Indaba Application Network... Building better tools for better democracies
Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.
Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?
Craig
Simon
@gitis
Indaba Application Network
, FL, Broward County
, FL, Broward County
1‐5 years
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Growth (your pilot is up and running, and starting to expand)
Operating for 1‐5 years
This project is the direct result of my doctoral dissertation, which largely concerned the controversy surrounding the privatization of the Internet’s domain name system in the mid and late 1990s. Those events included the world’s first global election using Instant Runoff Voting, electing five members to the Board of Directors for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.
During my research and writing, I had a front row seat to the breakdown of the famed collegial culture of the Internet engineering community. It was not unlike the move toward radical and paralyzing polarization that can be seen in the United States today. I wondered if there was anything I could do to solve the problem, combining my professional skills as a database programmer and my deep background in political science. How might it be possible to structure dialogues that bring together people of diverse views? The Indaba Application Network and the online collaborative venue project I have described here is the result.
Along the way I learned that Thomas Edison’s first patent was for an electric voting machine. It was a flop. I am honored to be working in such an esteemed tradition.
There are generally two kinds of reactions. One is, “What a great idea! Good luck!” The other, more common, is, “How are you going to make any money doing that?
An early iteration of this project, Choiceranker.com, was used to conduct frequent straw polls during the 2007-2008 presidential primary season. The information collected at that time was as good as catnip for political wonks, providing nuanced insights into the preferences of participating voters.
The first paying client for this system was a new Major League Lacrosse team based in North Carolina. Over 1100 fans ranked their choices for team’s new team name at a Facebook iteration of this project called WeVote.
The long-term benefit of this project depends on network effects. The greater the number of people using it, the more value it can provide.
It may be noteworthy that observers of the ongoing SF mayoral race, which will use ranked choice voting, have said that the candidates have been acting relatively civil toward each other, apparently in the hope of not alienating voters who might be willing to cast 2nd and 3rd place votes for someone who compliments rather than insults their 1st choice candidate.
There will be two ways to measure success. Will use of these tools, engineered to support multi-candidate voting events, help overcome the tendency toward demonization of opposites in a political process? At the same, time, will the quality of online discourse benefit, encouraging people to offer informed thoughtful ideas to their peers, secure in the knowledge that their submissions won’t be ignored in a noisy swarm?
The idea is replicable, but it would take considerable commitment to reach the standard of fairness and the drawing together of diversity embedded in Indaba's design.
Break the 5,000 vote barrier in a straw poll that parallels a real world vote... either the GOP 2012 race or SF Mayor 2011
Iterate an app to focus on the SF Mayor 2011 race
Add tools for allowing vetting users to allow creation of high quality ballots (elections and nominations)
Partner with a meida outlet that will drive users to Indaba sites
Iterate into foreign language sites (Spansh, Arabic, Russian) using the same underlying data structure and functionality
Build a reliable revenue sream or secure other sources of funding
Parther with influential groups and individuals who will help champion this project
Refactor the system to support higher scale of demand
1,001 - 10,000
More than 10,000
Business
I've been doing this by myself. I need collaborators who share the vision and want to help me advance it, or I need enough revenue/funding to keep going.
There are many good reasons to expect that billions of people will be online by the end of the next decade, essentially present to each other through technologies that enable multi-screen interactive crowdsourcing. With so many people online, we'll need better systems for scaling our discourses into useful and productive signals.
Even though my primary motivation in pursuing this project is to help raise the level of political discourse, it’s clear that some of the tools and approaches I’ve developed can have much wider applications. To name a few multi-candidate situations where it would clearly be of use: 1) Reality show voting; 2) Mobile-based in-Stadium sports MVP voting; 3) Local media promotions for “Best-Of” competitions; 4) Corporate governance voting; 5) Educational environments where peer-driven judging of subjectively evaluated content is appropriate (essay contests, and so on), and; 6) Quasi-subjectively judged competitions ranging from Art Contests, Poetry Slams, and even the Ashoka Citizen Media Global Innovation Competition. (Wouldn’t it be nice to have better way of sorting through all these entries? What happens when you have to deal with 6,000 of them?)
Other than the $500 I received from one client, I've done effectively all the development myself, on my own time... probably 3,000 hours invested.
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Investment, Human resources or talent, Marketing or media, Research or information, Collaboration or networking, Pro-bono help (legal, financial, etc.), Innovation or ideas, Mentorship.
Research or information, Collaboration or networking, Innovation or ideas.
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Building better tools for better democracies. Massively scalable, impeccably fair, profoundly useful. Interactive crowdsourcing.