Alex Howard
Alexander B. Howard is the Government 2.0 Washington Correspondent for O'Reilly Media, where he writes about the intersection of government, the Internet and society, including how technology is being used to help citizens, cities, and national governments solve large-scale problems. He is an authority on the use of collaborative technology in enterprises, social media and digital journalism. He has written and reported extensively on open innovation, open data, open source software and open government technology. He has contributed to the National Journal, Forbes, the Huffington Post, Govfresh, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, CBS News' What's Trending, Govloop, Governing People, the Association for Computer Manufacturing and the Atlantic, amongst others. Prior to joining O’Reilly, Mr. Howard was the associate editor of SearchCompliance.com and WhatIs.com at TechTarget, where he wrote about how the laws and regulations that affect information technology are changing, spanning the issues of online identity, data protection, risk management, electronic privacy and cybersecurity. He is a graduate of Colby College in Waterville, Maine.
Towards a more open world
5 minutes on how technology is changing the way we learn, live, and govern.
Last September, I gave a 5 minute Ignite talk at the tenth Ignite DC. The video just became available. My talk, embedded below, focused on what I’ve been writing about here at Radar for the past three years: open government, journalism, media, mobile technology and more.
The 20 slides that I used for the…
Linking open data to augmented intelligence and the economy
Nigel Shadbolt on AI, ODI, and how personal, open data could empower consumers in the 21st century.
After years of steady growth, open data is now entering into public discourse, particularly in the public sector. If President Barack Obama decides to put the White House’s long-awaited new open data mandate before the nation this spring, it will finally enter the mainstream.
As more governments, businesses, media organizations and institutions adopt open data initiatives, interest in the…
White House Science Fair praises future scientists and makers
If we want kids to aspire to become scientists and technologists, celebrate academic achievement like athletics and celebrity.
There are few ways to better judge a nation’s character than to look at how its children are educated. What values do their parents, teachers and mentors demonstrate? What accomplishments are celebrated? In a world where championship sports teams are idolized and superstar athletes are feted by the media, it was gratifying to see science, students and teachers get…
Sprinting toward the future of Jamaica
Open data is fundamental to democratic governance and development, say Jamaican officials and academics.
Creating the conditions for startups to form is now a policy imperative for governments around the world, as Julian Jay Robinson, minister of state in Jamaica’s Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining, reminded the attendees at the “Developing the Caribbean” conference last week in Kingston, Jamaica.
Robinson said Jamaica…
Predictive analytics and data sharing raise civil liberties concerns
Expanded rules for data sharing in the U.S. government will need more oversight as predictive algorithms are applied.
Last winter, around the same time there was a huge row in Congress over the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), U.S. Attorney General Holder quietly signed off on expanded rules on government data sharing. The rules allowed the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), housed within the Department of Homeland Security, to analyze the regulatory data collected during…
Sensoring the news
Sensor journalism will augment our ability to understand the world and hold governments accountable.
When I went to the 2013 SXSW Interactive Festival to host a conversation with NPR’s Javaun Moradi about sensors, society and the media, I thought we would be talking about the future of data journalism. By the time I left the event, I’d learned that sensor journalism had long since arrived and been applied. Today, inexpensive, easy-to-use…
The City of Chicago wants you to fork its data on GitHub
Chicago CIO Brett Goldstein is experimenting with social coding for a different kind of civic engagement.
GitHub has been gaining new prominence as the use of open source software in government grows.
Earlier this month, I included a few thoughts from Chicago’s chief information officer, Brett Goldstein, about the city’s use of GitHub, in a piece exploring GitHub’s role in government.
While Goldstein says that Chicago’s open data portal will remain the primary means…
GitHub gains new prominence as the use of open source within governments grows
The collaborative coding site hired a "government bureaucat."
When it comes to government IT in 2013, GitHub may have surpassed Twitter and Facebook as the most interesting social network.
GitHub’s profile has been rising recently, from a Wired article about open source in government, to its high profile use by the White House and within…
If followers can sponsor updates on Facebook, social advertising has a new horizon
The frequency of sponsored posts looks set to grow.
This week, I found that one of my Facebook updates received significantly more attention that others I’ve posted. On the one hand, it was a share of an important New York Times story focusing on the first time a baby was cured of HIV. But I discovered something that went beyond the story itself: someone who was not…
Untangling algorithmic illusions from reality in big data
Kate Crawford argues for caution and care in data-driven decision making.
Microsoft principal researcher Kate Crawford (@katecrawford) gave a strong talk at last week’s Strata Conference in Santa Clara, Calif. about the limits of big data. She pointed out potential biases in data collection, questioned who may be excluded from it, and hammered home the constant need for context in conclusions. Video of her talk is embedded below:
Crawford explored…
