around climate change will require coordination and support across borders and governments, a large body of scholarship has focused on the local-level realities of climate change and the disproportionate impacts on the most vulnerable populations. The climate vulnerable poor do not have the privilege of waiting for global policy and commitment to emission reduction targets. They need planned and proactive adaptation support to build resilience to the changing climate and to address the threat on their livelihoods. However, the conditions that render populations vulnerable are the same factors that constrain their ability to adapt to climate change through autonomous actions. Acknowledging the need for pro-poor support, there is an increased focus on funding and supporting climate action and adaptation. In this dissertation, I evaluate both government and development practitioners’ interventions to help vulnerable populations adapt to the changing climate. More specifically, I evaluate a bottom-up community driven approach to climate change adaptation funded by the United Kingdom Department for International Development in Senegal and Mali, and a social safety net program implemented at a national scale in Ethiopia. In the first chapter, I evaluate the Decentralized Climate Funds (DCF) project in Senegal and Mali. DCF aims to support locally led climate change adaptation, encouraging participatory processes at the community level to identify and prioritize public goods investments in adaptation. This chapter explores the impacts of the DCF project on household-level social capital, one of the goals of the project and a necessary condition for strengthening household’s overall adaptive capacity. I take advantage of a unique panel dataset in Mali and Senegal that was gathered from surveys conducted through the four years of the project. I use propensity score matching to compare treatment and control households on a broad range of household characteristics and social capital measures. Further, I leverage the household panel data collected before and after the first cycle of the project to analyze whether changes in the social capital measures can be attributed to DCF through a difference-in-differences approach, controlling for time-invariant unobservables. The results suggest that the DCF project led to increases in household level social capital. The findings indicate that receiving funding through the project increased the likelihood of participating in collective action and providing help to other community members in Mali, with mixed results in Senegal. In the second chapter, I further examine the results from the first chapter by conducting a qualitative study to gain insight into who benefits from a bottom-up, community driven project. I draw on semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions to explore the involvement and inclusion of women in participatory spaces in community-based adaptation, using the DCF pilot project in Senegal as a case study. The analysis and findings demonstrate that women’s participation in decision-making about community adaptation and development varies in levels and depends on a complex, interlinked set of factors across community, household, and individual levels. The findings suggest that the participatory approach to adaptation only encouraged active and empowered participation of women in sites where there was an existing precedent for women’s participation, encouraged by social capital and networks, recognition of women’s role in income generation, and favorable intrahousehold power dynamics. The chapter concludes that even gender aware community-based adaptation initiatives struggle to engage with issues of unequal power relations, failing to ensure that women’s voices are actively considered and included in community decisions. In my final chapter, I use panel data from the 2011 to 2015 Ethiopia Socioeconomic Survey to evaluate whether low-income households, when faced with a positive income shock through the public works or direct support components of the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), feel more food secure and improve the quality of their household’s food consumption. I utilize propensity score matching and difference-in-differences estimation to evaluate whether the beneficiaries of the program are benefiting relative to non-beneficiaries who have similar socio-economic characteristics. I find that that being a beneficiary of the PSNP has different effects on a household’s food security depending on the type of cash transfer. For those participating in the public works component of the program, PSNP increased the likelihood of households reporting that they do not have sufficient food to meet their household’s needs through the year. For the direct support component, the results suggest that recipients don’t experience a statistically significant change in their food security outcomes relative to those who did not receive PSNP. However, for both components, if PSNP payments were coupled with agricultural extension services, households realized a statistically significant increase in the number of unique food groups consumed. The contradictory findings that indicate that PSNP public works recipients are more likely to report food insecurity suggests that there may be concerns of biased strategic reporting to remain in the program. The chapter concludes that the program may not be sufficient by itself to benefit participants and help shift them out of food insecurity

Scaling impact in education for transformative change: Practical recommendations from the Real-Time Scaling Labs

Transforming education systems is a complex process that requires understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the educational ecosystem and exploring new approaches, ideas, and initiatives to improve quality learning opportunities for children and youth. However, research shows it is not enough to simply identify effective education initiatives and expand them to more people. It takes a combination of technical expertise, understanding of local contexts, political strategy, collaborative partnership, flexible adaptation, and shared vision to scale and sustain the impact of education initiatives. Scaling cannot occur through one actor alone; it requires concerted and collaborative action by multiple actors at all levels of the education system.Too often, the work of scaling is not captured by typical monitoring and evaluation or research studies and lessons learned are not systematically documented. In response, in 2018 the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at Brookings launched a series of Real-time Scaling Labs (RTSLs) to generate more evidence and provide practical recommendations on how to expand, deepen, and sustain the impact of education initiatives leading to transformative change in education systems, especially for the most disadvantaged children and youth.The purpose of this report is to look across all six of the RTSL cases to analyze common themes, insights, and lessons learned about the process of scaling as well as interesting divergences, and to offer considerations for others looking to learn from or build on this work. This report is intended for governments, education implementers, donors, and researchers who are interested in collaborative approaches to scaling impact in education