FOCUS CHALLENGE
UC BERKELEY HUMAN RIGHTS CENTER MOBILE CHALLENGE BACKGROUND
Goal of the Challenge The challenge aims to encourage human rights groups to think about adopting technology for information gathering and human rights monitoring and to prompt innovative thinking among those groups. Additionally, the center aims to motivate those working in the mobile technology space to think about human rights.
Marketing Target audience: Global scope, human rights organizations, software developers. Marketing campaign facilitated by NetSquared, using their networks, as well as attendees to the Center’s Soul of the New Machine Conference.
Sponsor: University of California, Berkeley Human Rights Center Part of the NetSquared family of challenges First Challenge: 2009 Total prizes: $30,000 50 submissions from 23 countries CONTACT INFORMATION http://www.netsquared.org/hrc‐ucb
Application Process
Recent Winners
Applications submitted online. Applications are open and available for comment by the NetSquared community. Applicants can change their submissions based on community feedback. The center was particularly interested in experimenting with crowdsourcing as a way to find innovation in the human rights field.
Guardian: Secure, Private, Anonymous Telephone, open‐source mobile telephony platform provides the foundation for a type of phone that cloaks its users and their data (US). Freedom Fone, a free, open‐source software tool that can be used to build dial‐up information services in any language 24/7 (Zimbabwe). Digital Democracy’s Handheld Human Rights ‐ Institute for Multi‐Track Diplomacy, uses SMS gateways to connect people reporting abuses to a web‐based hub (U.S.). Bug4Good, a mobile device based in BUG Labs technology that will protect human rights field‐workers and witnesses. It is portable and features knowledge discovery and data visualization software tools (U.S.).
Judging Criteria The judging criteria were split into these broad categories: Program area Technical feasibility Relevance Emphasis is on a combination of innovation and invention, with more weight on innovation. The judges wanted to see mobile technology applied to human rights in a new way – not necessarily new technology.
Judging Process The community vote determines the finalists. On the NetSquared vote platform, registered users can cast a ballot during a one‐week window for between three and five projects. Before publishing the final 10 results, the center filters out projects that don’t align with the goals of the challenge. A panel of judges, including technical and human rights leaders, chooses three winners from the finalists. There is no direct presentation to the judges, but the 10 finalists participate in the conference.
Supplemental Support The center does not provide supplemental support. There is a social network for the conference itself, and NetSquared provides mentors to the three winners to help fill in gaps in their projects. By participating in the center’s conference, the finalists were exposed to feedback from leaders in the technology and human rights fields and potential funders.
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