The Red Balloon: lessons on community building from the Public Lab

Talk delivered at Pycon Canada, August 2013

Transcript

1. the RED BALLOON lessons on community building from the PUBLIC LAB Dana Bauer | @geography76 | Pycon Canada 2013 www.publiclab.org
3. The Public Laboratory Empowerment through evidence | PublicLaboratory.org pub liclaboratory. org The Public Laboratory Empowerment through evidence | PublicLaboratory.org pub liclaboratory. org Empowerment through evidence | publiclab.org Formed in response to the media blackout and the lack of transparency during the BP oil spill, Public Lab organized communities around this unique opportunity to hold government and industry accountable through the use of citizen-collected data -- photos taken from balloons and kites. Volunteers launch a kite-borne camera to survey oil spill damages. Hundreds of people gathered over 700,000 images and dozens of maps during the crisis, many of which now feature in Google Earth. http://publiclab.org
4. Public Lab now encompasses a growing movement which, using inexpensive Do-It-Yourself techniques, seeks to change how underserved communities respond to environmental health threats. In the last two years, Public Lab has provided affordable kits to thousands of people for aerial photography, chemical-detecting spectrometry, thermal imaging, and more. Left: Workshop in DIY spectroscopy for contaminant identification, New York City, 2010. Right: Public Lab/Riverkeeper aerial photograph of unidentified white plume in Newtown Creek, Brooklyn, NY, 2011. http://publiclab.org
5. Since Public Lab was incorporated in 2011, the community of active practitioners – community organizers, technologists, designers, social and natural scientists-- has grown to over 2,500 contributors. We expect that number to continue tripling each year as more people become actively engaged in all steps of the civic science process – from problem identification and tool R&D to data interpretation and advocacy. Left: Camera hacking to detect contaminant damages Center: Planning spill monitoring Right: Balloon mapping in Louisiana http://publiclab.org
6. open = you are invited
7. http://publiclab.org
8. Community barn raisings http://publiclab.org
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20. What can we learn from the Public Lab? (10 takeaways)
21. 1. Engage researchers not subjects http://publiclab.org
22. 2. Pull complexity off the shelf http://publiclab.org
24. concealed operator diydrones.com cyberquad revealed operator 3. Build in openness & accountability http://publiclab.org
25. Drones?
26. Thanks DARPA! http://www.wired.com/ http://www.engadget.com/ -http://www.popsci.com/
27. http://tacocopter.com
28. oh hello there! http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthickey/2013/05/28/is-seattle-being-buzzed-by-drone-equipped-peeping-toms/
30. 4. Create collaborative workflows http://publiclab.org
31. 4. Create collaborative workflows http://publiclab.org
32. 5. Maintain public data archives http://publiclab.org
33. See © Public Laboratory Find the mapmaker & images 6. Mainstream true accountability http://publiclab.org
34. 7. Let images communicate complexity http://publiclab.org
35. CERN Open Hardware 1.0 Share Back with Attribution GNU Public License 3.0 Copyleft Viral Software Licensing Creative Commons Share Alike with Attribution For Media 8. Protect openness with viral licensing http://publiclab.org
36. 9. Local versions of tools http://publiclab.org
37. 10. Have fun!
40. Dana Bauer wat?
41. the RED BALLOON lessons on community building from the PUBLIC LAB Dana Bauer | @geography76 | Pycon Canada 2013 www.publiclab.org