Cookbooks, bikes and telling stories

My background is in active travel having spent the past four years working for sustainable transport charity Sustrans. One of the reasons I initially applied to study Digital Civics was to have the opportunity to explore how we can digital technology to improve the physical and cultural environment for walking and cycling. I think the current state of transport in this country is stupid and unjust. It prevents people from travelling in ways that are safe, cheap, good for the environment and their own health. Even worse, it puts those that do walk and cycle in danger by promoting and prioritising use of motor vehicles. The current system costs a fortune, fractures communities, increases inequality and costs huge numbers of lives through the road traffic accidents and air pollution that it causes.

So I think it’s fair to say I have a fairly clear agenda and a goal in mind. A recurring question in Introduction to Digital Civics has been “are we activists?” It’s come as something of a surprise to me to find out that I suppose I do consider myself an activist. The main question for me now is how best to explore this space to find a suitable means of advocacy that is likely to be something that those in power (local councils, health authorities, MPs etc.) can buy into to lead to the changes we need.

We will need to do it in a way that uses digital technology to make something cheap and preferably fun. It will mean working with authorities rather than shouting at them. My early thoughts about a PhD research project have been inspired by discussions with Philip Lord. Some of the ideas we have discussed include:

• A mechanism for cyclists to flag issues they encounter when cycling. This could be in the form of a “near miss” button. It could also potentially be a series of buttons. Eg. Press to highlight infrastructure problems.
• GPS data should be combined with the above sensing / logging facilities to enable mapping of issues and for users to add additional information about the issues they encounter. This probably means developing at least one app.
• Secondly it needs to be of use to council when trying to find problems with the infrastructure so they will need an interface where they can easily make sense of the data and use it to make low cost infrastructure changes.
• Distance sensing of passing traffic – probably using ultrasonic or infra-red sensors

I believe that these ideas start to address the agenda I’ve set out above. The technological challenge will be in developing a robust, small sensor / button that will be low cost enough to be used by many, many people to enable us to map the areas of problem infrastructure in the city. I will also need to work with partners at the council to discuss their plans and get their buy in – with a bit of luck I can make them think it’s their idea and get them to take ownership. Without acceptance and adoption of this data by the council it will be just another well meaning, short lived research project – which is exactly what I want to avoid.

I chose myself a bike related paper called Implementing the connected e-bike: challenges and requirements of an IoT application for urban transportation by Kristina Fluchter from ETH Zurich. It looks at some of the challenges of GPS tracking on bikes which sounds really useful for what I’m planning to look at.

Dalia’s research interests

Dalia’s area of interest is around improving quality of life for people living in refugee camps. One of the early ideas that she is exploring is an existing digital civics project related to creating a “digital cookbook”. Food and cooking is culturally important in Syria and despite huge changes in circumstances and obvious limitations for those living in camps, it remains an important part of their identities. The challenge facing Dalia is going to be find a way to create an engaging and useful artefact that can enable women to collect and share information about their cooking and their lives. So as I understand it this won’t just be a digital version of a typical western cookbook but rather a means of cultural exchange centred around food and cultural identity.

When I was a teacher I used a website called storybird which makes it easy for kids (and adults) to put together stories. I think it works because it takes away some of the real or perceived barriers to writing a story. Some of these are practical things like lack of materials, ability to draw but the most important aspect is just providing inspiration and a starting point. By giving children a series of interesting pictures it sparks off their imagination and helps them get started telling their own stories. It seems to me like Dalia is trying to do something similar. The intervention (whatever it looks like in the end) will need to be the spark to get people talking, telling their stories about food and sharing them with others. I think it sounds a really interesting and valuable project to be involved with.

I stumbled upon Strangers at the Gate: Gaining Access, Building Rapport, and Co-Constructing Community-Based Research by Christopher le Dantec and thought that Dalia might like to read more about the different roles involved in engaging and working with a community. I hope it’s useful Dalia.