opentech – Terence Eden’s Blog

OpenTech 2013

@edent — Sun, 19 May 2013 16:46:03 +0000

Another year - another OpenTech! See blog posts from 2010 and 2011. It feels like every year the event gets bigger and better. It's still the same crowd of politically aware techies, and it still costs a ridiculously cheap fiver to come along, and the talks were of an abnormally high quality.

Here are my thoughts from the day.

Farmification Of Factories

Fascinating talk from Lisa Ma about living and working with workers in a Chinese joystick factory.

Raises interesting questions about how we treat workers in terms of resources, and whether urbanisation is seen as a universally good thing by young people. It got me to thinking about how we treat factory workers compared to how we treat animals. It's now a badge of pride for cosmetics to carry a label reading "Not Tested On Animals." Following the recent disasters in Bangaladesh, should clothes carry a "No Sweatshop Labour" tag? Or, perhaps as Rob Manuel suggested, shops should publicly display how much tax they pay.

Or even

There's a great interview with Lisa at VisionOnTV

Putting Your House on GitHub

What if you put all your niggling household issues on a bug tracker? Superficially, a very entertaining talk by Francis Irving - but raised a serious point about how we communicate with tradespeople.

Why can't I put a big list of jobs out to tender and let plumbers and electricians compete for my work?

I asked him about the security aspect of the project. In open source software, it's usually considered polite to raise a security bug in private before disclosing it to the wider world. You wouldn't want to raise a public bug which read "Burglar Alarm Broken", would you?

Constitutional Excerpts Project

Another great "what if" made real. What if you were to gather all the versions of countries' constitutions up in one place? What would a searchable database be like? What lessons can we learn? Given that most countries constitutions change over time, and most changes are done by non experts in the field, this could be a very valuable resource.

It also touched on the limits of crowd sourcing from the general population. When very dense legal language is involved, it is usually best to get experts to decide what it means. Of course, that's also an argument for having laws written in plain and unambiguous language.

GOV.UK

The GOV.UK team have gone from a twinkle in the eye of some techies - to a fully fledged team kicking arse in the heart of the Civil Service. Of particular interest to me was how they managed a complex redirection project as they closed various sites. Certainly not for the faint hearted.

Also interesting was the tales of some of the internal difficulties they faced. Including some "interesting" thoughts on Open Source.

CESG tech dir: "If anyone in UK government says CESG has banned open source send their name to me and I'll have them killed" #opensource13 Archived Source

I asked an awkward question about their priorities. The DWP site only works on IE6! That means trying to claim benefits if you have a modern computer or browser (or even an old Mac or Linux box) is impossible. The problem, as I understand it, is that contracts have been signed which mean making even simple changes comes with a high cost. As we've seen with PFI contracts in hospitals, the initial cost can seem attractive but outsourced companies with a strong profit motive will screw you over without providing any real benefit.

Another interesting question was asked about the "dumbing down" of content. Firstly, the pages link to the relevant legislation if you really want the nitty gritty detail. Secondly, nerds aren't average users. Average users tend to skim pages rather than reading them comprehensively. Given the average reading age in the UK is 12 (that's a hugely problematic statement, BTW) it's important that the information on the pages is as clear as possible.

I can't begin to describe how incredibly proud UK citizens should be at having such an amazing team reshaping the Government's digital portfolio.

The Bill and Gavin Show

Oh, look, just read Bill's talk and be enlightened. Given that the punk music revolution is now being used to sell cars and butter, how do we stop the digital revolution from being hijacked in such a way? One suggestion is to "weaponize" openness. Can we have a "Creative Commons MAX" licence which promises extreme legal retribution for violators? Can we create Open Source licences which prevent evil being done in our name? I suppose GPLv3 is an attempt at that.

Gavin Stark's talk on Open Data gave me a thought about the ongoing issues with privatizing the PAF (that's the data which makes up the UK's PostCode system). Several years ago, I suggested that mutual ownership would be preferable to privatisation of the Post Office - could the same be true of PAF? Would enough techno-utopians be able to club together to run PAF in an open and sustainable way?

Bribing MPs

I've been thinking a lot about political donations and "political donations". It seems that some people are able to influence the legislative process by donataing modest sums of money, and giving favours to politicians. Other people would call for a database of lobbyists, or some form of push notification service for whenever your MP receives a ~~bribe~~ donation. Not me. I want to make a crowd sourcing site to help you influence your MP.

KickbackStarter - OpenTech 2013 from Terence Eden

(Many thanks to Alex Blandford for the name suggestion.) Yes, this talk is (mostly) humorous satire. I haven't really built "KickbackStarter" - although the mood in the room seemed of the opinion that it would be a viable idea. More than a few people came up to me afterwards and asked if they could help get it started. I think they're all crazy...

Permit me to indulge in some vanity over the feedback and photos I received.

@edent makes a fab point abt the nonsense of MPs and who runs the country. Now this is a question .. do MPs take Bitcoin #opentech #A5 Archived Source

Essentially, clicking on petitions doesn't work. Emailing doesn't work. Protesting doesn't work. Cash and gifts work reliably.

Thanks to VisionOnTV for conducting this interview with me.

Inclusive Issues In Technology - A Practical Guide

Only 17% of the STEM workforce is female. 2/3rds of female STEM graduates don't enter the profession. 50% of technology customers are female. See the problem?

Three very different speakers talked about how they were helping encourage more diversity in technology.

Firstly Stemettes is showing young women positive role models of women in science and technology. They're showing parents that their daughters can find a rewarding and useful career in computing.

Flossie is a project to get more women involved in the open source movement. They have a conference coming up in November. If you're a woman and want to present - give them a shout. Men are welcome at the event, but not as speakers. Given the aims of the project, I think that's fair enough.

Finally, Meri Williams gave perhaps the most informative talk of the event. Practical Diversity.

We hear a lot about how being a straight white male is like playing life on the easy setting, but this was the first time I'd seen someone talk through practical steps to include more people.

I especially loved her remark about tolerance. No one wants to be tolerated - you only tolerate things you hate. If you're talking tolerance, you're essentially saying "I dislike you and have to put up with you." No one wants that.

I highly recommend having a quick read of her deck.

Practical Diversity from Meri Williams

Odds and Sods

One of the great things about OpenTech is that all the talks are audio recorded. I think, if possible, they should be videoed as well.

There were lots of people I knew - albeit some only digitally

I wonder what the "newb" diversity is like. Are we just preaching to the choir?

Gender diversity of participants seemed much higher than a "normal" conference. Why is that? 10 speakers out of ~40 were female - perhaps that encourages more attendees. Or, is it the fact that the conference is cheap and held on a weekend?

Scheduling against both finales of Doctor Who and Eurovision was a tactical mistake ;-)

Huge thanks to Sam Smith and his merry band for organising. For all the speakers and attendees for putting such wonderful thoughts into my head, and to everyone who chuckled along at my jokes.

Same time next year? You bet!

OpenTech 2011

@edent — Mon, 23 May 2011 13:31:08 +0000

Another year, another OpenTech. I found last year's OpenTech conference to be awe-inspiring. This year's was equally good.

This is a quick rundown of the sessions I attended that I found particularly interesting.

How can we win the Information Wars?

A roundup of what the Open Rights Group has been doing over the last year. Always good to hear from them. Interesting to learn about the tensions of being up against a company for some issues - yet supporting them in others. Good to see that they're still banging away at the digital civil liberties drum.

Ada Lovelace Day

Once again, Suw eloquently demonstrated the need to get more women interested in "tech" by promoting positive role models. The Finding Ada project runs an international event to help raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths.

Codifying sustainability

How can you trust what you read in a report?

The UN panel on climate change warning that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035 is wildly inaccurate, an academic says.

J Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University, says he believes the UN authors got the date from an earlier report wrong by more than 300 years.
He is astonished they "misread 2350 as 2035".
Source: BBC News

In the "good old days" we relied on footnotes which, imperfectly, lead us to the original research.

The AMEE project aims to provide an unimpeachable set of references for every claim - allowing you to track the providence of a quote, statistic, or datum. Vitally important.

Building Digital Culture for Free: Can the Hacker Ethic and Comons-Based Peer Production make a better world?

Bill Thompson is always an entertaining speaker. Here, he was discussing whether "hackers" have won the culture wars. You can buy The Hacker Ethic on Amazon (including Kindle). Very reasonably priced.

This raised two interesting questions.

How many deaths were caused by Gutenberg and, ultimately, did his invention help propagate his world view? In other words, is Open Source being turned against us?
Are our inventions too disruptive to find acceptance in the mainstream?

At times, the questions started to get a bit political - especially around the true definition of Open Source.

Fluffy and poisonous - Why UKuncut has worked and how you can help.

I've been reasonably impressed at how quickly UKuncut has gathered grass-roots support around what is, potentiall, a dull subject - tax avoidance. I doubt the trades-union would have been able to garner anything like the support we've seen for UKuncut.

But I question whether they have been all that effective. Vodafone's share price has risen dramatically and they are constantly among the top UK brands.

(As I stated at the start of my question, I'm an ex-Vodafone employee and a current Vodafone shareholder.)

The answer I got back was well thought out and - to my mind - very helpful in understanding their aims.

Essentially, causing mass economic disruption to a company isn't a great way to make them change their behaviour and is very tricky to accomplish in the long term. UKuncut are playing the long-game with a meme. Essentially, going around saying "Don't you think she looks tired?"

Watching the Press

I especially liked the demolition of the Winterval Myth

Outpost

This was Tim Ireland's idea to crowd-source fact-monitor all MPs. A fine and noble idea and very well presented.

My only concern is that it avoids becoming partisan. I don't care if Politician X is a socialist, capitalist, atheist, or church-goer. They shouldn't be attacked for that. They should be held to account for any dodgy-dealing, fact free agitating, and dishonest conduct. It'll be interesting to see how it develops.

QR Codes - easy access to data

My slot! Prior to the event, I was interviewed by Imperica. I spent the first half of the day sticking Avery labels with QR codes all over the building.

Video

Slides

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/qr-codes-at-opentech-2011/8054740

Reaction

I'll let other people commentate on my presentation.

Overall

An amazing and inspiring day. The entry cost per participant was £5. I've paid a lot more for worse conferences. I was glad to see so many civil servants there - hopefully they're getting the message.

I'll leave the final words to James Cattell. This sums up exactly what OpenTech is all about.

Why Doesn't Your Site Work On My Mobile?

@edent — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 20:24:24 +0000

This is the presentation I gave for OpenTech 2010

Opentech updated from Terence Eden

If you're on mobile, you can view the mobile friendly version of the slides.

Here's the audio of the talk.

🔊 OpenTech2010 Presentation: Why Doesn't Your Site Work On My Mobile Phone
🎤 edent

💾 Download this audio file.

The gist of the talk is - more people have mobile web enabled phones than have iPhones or Androids. Open Data requires open access. If you are trying to create a service to serve people - make it work on all phones. Not just phones owned by a minority of rich people.

OpenTech 2010

@edent — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 15:02:44 +0000

A quick report on OpenTech 2010 - the London event for geeks interested in Government data, openness and generally doing good things with tech and data.

I attended last year's event which inspired me to create my "VoteUK" service for the 2010 general election. I had considered doing a talk about the trials and tribulations of using open - and not so open - data. Instead, I gave a more general talk about how to harness the power of the mobile web to empower people - and why iPhone apps are the wrong way to get data to the masses.

More details in a moment. First off, my thoughts on the rest of the presentations.

Mozilla Drumbeat

The new projects coming out of Mozilla Drumbeat look great - I'm particularly enamoured with Universal Subtitles. For too long, web video has been inaccessible to those with hearing difficulties - or who do not understand the language spoken.

