UN Global Pulse:
Technology builds
Sara-Jayne Farmer.
Relief11, August 2011
GP Tech Deliverables
Toolset
•Hunchworks
•Small tools (real-time monitoring etc)
•Toolbag
Collaboration platform
•Federated platform network
•User management
•Data and tool repositories
Innovation labs (technology)
•Technology localisation
•Tech innovations
•Technologist’s cookbook
Communities
•Local tech communities
•Innovations community management
Proof of concept:
Oliver:
•look up datasources
•look up and use tools
•connect to analysts in New York and Uganda labs
•look up tools and datasources in the crisis toolkit
Hunchworks:
•navigate the HunchWorks interface, and see
example “hunches” in it
•add hunches to HunchWorks
•Add comments to hunches
•Share evidence with hunches
Toolbag:
•Not this time.
GP Tech Timeline
July 2011
•Some clean UN datasets
•Hunchworks1 build
•Oliver2 build
•Website build
August 2011
•Oliver2 build
Sept 2011
•Demo to GA: Hunchworks
and Oliver
Oct 2011
•Slack
Nov 2011
•Demo to G20: no tech
content needed
•Contest announcement
Dec 2011
•Rhok 4.0
Jan 2012
•Slack
Feb 2012
•Contest go-live
•Private sector data available
2012
•Start Blue Hacks
•Start platform build
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Detect when vulnerable populations are being impacted by 
global shocks
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Understand coping strategies – both positive and negative – 
that affected communities are adopting
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Share hypotheses, alerts and key information with regional 
partners
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Respond with better policy interventions sooner than possible 
today
Analysis: close the vulnerability information gap
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Open standards, open APIs, open source
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 Access data and tool repositories
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 Collaborate with team, share hunches with social network
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 Integrate with existing tools for data  aggregation, analysis, 
visualization, mapping, alerting…
Oliver: collaboration platform
•
Establish ground truth quickly when crises unfold
•
Leverage global network of field staff
•
Add capacity: engage and extend external networks of experts
•
Share knowledge: porous membranes within/beyond the UN
•
Combine local knowledge, wider analytical expertise
•
Coherent picture from fragmented evidence, distributed teams
Hunchworks: hypothesis collaboration tool
Shunt: toolkit
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Data preparation
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Big data
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Statistics and modelling
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Visualisation
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Innovations management
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Portfolios of needs
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Lifecycles for ideas
Blue Hacks: open source community
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Hire bright local team
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Identify local gaps and opportunities
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Design, develop and test solutions
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Train team to drive innovation
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Mainstream their approaches
PulseLabs: Country-level innovation labs
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Github: https://github.com/organizations/global-pulse
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Email: pulsechat@unglobalpulse.org

Twitter: @unglobalpulse
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Irc: #hunchworks
Global Pulse Community Sites

Global Pulse Technology Builds talk at Relief, Camp Roberts, 2011