Submitted by boblannon on December 4, 2011 - 14:39
Summary:
This mobile app listens to political advertisements and returns information important for understanding the context of those advertisements. Information will reference coverage on sites like FactCheck.org and data maintained by the Sunlight foundation and its partners. It will include:
- links to journalists' coverage of the ad itself (when available)
- links to coverage of related issues
- links to information about the political action committee (PAC) responsible for the ad
- a link to a parody video on the (soon to be live) FlackCheck.org
Technical details: The app makes use of the echoprint software made open and free by echonest: http://blog.echonest.com/post/6824753703/announcing-echoprint
Why we are working on this problem:
Because while all political ads have to be "true," context matters. Political ads aren't bound to tell "the whole truth," and viewers are not always aware of the context from which quotes and facts were selected.
After the Citizens United decision, interest group spending on ads increased. For House races, between 2008-10 there was a 277% increase in volume of ads aired that were paid for by interest groups. (Source: Wesleyan Media Project). Many experts expect to see a continued rise in this volume as we enter the 2012 election season.
In order to ensure that voters can understand the context of the information communicated in political advertisements, it is important to make coverage available to those voters immediately.
What we accomplished during the event:
During this event, we developed three key components of this application:
- a mobile application that quickly samples a small stream of audio and converts it into an echoprint audio fingerprint
- an api to which the mobile application can submit queries in the form of an audio fingerprint
- a server that recieves audio-fingerprint queries and returns the closest match from a database of advertisment
Traction:
We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the open-source code made available by echonest at https://github.com/echonest
We have been in contact with two journalistic resources to plan future collaboration:
Next steps:
UPDATE:
As of 2/13, we now have a fully functional application and webservice, complete with submission forms for advertisements. Going forward, we hope to bring on board content creators as well as develop web scraping routines to help curators keep current with the fast-paced world of political ads and coverage thereof.
We'll also be looking at ways to refactor our code and bring the webservice to a more mature state.
Next Steps:
- opencalais integration to parse journalistic resource text
- intergration with more sunlight foundation apis to generate richer content
- a public site for user submissions of advertisements and associated metadata
- developing matching algorithms to pair journalistic resources with advertisements
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for:
Submitted by Nicola Perantoni on December 4, 2011 - 07:31
Summary:
We developed a system to monitor birds migration phenomenon. As a solution, we propose to exploit the crowdsourcing, our target users are birdwatchers. Users can upload to our server a geotagged pictures of migratory bird flocks. Addionally, users can add tag information to the picture (e.g. bird species).
Presentation Link: http://www.slideshare.net/filippodelfra/bird-game-app-rhok-trento-december-2011
Progress made since the event:
We have created a base server and an android app.
Next steps:
Build an iPhone app.
Continue the server implementation.
Implement hotspots for birdwatchers.
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for:
Summary:
Access to information is limited for most of the people in developing countries - although the demand for information is of vital importance. Especially in poor regions the relevance of topics in health care, hygienics and agriculture is growing rapidly.
Location-independent, wide spread, easily accessible and barrier-free information channels for governmental agencies, hospitals and non-governmental-organizations are missing.
Why we are working on this problem:
This solutions takes use of the mobile GSM network to distribute information in form of news feeds on hygienic measures, aids prevention, disease patterns and education. Due to the growing subscription-rates and mobile coverage, these news channels can prove highly useful for people in devloping countries. Out solution "txt4good" offers NGOs, hostpitals and government agencies to easily spread relevant information to a broad audience in their respective region / topic. On the other hand, txt4good can easily be subscribed to by any cell phone owner with one simple text message, including the respective field of interest (e.g. #medinfo, #agriculture, etc.)
What we accomplished during the event:
A working proof-of-concept that is able to enlist new users, create topic specific newsfeeds and proceed the delivery of news list to recepients.
Progress made since the event:
Traction:
RhoK Team Berlin, internal testing
Next steps:
- Implement an interactive dialouge system, that allows users to further select their field of interest. E.g. MedInfo->Malaria->Prevention Tips->Families etc...
- Voice-based interaction
- Further devlopement and inclusion of this approach in the ongoing work of tech non-profit knowable.org
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for:
Seeking people with skills in:
Submitted by jaseg on December 4, 2011 - 06:03
Summary:
"Heartbeat" is a proof of concept. The goal is to develop a system that provides people who are in danger of oppression due to political views with the possibility to be "tracked" in daily life. This tracking makes sure that the person is seemingly still active in his own private environment (and not locked away) by observing twitter and blogs and requiring periodical confirmation. As soon the tracking cannot spot the person anymore (no heartbeats have been received) the system starts informing family members, defined contacts, Amnesty International, etc. immediately to report a missing person.
Additionally the system makes it posssible for the person to trigger a call for help sent to all listed contacts by mentioning a secret codeword in an observed channel.
Why we are working on this problem:
In countries all over the world, governments invoke national security or the need to counter terrorism to justify holding people without contact with their families and without basic safeguards such as fair trial or access to an independent lawyer or doctor. Under International Law, this is known as unlawful detention. Isolation from the outside world facilitates torture and can in itself constitute a form of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Relatives may be left not knowing whether their loved ones are alive or dead. Those on the ground who want to help frequently face harassment and threats from the authorities.
