Transcript
Page 1: Spot The Future: detecting change at the edge of society in Armenia, Egypt and Georgia

S P O T T I N G T H E F U T U R EH O R I Z O N S C A N N I N G I N A R M E N I A , E G Y P T A N D G E O R G I A

Alberto Cottica, Inga Popovaite, Noemi Salantiu 30 July 2014

Photo: Medhin Paolos

Page 2: Spot The Future: detecting change at the edge of society in Armenia, Egypt and Georgia

D ATA A N D F I N D I N G SPA R T O N E

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P U R P O S E

• Spot The Future (STF) is a foresight exercise on Armenia, Egypt and Georgia. It engages social innovators, hackers, activists and other would-be changemakers, mostly from the fringes of the economy and society, based on the premise that societal novelty starts at the edge.

• Its objective is to gain insight about near-future dynamics impacting post-2015 Development Goals, building on the engagement of over 3 million people in the UNDG World We Want consultations.

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M E T H O D S & D ATA

• Edgeryders and UNDP collected and analyzed ethnographic data by fostering an online conversation in March-June 2014. It built upon the World We Want consultation processes.

• The dataset consists of 161 posts and 782 comments from 128 individuals from 22 countries. We targeted social innovators, activists, changemakers.

• Preliminary results were validated during a focus group discussion that took place in late June 2014, involving 8 participants.

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M A S S I V E O N L I N E E T H N O G R A P H Y

• Ethnographic coding was applied to 161 posts and 782 comments on the Edgeryders platform. Coding is a standard ethnographic technique. It consists of reading all contributions and assigning relevant keywords to snippets of texts.

• Keywords become then second-order data, and can be analysed in various ways.

• 243 tags in 6 categories were identified as recurring all along the STF conversation.

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H O W I S I T D O N E ?

• Seed a conversation through high-quality content that is relevant to the theme. Start with people “at the edge” and traverse the social graph through social media.

• Grow your conversation by community management, respectful interaction and connecting people to each other.

• Harvest it by ethnographic software, built into the Edgeryders platform.

• People select themselves to participate. This ensures enthusiasm and eliminates researcher selection bias (the “usual suspects” effect).

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N O T T H E U S U A L S U S P E C T S

• Participants in STF were mostly 21-30 years old; socially active; and community-oriented.

• Diverse professional identities: architects, designers, researchers, documentary film makers, engineers, yoga instructors…

• Not afraid to step in and take initiatives.

• Most were not “usual suspects” UNDP works with.

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C O M M I T T E D T O A C T I O NT H E PA R T I C I PA N T S ’ P R O J E C T S A N D T H E I R K E Y W O R D S B Y C O U N T R Y

E N V I R O N M E N T, A LT E R N AT I V E E C O N O M Y,

I N C L U S I O N , E M P O W E R M E N T,

I N F O R M A L E D U C AT I O N

E N V I R O N M E N T, U R B A N P L A N N I N G , G E N D E R I S S U E S , E D U C AT I O N ,

C O M M U N I T Y D E V E L O P M E N T,

S O L I D A R I T Y, M E D I A

E N V I R O N M E N T, U R B A N P L A N N I N G , G E N D E R I S S U E S , I C T, R O A D

S A F E T Y, S O L I D A R I T Y, M E D I A

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E X A M P L E P R O J E C T S : C O M M U N I T Y- B U I LT R I N G R O A D R A M P S

• The citizens of the Al-Mu’tamidiya community in Cairo built four ramps to access the ring road from their neighborhood.

• Formally illegal, they were built to government specifications. Their cost is estimated at 25% of what the government would have spent to do the same work.

• Construction happened at the time of the revolution, when the security apparatus was busy in Tahrir Square. The post-revolution government decided to accept the ramps as a citizen-funded improvement and built a police station nearby.

“ T H E P E O P L E O F A L - M U ’ TA M I D I YA N E E D E D T O B U I L D T H I S E X I T F R O M A L O N G T I M E A G O A N D

W H E N T H E C H A N C E O P E N E D F O R C O N S T R U C T I N G I T T H E Y T O O K T H E C H A N C E

D U R I N G T H E T E M P O R A R Y C O L L A P S E O F L O C A L A U T H O R I T I E S . ”

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E X A M P L E P R O J E C T S : C A R P O O L I N G I N A R M E N I A

• A young woman created a Facebook group (Carpool Հայաստան) to coordinate on sharing rides. This happened in July 2013, in response to an increase of public transport prices in Yerevan.

• A massive response from society drove the city authorities to reverse the price increase – but the level of trust in strangers had increased for good.

• Carpooling Armenia is now internationalizing. In the course of STF a collaboration between it and an Egyptian entrepreneur was started.

“ T H E M O S T A M A Z I N G WA S T H AT I N 2 D AY S M O R E T H A N 6 0 0 0 P E O P L E W E R E I N V O LV E D I N T H E I N I T I AT I V E . I T WA S L I K E A V I R U S . N E A R LY N O O N E WA N T E D T O U S E P U B L I C T R A N S P O R T,

B E C A U S E T H E R E WA S B E T T E R O P T I O N . A L L O U R S O C I E T Y WA S I N V O LV E D "

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E X A M P L E P R O J E C T S : G I R L S W H O C O D E I N T B I L I S I

• JumpStart Georgia noticed that participation to hackathons in Georgia is overwhelmingly male.

• It responded by providing office space and encouraging their staff to train young female professionals on writing code.

• IT specialists work directly with a group of around 15 women aged 22-35. The women are mostly journalists and activists. They learn to code in the programming language Ruby.

