The University of Washington is planning to contract with a smartphone applications developer who will build an app for iPhone and Android to promote events, information resources, testing and research to help gay men avoid or manage the HIV virus and other sexually-transmitted diseases. Using Emerging Opportunities Grant funds of up to $15,000 from the UW Center For AIDS Research, UW Medicine will engage with a vendor who according to contracting documents will be asked to integrate the app with the Seattle Gay Scene (SGC) website’s newsfeed and calendar as well as their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Details of the plan are found in a Request For Proposals from vendors and an accompanying Q&A document.
Collaboration in Civic Spheres
Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
UW plans mobile app for gay men at risk of HIV
by Matt Rosenberg May 9th, 2012
Audit: Iraq elections contractor falls short, wins renewal
by Matt Rosenberg April 26th, 2012
An audit by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the federal government’s USAID agency says that what turned into a seven-year, $102 million contractor-driven effort to bring fair and open elections to Iraq has failed to become sustainable by Iraqi officials without outside help. Yet despite that concern the USAID contractor, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), whose board of directors is composed of high-octane Washington, D.C. insiders and business and non-profit luminaries, got a $36 million extension for follow-up work for another three years from October 2011 to October 2014.
TVW video of Seattle conference panel on open government’s future
by Matt Rosenberg March 13th, 2012
In 1972 Washington state voters were concerned about government accountability and ethics for a wide variety of reasons, some emanating from within the state and some from without. As a result they approved Initiative 276, creating an initial version of what is now the state’s Public Records Act, as well as the state Open Meetings Act and the state Public Disclosure Commission. The PDC daylights and regulates campaign contributions to and financial interests of elected officials. The successful citizen activists who launched and propelled the I-276 campaign later morphed into what is now the Washington Coalition For Open Government.
This past Saturday March 10, WACOG held a conference looking at the impetus leading to I-276’s passage, while also celebrating the present-day successes of citizen activists for public transparency, and looking at what the future holds. I was honored to be part of that latter panel on behalf of the 501c3 Public Eye Northwest and our Public Data Ferret project. Other guests were civic apps developer Ram Arumugan of Cascade Software Corporation; City of Seattle CIO/CTO Bill Schrier; and TVW President and CEO Greg Lane. Moderator was Mike Fancher – Vice President of WACOG and former Seattle Times Executive Editor.
Right below we’ve got the full 60-minute video of that forum, as aired on TVW, Washington state’s non-profit public affairs TV channel. Fancher began by framing the conversation in the context of the Knight Commission’s special report in 2010, “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy In The Digital Age,” which he helped author. Among the findings that still resonate strongly, he said, are that:
- “…the information health of communities is as vital as safe streets, clean air, good schools and a vibrant economy, but…we don’t tend to think of information health in that way;” and,
- “…the same technology that is disrupting professional media and causing the loss of so many journalistic resources in so many communities is also creating great opportunities for journalism and democracy.”
Here’s the video on the panel looking at open government’s future, including the role of technology and new media.
TVW has also posted the video of the day’s panel, “Open Government’s Past: Birth and Survival of I-276.” It features David Ammons, former AP Olympia Bureau reporter and now communications chief for Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed; Karen Hildt, widow of I-276 campaign leader Michael Hildt; and former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton.
RELATED:
Ram Arumugan, Cascade Software, “How Technology Should Be Used To Spur Open Government,” Geek Wire, March 11, 2012.
Matt Rosenberg, Amplify Accountability, Technology To Boost Open Government,” Knight Commission blog, March 12, 2012.
UW study: low-dose CT scans for lung cancer too costly?
by Matt Rosenberg February 15th, 2012
A new study from University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center experts in Seattle finds that the overall costs of detecting and treating lung cancer among heavy smokers through a potentially promising process involving screening with low-dose CT scans may currently be too costly to a nation struggling to control growing health care costs, even though some lives would be saved. They urge development of cost-effectiveness standards to guide further policy-making, and emphasize that costs can be cut if health care providers improve their diagnostic skills to more frequently sidestep “false positive” results of the scans.
