Dear Yaw and the rest of the ODK team,
Thanks for this inspiring history of ODK. I knew most of it but learned a
lot anyway, and it was really moving to read it. Iโll throw out a few
questions as well, but no need to answer them, of course.
Thatโs a great point about how Gaetano was looking ahead, beyond what looked
feasible at the time. I know that is happening still with the UW research
team working on ODK and related topics. Now that smartphones donโt seem so
futuristic, are there new things that you often have to tell the skeptics
will be feasible in the near future if not now?
Youโve been involved in many open source projects. Are there are particular
approaches or attitudes that ODK deliberately adopted or avoided to organize
and support the ODK community. Are there ODK meetings for example?
And of course that is an important principle about technology not being the
solution. These days, do you ever not recommend mobile technology for a data
collection? Are there circumstances where paper is still the best approach
for that? Do you, or others, by chance have other (fun or illustrative)
examples of other types of problems where youโve discouraged the use of ODK
or mobile technology based on this principle.
thanks again!
neal
From: opendatakit@googlegroups.com [mailto:opendatakit@googlegroups.com] On
Behalf Of Christopher Robert
Sent: Tuesday, October 06, 2015 11:23 AM
To: opendatakit@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [ODK Community] Discussion Series: The three principles that
guided ODK's design
Thanks, Yaw!
I have to say that the commitment to open-sourcing -- and, specifically, to
allowing and even encouraging both customization and commercialization --
has been instrumental in allowing us to build atop the ODK foundations and
offer a paid, hosted, supported version of ODK that has empowered hundreds
of users to collect literally millions of submissions in over 50 countries.
A less generous, less permissive approach to open-sourcing would have been
completely understandable -- but would have entirely prevented us from
expanding ODK's reach to an ever growing number of researchers and M&E
professionals.
This commitment to "magnifying human resources through technology" is a goal
that we here at Dobility share wholeheartedly, and it's something we have in
part inherited from Gaetano and the entire ODK team. We're passionate about
getting great technology into the hands of the people for whom it can be
most useful, into the hands of the people closest to real needs on the
ground. From the core ODK platform to the many spin-offs like SurveyCTO,
great data-collection technology has reached a staggering number of people
and met a truly impressive range of needs. None of that would have been
possible without the kind of vision that you describe.
Our entire team here has benefited from (and depended on!) the generosity
and open-mindedness of Gaetano, you, Mitch, and many others in the ODK
community. We're grateful for the opportunities it has created for us and
for our users, and we're grateful for the small part we've been allowed to
play in expanding the social good created by ODK.
Thanks again for getting this discussion started.
All the best,
Chris
Christopher Robert
Dobility, Inc. (SurveyCTO)
http://www.surveycto.com/
http://blog.surveycto.com/
On Mon, Oct 5, 2015 at 2:33 PM Yaw Anokwa yanokwa@nafundi.com wrote:
Hi, I'm Yaw Anokwa.
I was lucky to be there at the beginning of Open Data Kit (ODK), so I
figured I'd kick off the discussion series with a bit of history.
Gaetano Borriello created ODK. It was his idea that started the
project and his focus on researching technology that improves the
lives of the underserved that created this community.
When Carl Hartung, Waylon Brunette, and I started building ODK with
Gaetano in 2008, he had just been diagnosed with cancer. Although he
was given a few months to live, he refused to change course, instead
doubling down on making ODK a reality.
Carl, Waylon, and I were his Ph.D. students at the time and he laid
out three principles to guide ODK's design.
Put mobile data collection on the technology curve
When we started ODK, mobile data collection was not common. Those who
dared to try it had to use one-off systems built on PDAs, feature
phones, or SMS. While this basic technology was sufficient for some
use-cases, these tools couldn't easily capture the rich structured
data (e.g., GPS location, photos and videos, sensor data) that
organizations we had spoken with needed. Moreover, the one-off
approach resulted in wasteful reinvention of the same systems.
The first iPhone had only been out for a year when we started, and
already Gaetano was convinced that smartphones and cloud
infrastructure held the key to better data collection in rural
environments. Most people, myself included, thought such advanced
systems would never work in the field, but Gaetano refused to listen
to the naysayers.
He insisted that Moore's Law meant that everyone would soon have
access to mobile computing, storage, sensors, and connectivity and he
wanted to show that on this new infrastructure, we could build tools
that could help make a difference.
Create open source components that can be composed into appropriate
solutions
Gaetano didn't believe in a "one size fits all" system. He wanted a
set of focused components that could be composed into an appropriate
solution for every domain. He believed that ODK should be a generic
set of tools that built on open standards and open interfaces. Gaetano
did not want data siloed in a monolithic system that was difficult to
understand, extend, or maintain.
Gaetano felt that open sourcing all the tools was the best way to
ensure that users had the ultimate choice and control. With open
source, organizations could always change the software as they saw
fit. And to ensure adoption, he encouraged us to build a vibrant and
supportive community around the tools.
Magnify human resources through technology
Gaetano was a technologist, but he also believed that technology
played a small role in any meaningful intervention. He believed that
our jobs as technologists was to spend time with users, find the most
important problems, and when appropriate, integrate with users to
build technology to help solve those problems. Technology was never
the solution. It was there to magnify the impact of those solving
problems.
So these are the three principles that Gaetano laid out in 2008.
Over the last seven years, the project has grown with contributions
from Nicki Dell, Rohit Chaudhri, Sam Sudar, Nathan Breit, Clint Tseng,
Clarice Larson, Mitch Sundt, and so many of you.
And over those same seven years, Gaetano beat the odds and fought
cancer with his unique brand of optimism. He drew strength from the
global impact that ODK has and continued to be excited about its
future.
I had a chance to sit with Gaetano the day before he passed and we
talked about that future. He asked all of us to continue to do good
work and so perhaps that's the best place to start the discussion.
What good work has ODK enabled you to do? Have the principles the
project started with helped or hurt your efforts?
Yaw Anokwa
CEO, Nafundi
http://nafundi.com
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