“ C O M P U T E R P R O G R A M M I N G [ … ] I S A L S O A N E S S E N T I A L S K I L L F O R I D E A L I S T S I N C O U N T R I E S

W H E R E O P E N D ATA A R E S T I L L S C A R C E , A N D W H E R E I N F O R M AT I O N I S E S S E N T I A L I F O N E I S

T O U N D E R S TA N D S O C I E T Y A N D W O R K T O M A K E I T B E T T E R . ”

Photo: Jumpstart Georgia

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S Y S T E M I C C H A L L E N G E S

• The challenges mentioned in the data are mostly consistent with MyWorld 2015 survey: environment, education, poverty, migration, un- or underemployment, lack of transparency and corruption in institutions

• Almost no mention of protection from crime and violence in STF.

• Greater emphasis on urban planning and environmental issues than in MyWorld 2015.

MyWorld2015 top 5 choices in the 3 countries

Spot The Future

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T O P - D O W N A P P R O A C H E S

• In their everyday work, changemakers are challenged by bureaucracy, vertical hierarchical systems, top-down approaches.

• Problematic relationships with governmental institutions appear in all three countries.

• Authorities and donors mistrust grassroots, experimental initiatives.

• The traditional grant proposal-grant-project-report is seen as leading to blind fund chasing and no outcome.

“ A L L O U R R E Q U E S T S F O R M E E T I N G S A N D F U R T H E R A C T I O N W E R E I G N O R E D . I T ' S T R U E , W E N E V E R I N I T I AT E D A P U B L I C P R O T E S T O R A P E T I T I O N R E G A R D I N G T H E I S S U E , B U T T H AT ' S E X A C T LY W H AT ' S M O S T F R U S T R AT I N G A B O U T

C O M M U N I C AT I O N , A S A N O R G A N I Z AT I O N O U R E F F O R T S A L O N E A R E N E V E R E N O U G H . ”

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D E A L I N G W I T H T O P -D O W N A P P R O A C H E S

• Support each other, sharing human and other resources.

• Lobby for more flexible and alternative sources of funding – or try crowdfunding (in Egypt it plugs into religious institutions like zakaa and sadaka).

• Break down projects in small chunks and target small, independent donors.

• Get training in project management – also informally, by simply sharing experiences.

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C O L L A B O R AT I O N I S H A R D

• Individuals and organisations trying to affect change perceive each other as competitors.

• Duplication of effort is a constant threat.

“ W H AT I F I N D L A C K I N G I S P E O P L E TA L K I N G W I T H E A C H O T H E R , N O T J U S T A B O U T E A C H

O T H E R . ”

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C O L L A B O R AT I O N I S T H E WAY T O G O

• “Cooperation” is by far the tag recurring most often.

• Appreciation was repeatedly expressed for the “neutral ground” provided by STF workshops.

• Bi-weekly meetings started among a group of Georgian participants.

• There is a hunger for peer-to-peer collaboration.

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F I N D I N G M O T I VAT I O N

• Changemakers and activists perceive themselves and their peers as indifferent and skeptical. They report struggling to motivate themselves and others.

• This is explained by perceived powerlessness (“I can’t change anything”) and social mistrust (“people are too selfish/conservative”).

• However, most participants are able to motivate themselves into action. Their main motivations are altruism and necessity.

“ L E T ' S B U I L D A P L AT F O R M T O D O C U M E N T T H AT I N P U T I N A P U B L I C S PA C E A N D M O N I T O R T H E

G R E E N S PA C E T H AT E X I S T S ! I T I S O U R C I T Y. L E T ' S TA K E B A C K O W N E R S H I P O F I T ! ”

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V E C T O R S O F C H A N G EPA R T T W O

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N E W P L AY E R S I N T H E G A M E

• Young changemakers are on the move to achieve positive change. Most of them are newcomers and many fly below the radar of institutions. They are a new agent for change and can be expected to have an impact.

• While broadly consistent with post-2015 development goals, their agenda has its own priorities, such as the management of public spaces. We expect to see them rise in the political agenda.

• Policy implications: give these newcomers space to take ownership of the issues they care about; refocus tried-and-true approaches towards issues that they don’t.

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C O O P E R AT I O N A N D S W A R M I N G

• Peer-to-peer cooperation is perceived as the main for their initiatives to grow. They don’t try to scale by recruitment; rather they share resources, mobilising each other on the issues they care about.

• We expect to see “swarming” behaviour: almost instant redeployment of manpower and other resources (such as social media traction) from issue to issue, from campaign to campaign. This can be very effective.

• Policy implications: provide safe spaces for changemakers to learn to cooperate, also internationally. Avoid zero-sum game setups.

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I N T E R FA C I N G W I T H I N S T I T U T I O N S

• The traditional grant cycle model is perceived as distorsive and obsolete. Changemakers struggle to fit innovative activities within the frame of hierarchical relationships and administration-oriented approaches.

• Policy implications (mitigation): provide training on grant application writing, project management and evaluation. This should allow some initiatives to “fit in” without losing coherence.

• Policy implications (radical): test and deploy new forms to support grassroot, innovative initiatives. Ask for help in designing them. We know it’s hard!

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D E M O C R AT I C T E C H N O L O G I E S

• In their struggle for effective action, young changemakers use a mix of DIY approaches, open source software and open data. Geodata in particular are seen as a tool to convey information and support advocacy on issues from carpooling to harassment.

• We expect to see a fast spread of democratic technologies such as open source software, open hardware, DIY, cheap drones.

• Policy implications: support and promote open data policies; support and promote all democratic technologies. Try to refrain from hyper-regulating them, or the business models that they enable (eg. Uber-like businesses).

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C O N TA C T

Edgeryders LBG

Find out more at http://company.edgeryders.eu

Or write to [email protected]

Photo credits: Leonid Mujiri (unless otherwise indicated)

This work is property of UNDP and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.


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