Congressional Facebook Hackathon report maps legislative transparency solutions; now what will Congress do?
by Matt Rosenberg February 13th, 2012
Imagine if instead of emailing or calling your U.S. Congressman or Senator with concerns about pending legislation, you could re-draft a portion of the bill text online, or endorse the revisions of another reader, knowing you’d be heard by decision-makers? In fact, there’s a very beta version of that called Madison, unveiled by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R.-Calif) and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to harvest legislative text revisions from the public to privacy and transparency bills such as OPEN, PIPA, and earlier, the controversial SOPA or “Stop Online Piracy Act.” This open real-time bill markup tool is just one of the public tool concepts outlined in a recently-released report on the first Congressional Facebook Hackathon.
The bipartisan public-private forum was held in early December to explore how social media and technology can make the U.S. Congress more open, accessible and participatory to stakeholders. Below we’ll hit some highlights of the report. In addition to real-time public markup of legislation, they include an online Git repository of legislative text; crowd-sourced committee hearings; and a constituent casework tracking portal. Still unclear is what happens next, and to what extent the tools envisioned could be developed under common technical standards, and a similar look and feel for end-users, on a state-by-state basis.
Infographic: deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions
by Matt Rosenberg January 6th, 2012
Because trees help absorb greenhouse gases, forest preservation plays an important role in controlling climate change. When forests are destroyed or degraded that harms our ability to control climate change. The problem is primarily concentrated in tropical developing nations. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office says there are three big challenges: building capacity to better document forest absorbtion capacity and its loss; improving governance in countries where the problem is most pronounced; and calibrating policy responses so they’re effective on a global scale. The study is titled “Deforestation and Greenhouse gases.” A related CBO infographic helps tell the story. Excerpts of the infographic follow.
First, the backdrop. Five different categories of energy-related activities account for two-thirds of manmade greenhouse gas emissions globally, according to CBO. Of the remaining one-third, 12 percent comes from destruction of forests for agriculture, primarily in developing tropical nations.
Redmond’s Physio-Control wins defense contract extension
by Matt Rosenberg December 8th, 2011
Physio-Control of Redmond, Wash. this week won an one-year extension worth roughly $10 million of a contract with the Philadelphia-based U.S. Defense Logistics Agency. It could extend another four years at a total value of up to $49 million. For at least the next year the company will continue to supply U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Veterans Administration and federal civilian agency facilities with emergency medical response equipment including automated external defibrillators, cardiac monitors/defibrillators, CPR assist devices and accessories such as replacement batteries and battery chargers, replacement electrodes, infant/child electrodes, a variety of patient monitoring sensors, carrying cases, wall cabinets and training supplies.
The equipment will be sold to buyers mainly at some of the Department of Defense’s 295 major military bases around the globe. Some of the DoD bases in Washington served under the contract in recent years are Joint Base Lewis McChord, Naval Station Everett, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Naval Magazine Indian Island, Naval Base Kitsap, Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, and Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane.
Washington state near top in U.S. home Internet use
by Matt Rosenberg November 15th, 2011
Washington state is outranked only by New Hampshire and Utah in percentage of households that are connected to the Internet, according to a new report from the U.S. Commerce Department titled, “Exploring The Digital Nation: Computer and Internet Use At Home.” Washington also ranked fourth highest among 43 states for which information was available on rural household broadband penetration. Nationally, home Internet penetration in the U.S. – the lion’s share now coming via broadband services such as cable modem and DSL – is up from 19 percent in 1997 to 71 percent in 2010. However, it varies by income, age and race, as well as geography.
Almost 80 percent of Washington homes have Internet
Drawing on the U.S. Census Bureau’s October 2010 Current Population Survey, the report finds 76.7 percent of Washington state’s households are connected to the Internet through broadband services (primarily cable modem and DSL) and another three percent use dial-up, for a total of 79.7 percent wired to the Net. Washington’s household Internet connectivity rate is exceeded only by that of New Hampshire (77.8 percent with broadband plus 3.2 percent with dial-up for a total of 81 percent) and Utah (79.7 percent broadband plus 2.6 percent dial-up, for 82.3 percent).