For the past three days, I've been at a CPSR (computing professionals for social responsibility) DIAC (Directions and Implications of Advanced computing) conference on Online Deliberation in Berkeley,CA. The theme of the conference this year was "Tools for participation: collaboration, deliberation and decision support" i.e using technology to mediate/increase participation in the democratic process.
Not just in electing officials, but in communicating with said officials, making policies and building roads/parks/schools/walk-ways/bike-paths and allowing a new Starbucks to be built in your community etc.
Its been intellectually stimulating, thought provoking and sometimes mind boggling.
I'm impressed to see political scientists, philosophers, geologists and of course computing professionals presenting so much interdisciplinary work on the issues of technology, online deliberation and democracy.
As I said in an earlier blog, I've become interested in policies that govern the creation and use of technology as well as the implication of the technology in a given society (context is everything)
Being at this conference has led me to question the democratic process in my home country (Nigeria). Granted we all know the process is flawed (over there and here too). And in any country that wants to really use these technologies, the government has to be one of the main backers (i.e not putting those that create this technology in jail and actually funding the research and creation of some of these technology).
That said, I think Nigeria and Africa in general can make use of these technology to promote the democratic process or/and reach out to citizens i.e understand the issues that their citizens are most concerned about.
Looking at the Niger Delta crisis, I see a place where technology can help mediate conversation/dialog. Many Nigerians/Africans have access to the web (it might be disparate and I'm sure economic/geographic concerns are valid). But for the most part, I think most Nigerians that are of college age have access to the web.
If we had an online deliberation system(could be any form of technology such as portals/wikis/content management system,blogs, chats etc) where people talked about issues. Maybe we'll have a solution? to the Niger Delta problem.
Hmmmmmm...this isn't what I really meant to say.
Lets try that again.
It'll afford many Nigerians (including those in Diaspora) that are scared of speaking out in public (for fear of being maimed in some way or another) a way to participate and collectively come up with some sort of way forward.
I'm one of those scientists that believes "one size fits all" is the wrong way to go about creating any kind of technology. I also believe "copy and paste" isn't the best way to go about introducing a new technology or ideology from one country to another. I use the ethnographic method of inquiry in my work and believe that is the right way to go about improving a community.
After all, we don't want to just create a tool that increases work to be done or harms people in some way (physical, political or otherwise). We want to make sure it improves the interaction in a community, gives everyone a voice and hopefuly in doing so, improves the community.
Somebody (I'm willing to do it if someone funds me ) should figure out how the democratic process currently works in Nigeria and how technology can effectively mediate and grow that process.
I'm not talking about electronic voting, even the US has a long way to go before we can be sure this method of counting votes is fool-proof.
Of course another ethnographic study would be needed to figure out how Nigerians currently use technology and then leverage that knowledge to get them to participate in creating a better Nigeria.
This is not a call to take up arms, challenge the domineering political force in Nigeria and try to do away with whatever distro of Democracy we have and institute another distro. I'm going home for christmas and would like to get into Nigeria and come back out in one piece!
Just some thoughts that were swirling around in my head during some of the conference presentations.
