How mapping visionaries for responsible tech could help develop a people-centred approach to Smarter London

Posted on by davidwilcox

Doteveryone is underpinning their mission to champion responsible technology for a fairer society by mapping who else shares that vision. I think there’s scope for linking up with our Networked City mapping on the same theme, and using that to organise a group promoting people-centred design for London’s smart city.

Doteveryone have worked with the Digital Life Collective to use the mapping tool Kumu for this network map.

They explain that the the map can show who’s connected to whom and who is doing what, and so:

  • Help funders identify which themes and geographies currently have — or don’t have — activities
  • Help people and organisations to think more strategically about who and what they are trying to influence
  • Identify clusters by sector, country, activities, and especially outcomes
  • Help organisations see who else is concerned about the same topics

In London Drew Mackie has been doing something similar for our Networked City exploration, with a map of those interested in mapping and network building. More here about that map and the idea of a community of practice.

This screenshot is deliberately low resolution, because we’ve said that we won’t show publicly the connections between individuals. That’s available to those on the map when they log in to the survey portal created by the Sumapp system used by Drew to collect and easily update information.

For the Doteveryone map Christina Bowen has used a simple Google form to collect the data. Drew and Christina know each other as “Kumus” featured on the Kumu site. Some of the Kumu team are based in Hawaii, where Kumu means teacher, or a source of wisdom.

I think Christina and Drew are going to hook up soon via Zoom to compare approaches. I hope that might also spark some discussion about promoting Doteveryone’s people-centred view of technology also favoured by Smarter London.

Dominic Campbell of Futuregov recently tweeted how he and his innovative team, specialising in digital transformation, would love to work with others on a human-centered approach to smart cities.

I responded, starting a conversation about how that might happen. After a few exchanges London’s chief digital officer gave his support.

Amazing! The power of Twitter. Anyway, I think that a first step could be to get together a core group of enthusiasts, which might include … well, I’ll hold off suggesting who. We need a bit more mapping to see who might be up for it.

If you want to see how Smarter London is developing Theo Blackwell and his team have taken a big step in transparency by creating a public report card on Trello.

Previously: