INTRODUCTION

In a digital networked society, city and community focused actions are often promoted in a collaborative and participatory way. About 48% of 276,15 million registered cellphones in Brazil access data service (ANATEL, 2014). Considering a country with 202 million inhabitants, citizens with smartphones easily become traceable information sources. If, in the past, frontiers between public and private data sourcing were well defined, today they are increasingly based on participatory principles: smartphone users tend to provide information on a voluntary basis. One shares information about location, habits and thoughts on a daily basis. Downloads of a manifold of apps are gateways for robust systems that track who you are, what you do, what you like and dislike. On one hand, this kind of information is widely used for sale and focused promotion. On the other, it can be helpful for control and pattern recognition of flows and tendencies of individuals and groups. It can assist monitoring the city.

Focused on city improvement and citizenship, also moved by a collaborative and participatory approach, the authors are developing, since 2013, a research on brazilian networks and services, apps and products for the city and a better life quality. Currently, we are looking into collaborative actions between collectives, startups, individuals and government bodies or the private sector (companies and corporations).

In several countries, the ability of federal, state and local governments to plan, act and collaborate on urban development is limited by budget constraints, political disputes, lack of management at various levels among other factors. People often can’t rely on the government in vital issues related to life quality, as urban mobility, security and sanitation, to name some. Experiences in many countries have shown that digital technologies (through apps, services and social networks) have had a huge impact leading individuals and government to act on relevant issues when focusing on monitoring, sharing and proposing solutions.

The chosen case to be presented at SIGRADI 2015, Transparência Hacker, promotes a manifold of online and offline actions designed to: a) open up public data resources for citizens; b) promote citizenship and c) incentivise participatory actions on civil rights and law-making. Transparência Hacker (Transparency Hacker) is a voluntary group of hackers and people counting with around 1,000 members.

PROCEEDINGS

This paper aims to present and analyse actions, networks and platforms designed by Transparência Hacker. They include websites, open discussion groups, government data visualization systems and mobile actions with communities. Many of them won national and international innovation prizes. Deciphering the São Paulo City Council (Decodificando a Câmara de São Paulo), a website about proposed projects for the city by politicians, sponsored by Rockefeller Foundation, won the 2012 Innovation Challenges Competition. Keeping an Eye on the Amendments (De Olho nas Emendas), Adopt a Request (Adote um Pedido) and Portrait of Violence (Retrato da Violência) were three winners of the Open Data for Development (OD4D) section of the 2013 Innovation Challenges Competition. We Want to Know (Queremos Saber), won the Mario Covas Award in the same year.

In our study, the analyses are not restricted to one system, service, app or product, since the actions of Transparência Hacker are broken down into various systems; they include websites and social networks. In classic cases of digital design, users' needs are evaluated for ergonomics, usability and quality of experience. This kind of analysis derives from digital design methodologies used for interface, interaction and user experience evaluation (BUXTON, 2007; GOODWIN, 2009; GARRETT, 2011). In a study focused on the city and the citizens, complementary methods are necessary. They involve engagement, ground motivation and the guiding mission of the group. This theme is currently discussed in the context of design for social innovation (MANZINI, 2015), service design (POLAINE, LØVLIE, 2013) and funding for urban projects (VANZELLA, 2014).

The scientific and technological challenges are: a) to understand the social context and contemporary technology which give rise to increased demand for information, applications, products, services and platforms for internet and mobile devices users focused on social well being and improving quality of life; b) to construct parameters that will permit comparative analyses of the researched material.

One of Transparência Hacker’s missions is to turn public data into more accessible information for citizens. It seeks also, a new way of being political. One of this actions was the collaboration with the federal government to create the Brazilian government’s website http://www.dados.gov.br, an open database. Another example is the website SP Flooding (Alagamentos SP), which started in 2011, which organizes data collected by the flooding control and monitoring government body of São Paulo city.

Our paper will highlight some projects shortly presented in this abstract, as follows:

After the approval of the Public Information Access law in Brazil, the group Transparência Hacker organized a Hackday in partnership with the Open Knowledge Foundation to make a Brazilian adaptation of the website “What Do They Know”, produced by MySociety in the United Kingdom. Through this website, it’s possible to make a request for information from a government body and that body is required to respond within 20 days. Everything is registered on the website so that other citizens can consult what has already been requested to avoid repetition.In the event that no reply is received within 20 days, the system sends a message informing the citizen and the government body the amount of time that has passed. It’s also possible to follow requests made by other users and receive information about them.

Lambe-Lambe is a website to generate posters to be displayed in public spaces using information provided by the user. To generate it, one has to choose a state and two areas of investment that will be compared. It’s possible to save versions for printing or share the information on Facebook. The website’s source code is open and files are available for download. All the information is taken from a government’s website  (http://www.portaldatransparencia.gov.br/) and dates from 2012.

Hacker Bus (Ônibus Hacker) exists since 2011. It was conceived as a movable space for promoting workshops, urban interventions, speeches and helps disseminate hacker culture and collaboration to raise public awareness so that local realities can be changed for the better. Bus Hacker is being used as a vehicle by volunteer members of the group to inform citizens in small municipalities (up to 5 thousand inhabitants) of the existence of an organic law that permits any bill to become law if 5% of the signatures of the local electorate are collected. Besides raising public awareness, it offers workshops so that the public can follow the process through the social networks. The bus also takes its members to events that promote discussion and reflection about what it means to be a good citizen and political participation in the digital age.

Deciphering the São Paulo City Council (Decodificando a Câmara de São Paulo), helps to analyse the bills up for vote in the council so that citizens know what is going on and can express their opinions before these bills become law, and thus it makes change easier. After bills become law, it’s very difficult to change them and there are only a limited number of things that may be changed. For now this app will just exist for the city of São Paulo, but in the future it will also be implemented for Brazil’s House of Representatives.

RESULTS

Our study emphasizes systems and products developed by Transparência Hacker for citizens and citizenship. At the beginning of the research we realized that there are slight differences between proposals; many have similar themes, dynamics and objectives. In other words, the approach taken by the community or group of some initiative could become a key differentiator of research and product and/or service being analysed. Motivations and setting groups who idealize and make the project, for example, are a rich source of research on engagement, motivations and project sustainability models.

DISCUSSION

The tendency of creating actions, apps and services is expanding. Many are crated by the startups, groups in collaboration with government agencies. Many are adopted by government agencies.

In our research we found out that many projects (as Lambe-Lambe and Social Câmara) haven’t been updated in the last year, which means that they are only registred in the open group of Transparência Hacker or in our database. Hypotheses for these occurrences are: a) there is no updating and maintenance team; b) projects depend on public or other partners and sponsors (Gestão Urbana de Enchentes, Câmara Municipal de São Paulo) c) projects lack on financial and strategic implementation planning; d) group members are focused on other projects or issues.

On building up a platform and archive of these action, it will be possible to map more precisely why some of these actions have short lives and what roll public and private partners could play in supporting them.