Technology innovation hubs and policy engagement

Many technology innovation hubs are developing impactful, locally relevant civic tech solutions to pressing commercial and social issues. This research examines technology innovation hubs in Africa and Asia, discussing their latent, but recognised, potential to play a more overt role in promoting social change through contributing to the ‘thickening’ of local democratic space and policy cocreation. It concludes with a set of lessons for hubs, funders and policy-makers.DFIDUSAIDSIDAOmidyar Networ

Digital Democracy: Episode IV—A New Hope*: How a Corporation for Public Software Could Transform Digital Engagement for Government and Civil Society

Although successive generations of digital technology have become increasingly powerful in the past 20 years, digital democracy has yet to realize its potential for deliberative transformation. The undemocratic exploitation of massive social media systems continued this trend, but it only worsened an existing problem of modern democracies, which were already struggling to develop deliberative infrastructure independent of digital technologies. There have been many creative conceptions of civic tech, but implementation has lagged behind innovation. This article argues for implementing one such vision of digital democracy through the establishment of a public corporation. Modeled on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the United States, this entity would foster the creation of new digital technology by providing a stable source of funding to nonprofit technologists, interest groups, civic organizations, government, researchers, private companies, and the public. Funded entities would produce and maintain software infrastructure for public benefit. The concluding sections identify what circumstances might create and sustain such an entity

Social innovation for biodiversity: a literature review and research challenges

There are calls for social innovation to help with the effort to halt biodiversity loss. However, research on social innovation and biodiversity is dispersed and covers a multitude of disciplines. A systematic overview of research on social innovation and biodiversity is missing and this paper contributes by focusing on social innovation to tackle the drivers of biodiversity loss and unsustainability. The paper reviews research on social innovation in changing land use (agriculture, forestry, aquatic ecosystems and cities), in tackling exploitation of organisms (fishing, hunting, harvesting), and in addressing threats of climate change, pollution and invasive species. Across these drivers, we find a) a strong emphasis on social innovation as civic action for changing practices in addressing unsustainability, b) that social innovation research tends to focus on local experimentation although there are bodies of literature on policy-driven innovations and consumer/producer-driven innovations, and c) that there is very little research taking a critical perspective to explore negative or unintended consequences of social innovation. Drawing on the review, we propose three cross cutting issues that can be a focus for future research, practice and supportive policy: social innovation for nature-based solutions, social innovation for participatory governance, and social innovation for technology that tackles biodiversity loss

Silicon Alley: A Framework for New York City’s Entrepreneurship Ecosystem and its Public Policy Considerations

As cities like New York emerge as hubs of innovation resolved in using technology and engaging non-governmental actors, this white paper pursues an analysis of the actors in the urban innovation ecosystem to pinpoint what makes these ecosystems distinct from their suburban counterparts. New York is unique in the way it describes innovation and entrepreneurs, pursuing an open and loose definition, enabling it to engage stakeholders and actors in a way that other places cannot. By bringing multiple perspectives and stakeholders into the fold, New York is able to pursue entrepreneurship hand in hand with civic duties, fostering an environment that centers public and social good in many cases. Actors then blur the boundaries between being entrepreneurs, public servants, and civil society members. This paper explores the urban dynamics of innovation ecosystems, focusing on the role of New York in fostering and orchestrating them. Section I analyzes the disruptive role of emerging technologies in society, focusing on workforce and skills. Section II defines urban innovation ecosystems, assesses the forces that are propelling this new spatial geography of innovation, and provides insights into redefining the new dynamics and while arguing that the urban innovation ecosystem remains distinct from traditional “innovation ecosystems.” Section III provides a case study of New York’s innovation ecosystem and lists the multiple assets of the city as an innovation district. Finally, it puts forward policy considerations for a diverse set of stakeholders, including policy makers, technology companies, and civil society on how leveraging technology and entrepreneurship ecosystems can catalyze innovation; and illustrates policy actions applied to a number of challenges

Seeing through infrastructure:Ethnographies of HealthIT, Development Aid, Energy and Big Tech

Inaugural professorial lecture From the introduction: It is a pleasure and a great privilege to be standing here in front of you today to celebrate the newly established chair in Science and Technology Studies and ethnography at the IT University of Copenhagen. I am excited that so many have come to spend the afternoon here. Science and Technology Studies or STS is a relatively new academic field. It is the study of how social, political and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation and vice versa, that is how scientific and technological developments affect societal values and politics in turn. Questions of interest to this field have for example been: What makes scientific facts credible? What makes us trust in science? How to create civic engagement around questions of science and technology? How is the general public involved in decisions around for example the manipulation of genes or the location of nuclear waste storage

Can a teaching university be an entrepreneurial university? Civic entrepreneurship and the formation of a cultural cluster in Ashland, Oregon

There has been debate over whether a teaching university can be an entrepreneurial university (Clark, 1998). In a traditional conception of academic entrepreneurship focused on achieving commercial profit, a research base may be a pre-requisite to creating spin-offs. However, if we expand entrepreneurship into a broader conception to map its different forms such as commercial, social, cultural and civic entrepreneurship, it is clear that the answer is positive. In this study, we focus on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), which has transformed a small town based on resource extraction, a market center and a rail-hub into a theatre arts and cultural cluster. The convergence of entrepreneurship, triple helix model, cluster and regional innovation theories, exemplified by the Ashland case, has provided a model as instructive as Silicon Valley, to seekers of a general theory and practice of regional innovation and entrepreneurship. The role of Southern Oregon University (SOU) in the inception of a cultural cluster gives rise to a model for education-focused universities to play a significant role in local economic development through civic entrepreneurship

Lessons learned in effective community-university-industry collaboration models for smart and connected communities research

In 2017, the Boston University Hariri Institute for Computing and the Initiative on Cities co-hosted two workshops on “Effective Community-University-Industry Collaboration Models for Smart and Connected Communities Research,” with the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF). These efforts brought together over one hundred principal investigators and research directors from universities across the country, as well as city officials, community partners, NSF program managers and other federal agency representatives, MetroLab Network representatives and industry experts. The focus was on transdisciplinary “smart city” projects that bring technical fields such as engineering and computer science together with social scientists and community stakeholders to tackle community-sourced problems. Presentations, panel discussions, working sessions and participant white papers surfaced operational models as well as barriers and levers to enabling effective research partnerships. To capture the perspectives and beliefs of all participants, in addition to the presenters, attendees were asked to synthesize lessons on each panel topic. This white paper summarizes the opportunities and recommendations that emerged from these sessions, and provides guidance to communities and researchers interested in engaging in these types of partnerships as well as universities and funders that endeavor to nurture them. It draws on the collective wisdom of the assembled participants and the authors. While many of the examples noted are drawn from medium and large cities, the lessons may still be applicable to communities of various sizes.National Science Foundatio

Seeing through infrastructure: Ethnographies of HealthIT, Development Aid, Energy and Big Tech

Inaugural professorial lecture From the introduction: It is a pleasure and a great privilege to be standing here in front of you today to celebrate the newly established chair in Science and Technology Studies and ethnography at the IT University of Copenhagen. I am excited that so many have come to spend the afternoon here. Science and Technology Studies or STS is a relatively new academic field. It is the study of how social, political and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation and vice versa, that is how scientific and technological developments affect societal values and politics in turn. Questions of interest to this field have for example been: What makes scientific facts credible? What makes us trust in science? How to create civic engagement around questions of science and technology? How is the general public involved in decisions around for example the manipulation of genes or the location of nuclear waste storage

Crossing Boundaries: Report to Community 2015

Annual Repor