[CODATA-international] Digital Feudalism

Sun Oct 13 13:28:40 EDT 2019

Dear all,

Federated open research data repositories must be hosted somewhere in the cloud – on private clouds, (e.g., university private cloud), national (community) research clouds, or in the public cloud, for example by  Amazon Web Services, Google or Microsoft Azure. None of those options are FREE. Moreover, to extract value from the open research data, we need research computing facilities  – most African countries  (except South Africa) do not have HPC or even research compute clusters available to researchers. 

So we need to invest in digital infrastructures or e-infrastructures. That is the role of our African governments.  The governments could start by funding National Research & Education Networks (e.g., RENU in Uganda or KENET in Kenya) to support the national research communities with a community cloud. The AOSP landscape report by Ina Smith explained what needs to be done by our governments or funding bodies. 

We also need develop the digital skills in our research community for executing open research data policies and strategies. 

I wonder how many of you are attending the CGIAR Big Data in Agriculture convention in India - https://bigdata.cgiar.org/hyderabad-2019/.  It was in Nairobi last year with very limited local researchers participation  (lack of awareness?). 

Thanks

Meoli Kashorda

Kenet

Website: https://www.kenet.or.ke/research-services 

Folllow us on Twitter @kenet_ke 

From: CODATA-international <codata-international-bounces at lists.codata.org> on behalf of Kiringai Kamau <kiringai.kamau at godan.info>
Date: Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 7:05 PM
To: Alex de Sherbinin <adesherbinin at ciesin.columbia.edu>
Cc: CODATA International <codata-international at lists.codata.org>
Subject: Re: [CODATA-international] Digital Feudalism

Alex,

As you well mention, the Cloud makes in-country investments redundant. and may to some extent be unnecessary. As Africa moves to centralize rather than decentralize within the Continental Free Trade Area and the Malabo Agendas, we may want to think of Africa's open data space as the policy environment where much of what emerges from your workshop/conference will get better mileage for realization.

GODAN's Africa Agenda is to support a melting pot of innovation using data. It is my view that once data is openly available, the temptation of taking it away to any place or location after a project is done becomes unnecessary. We make a deal of data theft because someone having it has better mileage in what they can propose to us...what if everyone has access, can use and reuse the data for innovation-based not on information asymmetry but rather on their ingenuity?

If we could do this, then the pan African institutions would focus on what brings development rather than other parochial interests...investment would be promoted and development achieved.

I would be keen to discuss with your team on the possibilities of moving to a more centralized open data space that can inspire innovation as we work together within the GODAN Agenda. Unfortunately, we shall be finishing the Africa Geospatial Data and Internet Conference in Accra at the time yours kicks off.

Inbox me for further discussion on how we can work together.

Kiringai,

On Sat, Oct 12, 2019 at 9:53 PM Alex de Sherbinin <adesherbinin at ciesin.columbia.edu> wrote:

This conversation offers a good opportunity to make everyone aware of a conference coming up on 23-25 October in Dakar: "Open Science in the South: Issues and Perspectives for a New Dynamic"   https://opensciencesud.sciencesconf.org/.

At this conference I am co-organizing with a colleague from WDS (Arona Diedhou) and partners from Agrhymet, Centre de Suivi Ecologique and WASCAL a workshop on developing West African research data repositories. One of the arguments I plan to make is that the absence of national / regional repositories, along with policies in countries requiring repatriation of data (or at least maintenance of a copy in country), there will continue be a lack of "restitution" of research findings and development project data in the region. I'd be happy to know if others are making such arguments, or if indeed in the age of the cloud this seems too parochial. Obviously this would require training and funding.  If anyone can point me to initiatives that would support this effort, that would be most welcome.  I am hoping to convince IRD, the lead organizer, that investment in this area would be a tangible output from the conference.

Cheers,

Alex de Sherbinin 

vice chair, WDS scientific committee

On Sat, Oct 12, 2019 at 9:42 AM Kiringai Kamau <kiringai.kamau at godan.info> wrote:

Kassim, Niek

As you rightly say, most of the projects are undertaken from a top-down perspective, with limited sharing of knowledge among all the actors ... the beneficiaries rarely get to see the definition of the mission and the impatience to get started by those coming with the project funds creates no opportunity for any preparedness among the beneficiary partners. Where knowledgeable persons exist, they may only be hosted within institutions. In many cases, such institutions are not core/key actors in the problem/project definition. They are only invited, by a higher privileged office/officer, when everything has been defined and pathways of implementation determined at a political level they cannot question. Economic or political interests are the pathways that those with interests use to take advantage of a system they may know presents the opportunity to give them leeway to mine data for their use and leave with it. The projects therefore are not defined with any other intention other than the data sourcing for a song and empty promises by those portending to possess the knowledge that will develop a beneficiary country. 