International law prohibits arbitrary arrest or detention. Detainees need to be told why they have been held, be able to challenge the lawfulness of their detention with the assistance of an independent lawyer, have their families informed of their whereabouts and to communicate and receive visits from them; they should receive a prompt and fair trial if they are not released.
What we accomplished during the event:
We have a working android app, a working REST API which can be used to extend the system with more sensors, a working monitoring service which waits for incoming heartbeats and a (mostly) working web interface for data visualization.
Progress made since the event:
Next steps:
Get it working right! And secure(tm)!
Server requirements:
Well... yeah, it *wont* run on a shared-hosting setup...
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for:
Seeking people with skills in:
Submitted by kkalass on December 4, 2011 - 05:28
Summary:
Supporting things globally online is very easy and popular at the moment. There are Systems like Google+1;FaceBook Like and Flatter - to just name 3. Offlike aims to extend this pattern to local "offline" things. By placing QR-Codes ( or later NFC ) on real places with real problems - and giving the user the option to support this thing we hope to increase involvement with problems that matter for you - localy - offline .
Why we are working on this problem:
The Problem definition "A Real-World "Like" for Campaigning and Advocacy" described an intriguing idea: connect real-life needs to online support. Implementing this is a lot of fun for us, and it seems to be very usefull, because this way you can simply activate your neighbourhood to show their concern for a common problem - locally, and visible globally.
What we accomplished during the event:
We created a website, an app and mobile-site. All these there tools are necessary for participating in the Off Like button.
The campaign owner can create QR codes and check statistics on the amount of views and likes. Also there is a map so he can check where the QR codes are used. The app or the mobile site, provide an easy way show their support. By scanning the QR code the supporter can easily like the campaign with the usual social share buttons.
Progress made since the event:
We started at zero and created all these tool within 27 hours.
Server requirements:
currently deployed on heroku, may run anywhere where you can:
* provide a current JRE
* provide a Mongo DB
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for:
Submitted by cesine on December 3, 2011 - 06:16
Summary:
This project provides the infrastructure to take a picture using an Android device (we've heard that they can cost as low as 100$ in developing countries which would need this sort of app) run the picture through some image processing or pattern recognition in OpenCV and then upload the image using POST.
We are targeting it specifically for the Bacteria Counting app for low-cost water monitoring kit project.
We already have the code for:
*accessing Android Camera
*taking and saving a jpg
*uploading image and metadata via multipart form POST
*server api to accept the image
Our strategy will be:
The major challenge which we dont expect to finish this weekend:
We need another team member with OpenCV experience. (We have just used it for Eye Recognition)
What we accomplished during the event:
Next steps:
We are going to work on Iteration 2 - Setting up an Ushahidi for the project, and Iteration 3 - Porting our python to run in the Android OpenCV stack so that we can give instant feedback on the Android client side (we are modling after the Google Googles instant feedback). We expect these each to take another 8 hours.
Seeking people with skills in:
Submitted by michelefoga on December 3, 2011 - 06:06
Summary:
We are developing a web application where people can register their value items providing their personal information (name, surname, email, phone, etc..) and the item information (description, main color, brand model, etc..). The system will generate a QrCode image within a unique code necessary to identify the item on the website. The item owner can print this image and apply on their items. If they lose their items, maybe someone will found it and simply with a smartphone (or anyway tool which can surf on internet) they can contact in a very easy way the owner.
Seeking people with skills in:
Submitted by gururajp81 on October 23, 2011 - 01:08
Summary:
A Common Solution Framework which consists of various modules, each of these modules perform a atomic task which in collaboration address each of the above issues. The various modules\parts of the system include * Service Request Handler : Handles all incoming service request of a end user. A Service can be request for delivery of water.* Complaint Request Handler: Handles all incoming complaints.* Scheduler : Handles a schedule for servicing the request.* Service Tracker: Tracks the service request life cycle. And invokes proper methods in-case a service is not catered within a given time. A user can access this system through SMS, USSD or a Native Mobile Application(In-case of a Smart Phone).
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for:
Submitted by melgorka on October 22, 2011 - 14:09
Summary:
A messaging platform allowing members of Canadian communities experiencing potable water challenges to use SMS to both communicate their issues to politicians and create a map of where issues are affecting them.
Why we are working on this problem:
To encourage the Federal and Provincial governments to take action and address the water quality issues in First Nations communities.
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for:
Submitted by ramy.hegazy on October 22, 2011 - 04:07
Summary:
Collecting data relevant to Farmer needs to make subjective decisions that save on various resources such as fertilizers, usage of water, and pesticides.
This data should be analyzed and recommended actions to be sent to the farmer through mobile platforms. Cloud based infrastructures will be leveraged to empower farmers to make use of the solutions in an economical cost.
Why we are working on this problem:
Farm Frites submitted a problem within the WaterHackathon Cairo. We selected to work on their problem as a potential idea evolving to be a generic solution for all common farmers.
What we accomplished during the event:
1) Created a working Prototype.
2) Designed next steps to generalize this solution to current farmers and any future interested individuals to develop their own farm.
Progress made since the event:
1) Created a team who are passionate to work on challenges farmers face daily and on a seasonal basis.
Next steps:
Develop a Farm Cloud service to support farmers in a multiered way.
Server requirements:
The application could be cloud based so we can use any cloud based hosting service
What RHoK event this project is being submitted for:
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