Visionon.tv

A rather ramshackle presentation from VisionOn.tv. I fail to see what they're doing different than Miro in terms of getting activist video out to the masses. Their ideas of training Citizen Journalists seems to be a good one - but they failed to articulate what exactly their credentials were.

Openly Local

Chris Taggart gave an inspiring talk about Openly Local. His efforts in scraping inaccessible data and setting them free are truly heroic. The work he did to open up to obstinate Charities Commission should be the stuff of geek legend.

LinkedGov: Filling in the Gaps

Hadley Beeman took us through the intricacies of tying up hundreds of disparate data sets. Not a naturally exciting topic, but one which went to the very heart of the issue of open data. Thousands of separate databases, all containing indecipherable acronyms, frustrate even the hardiest geek.

Open Data in Clinical Trials

Ben Goldacre retains his title as most impassioned speaker. Working with Louise Crow, they are in the process of opening up clinical trial data. With this, they hope to be able to see which drug companies are withholding trial information from the public.

Rewiring the State

The speakers from Young Rewired State were the stars of the day. Seeing the dedication and enthusiasm of people - not yet school-leavers - as they hack away at open data was hugely uplifting. A full list of the projects is available.

The most impressive was Issy Long's site to display Government energy usage "GovSpark". I'm sure this young woman will go far.

Data.gov.uk

The data.gov.uk folks were out in strength. They announced data.gov.uk at OpenTech 2009. This presentation was a summary of where they have got to and where is left to go.

I demo'd VoteUK to Thayer Prime and won a swish t-shirt! Hurrah!

Wild Ducks - An Open Source Symbian Phone

Sebastian Brannstrom from Symbian took to the stage to talk about marrying Open Hardware with the newly opened Symbian Source Code. The (unfinished) result is Wild Ducks - a completely* open phone. Open hardware and open software.

If you are interested in helping, the group meets every Sunday to eat pizza and hack.

*The radio driver, has to be closed source for various legal and regulatory reasons.

Why Doesn't Your Site Work On My Mobile Phone

My presentation. Slides and further discussion are available. Unfair of me to comment - so I'll let twitter do the twalking.

People Power in Your Pocket

Craig Heath lead an informative session around security and personal privacy. I'd advise anyone interested in mobile to take a look at Symbian's Security Roadmap and Strategy. This talk would have been more suited to the Over The Air conference - but for mobile wonks like me, was very interesting.

FrontlineSMS

This is exactly the sort of empowering technology I love hearing about. The FrontlineSMS project aims to be "Outlook for SMS". Using a cheap laptop, a GSM dongle and free software - anyone can become a campaigner. It's used for coordinating disaster relief, informing farmers about diseases in their area, telling trader the best prices. Its software has been expanded to work for medical, legal, business and political campaigns. Open Source - so hack away!

Apps for Good

I really admire the theory behind Apps for Good - teach disenfranchised young people how to make apps. However, I think their approach is 100% wrong. They'd clearly done no market research - they were trying to create Android apps when their target demographic are BlackBerry users (as they admitted). Some of the projects they showed off would have been much more successful and useful as mobile websites. For example, the Stop and Search app is only available on expensive Android handsets. I'm not saying they shouldn't have created the app - just that they should have created it as an enhancement for a mobile website.

That said, I'm filled with hope when I see what they are doing. Getting young people into programming, designing, creating is vital to raising their awareness of the opportunities out there.

Overall

A fantastic day - huge thanks to Sam Smith and all the organisers. It's really inspired me to get cracking on some of the open data ideas I've had bubbling away. Every Council Chief, Mayor and Senior Civil Servant should attend OpenTech 2011 and understand why we need Open Data and what magical things we will create using it.

Huge thanks to the Government for sponsoring the event and finally creating an open data platform. Data.gov.uk shows how to do a successful IT project which comes in quickly and cheaply. And is genuinely useful. Kudos.