Realizing this challenge, the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition convened with ministers of the South-South an Open Data Conference in Nairobi where a Declaration was formulated. We are currently supporting African countries to evolve policies and frameworks that can advise compliance to national, regional and global agendas and in the process build local capacity key of which is data governance. I am convinced that we can sport feudal inclinations on behalf of partner countries in projects and therefore request anyone formulating a project that they feel should be bottom-up and create local knowledge should link up with GODAN through Suchith or myself (in case your area of focus is Africa).

Thanks, Suchith for sharing the Feudalism concerns.

Kiringai Kamau

On Sat, Oct 12, 2019 at 10:16 AM Mwitondi, Kassim <K.Mwitondi at shu.ac.uk> wrote:

This is an instance of a biased data ownership. A few years ago I was working with a young African researcher on an agro-forestry research project. No sooner had we started than I realused that her centre had only some descriptive statistics but no direct access to the biomass data which she and her colleagues had spent months collecting from two islands! The vast chunk of the data had left with the development partners at the end of the project. It turned out, nobody at the centre had any knowledge or pressing interest to pursue the data and there was already new initiatives to run another project, which in my view was almost a duplicate of the first, but this time with a different development partner.

To cut the long story short, I have come across several cases of data ownership of this nature and my view is that it doesn't help much coining terminologies, as the best that can be achieved is a blame culture. Would I call that data capitalism? Colonialism? Feudalism? I never would! I have learnt, over the years, that proper problem identification is a major stride in working out the solution. Blaming it on one part marginalizing the other when it comes to data generation, access and ownership is stripping everyone on the project of a fundamental responsibility in managing the project.

Apparently, the problem starts with the project write-up. If the project recipient is fully engaged from project initiation to delivery, they surely should know how to access the data, as that is a key project deliverable. My personal experience is that there are a several factors that lead to this kind of situation. One, many project ideas are top-down, that is, they are not developed within the working conditions of the recipients. Two, there are often many gaps in engagement, mainly caused by near disparate motives on many projects, with the funders, experts and recipients not necessarily having the same perception, motives or knowledge. Put the two together and add the determined project timeline, you have a near disaster. But the tripartite interests to run projects continues and we are creating a vicious cycle. What is the solution? It must start from the recipients who must align each incoming project with their respective development strategies. They must present themselves as equal partners in defining the project problem and tracking and measuring its outcomes. They should be able to quantifiable identify what worked and what didn't and any there should be national institutions charged with such responsibility. I could be writing all night, I would rather stop here for now.

Thanks.

KSM

Dr Kassim S. Mwitondi
Sheffield Hallam University
Faculty of Science, Technology and Arts
Communication & Computing Research Centre
9410 Cantor Building, City Campus
153 Arundel Street
Sheffield, S1 2NU
United Kingdom
Tel. +44-114-2256914 (Direct)
Tel. +44-114-2255555 (General)
https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles/kassim-mwitondi

From: CODATA-international <codata-international-bounces at lists.codata.org> on behalf of Trimpact - Niek <niek at trimpact.nl>
Sent: 11 October 2019 18:12:22
To: 'Ernie Boyko' <boykern at yahoo.com>; 'CODATA International' <codata-international at lists.codata.org>; 'Suchith Anand' <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [CODATA-international] Digital Feudalism 

Dear all,

This is indeed a huge problem. I also recently learned that information data from NGOs are best perhaps shared with some ministries in Bamako, Mali, but not within a region where the work is being done. This implies that local decision makers remain dependant on the information/data stream back from the ministries which may take some months, if ever. This can never be the purpose of the work executed.

Since most of the projects are financed with public funding for the benefit of de people in the given (development) country and data/information belong in fact to the real funds provider of the work (i.e. tax payers), claims of intellectual property rights that data belong to the project executors seem not applicable. Consequently, data and other information (e.g. lessons learned) should be shared at large to the population and other relevant stakeholders to avoid duplication of efforts.

A discussion worthwhile to be continued.

Kind regards,

Dr. Niek van Duivenbooden

  Bringing value to life

Mezenlaan 138  -  6951 HR Dieren  -  The Netherlands – T +31 61 13 81 061

KvK: 64218422   - niek at trimpact.nl - www.Trimpact.nl

Van: CODATA-international <codata-international-bounces at lists.codata.org> Namens Ernie Boyko
Verzonden: vrijdag 11 oktober 2019 15:26
Aan: CODATA International <codata-international at lists.codata.org>; Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>
Onderwerp: Re: [CODATA-international] Digital Feudalism

Thank you Suchith,

I have not heard that term before but I did run into   related term this week at the DDI-CODATA workshop here in Dagstuhl.  The term is Data Colonialism.  This often happens when a foreign entity (e.g., a development agency/project).e data are collected in a developing country and are taken out of the country.  They will leave behind some summary tables but will take the rich data and metadata away.  This makes it difficult to develop the data analysis and management skills within the country.  

