“There is no passion to be found playing small — in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living” — Nelson Mandela
Time is Nothing // Around The World Time Lapse from Kien Lam on Vimeo.
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Time is Nothing
Jocelyn Ling
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Unleashing Data for Development
Jocelyn Ling
*This post was originally published on http://www.socialearth.org on Jul 18, 2011
There are three things about development data that you need to know: 1) It is beautiful; 2) There is a hidden story within each combination; and 3) It needs to be set free.
Last year, the World Bank released it’s prized possession of data – one that tells the stories of economic, socio and political realities around the world. This is a push to “democratize development data” and embrace its open information policy. It’s absolutely incredible what has been done with the data and I wanted to highlight some of the initiatives that have been born out of this:
1) http://data.worldbank.org/
This is the main Knowledge Bank where you can information from poverty rates to the average life expectancy of a country. Data is sorted by topic, countries, indicators, sectors and the World Bank even made a neat feature of key development indicators around the world. It covers over 200 counties and in some cases, dates back as far as 50 years.
The data is updated regularly and as you can see from the screenshot below, you can even find information on the newest country in the world – South Sudan! The site includes the Bank’s widely-used and extremely useful datasets: the 2010 World Development Indicators (WDI), Africa Development Indicators (ADI), Global Economic Monitor (GEM) and Global Development Finance.
2) Apps for Development
With the launch of the the above resource, the World Bank organized an Apps for Development Competition – bringing together the best ideas from developers and data to create useful software applications that is related to the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). The competition was a tremendous success and the Bank received apps from 36 countries: 30 of the 107 final submissions from Africa. You can check out the winners from this competition here.
A side spinoff from this competition was also an International Day Hackathon on Dec 4th last year where developers write applications using open data to support and encourage the adoption of open data policies by the world’s governments. My favorite application is the San Francisco Crimespotting – an interactive map of crimes in San Francisco and a tool for understanding crime in cities. Helping keep people safe with open data. Amazing!
3) Mapping for Results
This Platform provides detailed information about the World Bank’s work in poverty alleviation and development around the world. It provides access to interactive maps that highlights locations of the bank’s projects around the world and involved releasing data provided by governments and other entities.
4) Data on the Go!
The World Bank is bringing accessibility of data to a whole new level by providing information on an iPhone app. They have six apps ( 4 published and 2 in the pipelines) that are being developed and the interface and usability for the data is just incredible. My personal favorite is the classic Datafinder – an app that lets you access 50 years of WB data on global economic indicators that can easily be shared in presentations, research and projects. Two more apps are being released in August 2011 – The World Bank at a Glance and the World Bank’s Finances.
Data is truly beautiful and with the world’s development data at your fingertips, we can use, analyze and even criticize.. but the only thing we shouldn’t do is ignore it. The video below is an example at how magical data can be. 4 minutes – 200 countries, 200 years by world renown economist – Hans Rosling.
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Why I Believe in Social Entrepreneurship
Jocelyn Ling
Have you ever been asked a question that simply stops you in your tracks…creating that lump in your throat that results in you awkwardly staring at a person for what seems like eternity (but really was only perhaps 30s)? I have. It wasn’t that the question that was unexpected. Only my response. I thought the answer would be at the tip of my tongue, ready to provide that sweet elevator pitch… but my words spluttered and died before I had a chance to arrange them into coherent thoughts.
The question that caused this surprising reaction was: why do you believe in social entrepreneurship?
My brain raced through the reasons, each reason followed by what seemed like a giant red sign that screamed CLICHE.
I believe in a human centred market based solution to poverty.Cliche.I believe in making the world a better place and leaving it better than when I’ve found it.Cliche.My background and journey has led me to believe in the power of entrepreneurship.Cliche.I come from a family whose lives have been changed through entrepreneurship.Cliche.I stumbled into this field unknowingly.Cliche.Social entrepreneurs are the key in unlocking the levers of change.Cliche.Entrepreneurs have the ability to create and imagine. With support and direction, they can be the change we wish to see in this world.Cliche.In my head, my emotions quickly churned from alarm to frustration. Why was it that I couldn’t explain my Why? Was it because I didn’t understand my reasons, or perhaps was it because I couldn’t find the words to say? Why do these reasons seem cliche? Perhaps people have overused them and they have lost their meaning…and then the question becomes: how do you do then convey any one of those reasons with sincere belief? After all, how can you capture passion and belief in 30 seconds. In a paragraph even. It doesn’t seem to even do it justice.
About a year ago, I wrote a post on the beauty of imagination. Although I still believe this reason to be true, I couldn’t quite get the reason of imagination to fit within the social enterprise/international development piece of my beliefs. It seemed to be missing a piece.
Truth be told, I was then suddenly mesmerized by the fact that perhaps, just perhaps my reason WAS the combination of all those cliches. And more. After all, isn’t our understanding of the world a limitation of what we have experienced and inherited knowledge? Maybe my passion is a combination of a mathematical sequence of experiences (I like to think so!):
1) I grew up painfully aware of poverty and socio-economic oppression
2) My family’s story changed because of entrepreneurship
3) Hard work and a stranger’s faith in seeing my potential allowed me to continue my education in Canada
4) I unknowingly stumbled into this field through a “less-than-perfect” volunteer program through my university
5) Tipping point: Working with a women’s group in Lesotho ignited an understanding that identifying change levers in a community can change lives
6) Throughout business school, I have developed a natural bias towards a market based solution to solving problems.
Therefore: 7) Giving people the opportunity (just like it has been given to me) to create and imagine a better life is the key to creating a better world. A human-centered market based solution.
Social entrepreneurship shakes up our complacencies by challenging how we place value on social and economic urgencies. It spins us round in two ways at once: it shows us the sights and social values that we might ordinarily ignore; but it also, and more deeply, shows us parts of capitalism that have grown rusty and need changing.
So what is my answer you might ask? For now, I will have to settle for a combination of cliche answers, my sequence of experiences and that nagging voice at the of my head telling me that it is the right thing to believe in.
I’ll be sure to check in with my answer again as my understanding of the world continues to grow!
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The World As It Is
Jocelyn Ling
“Rebellion — which is different from revolution because it is perpetual alienation from power rather than the replacement of one power stem with another — should be our natural state. And faith, for me, is a belief that rebellion is always worth it, even if all outward signs point to our lives and struggles as penultimate failures. We are saved not by what we can do or accomplish but our fealty to revolt, our steadfastness to the weak, the poor, the marginalized, and those who endure oppression. We must stand with them against the powerful. If we remain true to those moral imperatives, we win.
I am enough of an idealist to believe that the struggle to lead the moral life is worth it.”
- Chris Hedges, The World As It Is