Today *iLab_ Liberia, along with co-sponsor Google, conducted the first day of a three-day workshop on how technology can be used to ensure fair, transparent, and well organized elections.Demonstrations and trainings were given by *iLab_ Liberia staff members. Today we covered back-up and file sharing systems, ways to curate data so that it can be easily found and used in the future, methods for ensuring that data collected in spreadsheets can be easily parsed and analyzed by automated systems, data recovery, creating online forms for data entry, and online project management tools.
Participants were IT and technical experts and managers from various high-level elections organizations in Liberia, both governmental and non-governmental.Many of those attending the workshop said they had learned something new and were able to see how the technologies discussed today could fill the gaps in their current systems and projects. Many participants were exposed to technologies they never knew existed, such as online storage options, and expressed a strong interest in complementing their current data management methods with these tools.
We're very excited to have the opportunity to host such an event, and are eagerly looking forward to the next two days!
The sessions are all great, i am must confess my more than 15 years of ICT experience, i have learnt lot of new stuff. I did not know google has all these useful applications
ReplyDeleteQuite a brain full of information. For me, this workshop is mainly about 3 things: Data collection, curation and security, as well as how to manage the project of bringing it all together. Some real nifty stuff. Technology is going to rule this election and it's best to either get with it or remain in the dark. The world over will swallow this up like a bowl of hot pepper soup, especially with eye-tasty ingredients such as maps, fusion tables and sms-enabled functions. One great challenge is how to get the local public involved with such low penetration of Internet in Liberia, especially in the interior parts. The mobile 'bonanza' must be factored into Liberia's 2011 elections information bonanza!
ReplyDeleteI highly appreciate the two days workshop held at the USHAHIDI compound. I must admit, it is my first experience working deeply with Google. During the workshop, I was able to learn about google docs, which include: (spreadsheets, docs, forms, presentations, etc).
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