Thanks for the message.

Cheers, Ernie

+1-613-290-2804

Larrimac:  More than a golf course!

CODATA: Making data work together to improve science to support decision makers.

On Friday, October 11, 2019, 08:51:29 AM EDT, Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk> wrote: 

I came across a recent op-ed by Prof. Mariana Mazzucato on “Digital Feudalism”  at

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/platform-economy-digital-feudalism-by-mariana-mazzucato-2019-10?utm_source=Project+Syndicate+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d192f2bc47-sunday_newsletter_6_10_2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_73bad5b7d8-d192f2bc47-105013549&mc_cid=d192f2bc47&mc_eid=a8cee90b20

Prof. Mazzucato is a leading researcher and thinker on Technology and Innovation, advisor to the European Commission on research and innovation strategy, and author of two important books on the subject “The Value of Everything” and “The Entrepreneurial State”. 

The report on “Mission-oriented Research and Innovation in the European Union” might be of interest

https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/mazzucato_report_2018.pdf

Since the use of cloud platforms for GIS data analysis is having a huge impact on the GIS community, the subject is of relevance. I would like learn more on this 
Are there any examples of Digital Feudalism in GIS? 
How will Digital Feudalism in GIS affect our future generations?
What policies are governments, regulators doing to reduce Digital Feudalism in GIS?
What policies and curriculum are universities, educators adopting to reduce Digital Feudalism in GIS?

Best wishes,

Suchith

This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee
and may contain confidential information. If you have received this
message in error, please contact the sender and delete the email and
attachment. 

Any views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not
necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nottingham. Email
communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored 
where permitted by law.

_______________________________________________
CODATA-international mailing list
CODATA-international at lists.codata.org
http://lists.codata.org/mailman/listinfo/codata-international_lists.codata.org

_______________________________________________
CODATA-international mailing list
CODATA-international at lists.codata.org
http://lists.codata.org/mailman/listinfo/codata-international_lists.codata.org

-- 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kiringai Kamau

GODAN Africa Lead

Programme for Capacity Development in Africa (P4CDA Africa)

GODAN Head Office

845 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 0G4

Macdonald Campus, McGill University, 21111 Lakeshore Road, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC H9X 3V9

Programme for Capacity Development in Africa (P4CDA)

PO Box 1618, 00100 GPO Nairobi, 1st Floor, Nyaku House, Argwings Kodhek Road

Cell: +254 722 800 986/+254 733 375 505

Email: kiringai.kamau at godan.info or kiringai at perfect.africa 

Website: www.godan.info or www.perfect.africa, Tweeter: @kiringaik, Skype: kiringai.kamau

_______________________________________________
CODATA-international mailing list
CODATA-international at lists.codata.org
http://lists.codata.org/mailman/listinfo/codata-international_lists.codata.org

-- 

--------------------------------------------------
Alex de Sherbinin, PhD
Associate Director, Science Applications Division
Deputy Manager, NASA SEDAC
CIESIN, The Earth Institute at Columbia University
P.O. Box 1000 (61 Route 9W), Palisades, NY 10964 
Web: www.ciesin.columbia.edu and http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu
Tel. +1-845-365-8936,  Skype: alex.desherbinin

-- 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kiringai Kamau

GODAN Africa Lead

Programme for Capacity Development in Africa (P4CDA Africa)

GODAN Head Office

845 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 0G4

Macdonald Campus, McGill University, 21111 Lakeshore Road, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC H9X 3V9

Programme for Capacity Development in Africa (P4CDA)

PO Box 1618, 00100 GPO Nairobi, 1st Floor, Nyaku House, Argwings Kodhek Road

Cell: +254 722 800 986/+254 733 375 505

Email: kiringai.kamau at godan.info or kiringai at perfect.africa 

Website: www.godan.info or www.perfect.africa, Tweeter: @kiringaik, Skype: kiringai.kamau

_______________________________________________ CODATA-international mailing list CODATA-international at lists.codata.org http://lists.codata.org/mailman/listinfo/codata-international_lists.codata.org 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.codata.org/pipermail/codata-international_lists.codata.org/attachments/20191013/14707324/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 18540 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.codata.org/pipermail/codata-international_lists.codata.org/attachments/20191013/14707324/attachment.png>