Civil Society and Governance

Thank God its Learning Time?

Its Friday Afternoon and even the host is surprised that there is such a good,large and diverse crowd at HIVE COLAB. After carrying out a quick survey of the group, we realize the presence of several students, researchers and civil society representatives(Center for Media Literacy, Africa Initiative For Youth and Development).
On this night we will have a talk by a young lady from Kenya(Ushaidi, Making all Voices Count). The guys that turned a simple sms service into a geographic information system to help monitor the election process and later on the violence that would emerge. The simple innovation will then go on to be replicated globally and to be adopted by red cross, and other larger global civil society and disaster management players. We will then call this crowd sourcing.

The Introduction to Hive Colab    

There is an interesting introduction to Hive Colab and it Business development services as well as its focus on Governance, Health
and Enterprise interventions and not forgetting their ability to assist in Acceleration of businesses as well as Incubation.

Social Innovation and Governance

Then we make a dramatic shift of focus where we begin to attempt a marriage between governance and social media both for businesses and then for civil society. The private sector then needs policy that is made by the government (because governments spend the bulk of their resources working on policy issues there is a gap in technology that can be filled by young people). Innovation spaces can help accelerate the process by which government adopts technologies and then provide revenue sources for the young people who make these ideas happen.

Social Innovation-working conditions, economic development, community development.
Social purpose to innovation-Extending and strengthening civil society, processes and technique.

Finally the speaker in a rather expertly manner ends by defining what kind of young people will be responsible for these innovations. And so we enter into the subject of entrepreneurship. 

What is an Entrepreneur: They are the same because they are doing something that they love.

1. Love what they do.
   What is it that you love about government and its work. Reading, writing,debate politics, barazas.
2. Have Self confidence in what they do and who they are.
3. Are you happy with what you do.
4. Self-reliant, self-starters, self-confident, drive, persistent, talking to yourself (we create work
   for ourselves and make the spaces).
5. Thrive on competition (the desire to be better-raising the bar higher and higher).
6. Willing to learn and information seekers (always reading).
7. Do you feel comfortable in...supporting role...work in Teams!


Governance and Leadership

Governance: Buzz Word: An extension of leadership and extension of ones rule.
The existence of good and bad governance. One a scale of 1-10.

What is Citizens Engagement?

Field of interest, learning, excitement about the theme and the subject.
Desire to create Alternative media: Self-censorship,
Open, participatory, leveraging technology (devos, hivecolab, institute of development studies).

Government functions from a top/down.

Twitter, Facebook, Know Your Budget (Budget Transparency Initiative), Uganda Watch.

1. How is technology already used in the target audience?
   Technology is not the solution it is just a tool.
2. Simplicity
3. Adaptability: Slacktivists, Armchair Activists, There is no replacement to acutally being there!

Questions for the day

Challenges relating to Intellectual Property.

Advice for application creators

Launch first and then work on the issues you have later.
 
Points of Interest.

There is one very outstanding thing about HIve Colab. And yes they did provide some snacks for the event (shout outs to the caterers!). But the thing i missed was an intensive brain storming session which animated the rest of the night and which i could tell form the pictures and previous hive colab events is has become a very common practice. 

In addition to this i was thrilled that there was some space for young children to see the adults in action! Even if i am yet to interact with the CEO, a young and vibrant lady (Barbara Birungi) i can see that leadership models for jagganauts like Yahoo (whose CEO Marissa Ann Meyer) which makes space for women are probably being emulated.
We created a day when you could bring your kids to work...but what about creating a space where they can spend their evenings with you...doing their homework while you finish those tasks.
Over to you!