Centre for Internet and Society

International Space Apps Challenge

praskrishna — 2012-04-10T05:18:14Z

The International Space Apps Challenge is an international codeathon-style event that will take place over a 48 hour period in cities on all seven continents – and in space – on the weekend of April 21-22, 2012. The event embraces collaborative problem solving with a goal of producing solutions to global challenges. The Centre for Internet & Society is organising the event in Bangalore.

Background

On September 20, 2011, President Obama, together with other heads of state, endorsed the principles of the Open Government Partnership – a new multilateral initiative to promote transparency, participation and collaboration between governments and citizens. Since then, 52 countries have joined the global partnership.

NASA is working with organizations around the world on the International Space Apps Challenge as part of the United States’ domestic commitment to the Open Government Partnership.

How it Works?

Participants such as concerned citizens, discipline experts, engineers, scientists, and software code developers attend events hosted in cities around the world. At these events, individuals collaborate with others by forming teams focused on solving a particular challenge. The teams compete with other teams around the world to utilize publicly available data to design innovative “solutions” to a pre-determined series of global “challenges.” The challenges are collected prior to the event from supporting organizations.

Challenges

Challenges are grouped into four broad categories:

Software Development
Open Hardware
Citizen Science Platforms!
Data Visualization!

It’s not just about smart phone applications! The International Space Apps.

Challenge will provide solutions that:

Address strategic exploration needs!
Address strategic social needs (life on Earth)

To date, 50+ challenges have been submitted. These challenges are being vetted with development communities such as the Yahoo! Developer Network to refine them prior to the event.

Benefits

Some benefits of the International Space Apps Challenge include:

Visible demonstration of a government’s interest in using publicly available data, in partnership with others, to address global needs.
Opportunity for citizens in countries with little or no investment in space exploration to contribute to space exploration through open source, open data, and code development.
Promotion of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education by encouraging students from around the world to utilize publicly available data for solutions to global challenges.
Encouragement of international partnership and mutual understanding.
Demonstration of commitment to the principles of the Open Government Partnership.

Sample Event Agenda

	Saturday, April 21
09:00	Registration
10:00	Schedule and logistics announcements
10:30	Subject Matter Expert briefing
11:00	Begin developing
12:30	Lunch break 13:30 Developing continued
16:30	Optional progress briefing, more developing
18:30	Dinner break
20:00	More developing
	Sunday, April 22
10:00	Logistics briefing & updates
10:15	Begin developing
12:00	Submission Deadline
12:00	Lunch break
13:30	Presentations
15:00	Judges Voting
15:30	Awards
16:00	Post event social

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the International Space Apps Challenge?
The International Space Apps Challenge is a 2 day technology development event during which citizens from around the world will work together to solve current challenges relevant to both space exploration and social need.
When will it take place?
The International Space Apps Challenge will take place on all seven continents – and in space - on 21-22 April 2012.
Who is leading the Challenge?
On September 20, 2011, President Obama, together with other heads of state, endorsed the principles of the Open Government Partnership – a new multilateral initiative to promote transparency, participation and collaboration between governments and citizens. Since then, 52 countries have joined the global partnership. NASA is working with other organizations around the world on the International Space Apps Challenge as part of the United States’ domestic commitments to the Open Government Partnership.
Who can participate in the Challenge?
Anyone can participate in the International Space Apps Challenge. It requires individuals with a broad range of skills. We are looking for engineers, technologists, scientists, designers, artists, educators, students, entrepreneurs – anyone who has a passion for changing the world and is willing to contribute.
Why should I participate in the Challenge?
You should participate in the Challenge because the toughest challenges of the world are not one nation’s alone, and this is a unique opportunity to develop technology to reach the human race and make the world a better place. Additionally, the Challenge is an opportunity to:
1. Demonstrate a commitment to the principles of the Open Government Partnership.
2. Exercise a government’s interest in using open data and technology, in partnership with others, to address global needs.
3. Engage citizens in countries with little or no investments in space exploration to contribute to space exploration through open source, open data, and code development.
4. Promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education by encouraging students from around the world to utilize open technology for solutions to global challenges.
5. Encourage international partnership and mutual understanding.
What challenges will be addressed at the event?
Challenges are in development from a wide variety of sources inside and outside of NASA. An initial set has been posted on the site and the community is invited to help develop them collaboratively there. New challenges will continue to be added on a weekly basis in anticipation of the event. To discuss contributing additional challenges or datasets, contact alicia.llewellyn-1@nasa.gov.
Where will the Challenge take place?
Locations in which events are currently planned to be held include San Francisco, US; Tokyo, Japan; Melbourne and Canberra, Australia; Jakarta, Indonesia; Exeter and Oxford, UK; Nairobi, Kenya; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and McMurdo Station, Antarctica. There will be additional events throughout the world and participation by astronauts on the International Space Station.
What is a codeathon?
A codeathon is a unique event that brings together citizens interested in collaborating on the development solutions that address critical challenges. A codeathon celebrates software development in its most positive context—using minimal resources and maximum brainpower to create outside- the-box solutions in response to interesting problems. Codathons are technology development marathons, drawing on the talents and initiative of the best and the brightest software developers, engineers, designers and technologists from around the world, who volunteer their time to respond to real- world problems with solutions than can have immediate impact. The International Space Apps Challenge is a “codeathon-style” event.
Is the event limited to just software development?
No! Participants in the event will collaborate to build software, open hardware, data visualization, and citizen science platform solutions that contribute to space exploration and solve global challenges that focus on improving life on earth.
What happens at the event?
At the events, individuals collaborate with others by forming teams focused on solving a particular challenge. The teams compete with other teams around the world to utilize publicly available space and data to design innovative “solutions” to a pre- determined series of global “challenges.”
What about licensing and IP rights?
All solutions built at the event must be submitted under a license that permits the free and open dissemination of the work. NASA and the other supporting organizations do not own the rights to nor are committed to utilize any solution developed during the event.
Who organizes the events in each city?
Each event is led as a collaboration between organizations who work together to host an event, mobilize the developer community and contribute to the overall success of the International Space Apps Challenge.
How can organizations get involved?
There is still an opportunity to participate in the International Space Apps Challenge and contribute to an event in your country. We are looking for organizations who are interested in supporting events in cities around the world, as well as for subject matter experts who can share their expertise at the event, either in person or remotely. To express interest in supporting an event in your country, contact elizabeth.sabet@secondmuse.com or kristen.m.painting@nasa.gov

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/international-space-apps-challenge

JNU - Receipt of RTI, request for payment - 26.3.15.pdf

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JNU - Replies to RTI - 24.2.15.pdf

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JNU - Reply and report - 10.3.15.pdf

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IIT KGP - Minutes of meeting in 2006.pdf

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IIT KGP - Proposal for operationalization of IPR Chairs.pdf

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IIT KGP - Release of grant in aid - 11.5.06.pdf

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Utilization

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Utilization

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Ravi Shankar Prasad

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Ravi Shankar Prasad

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DU.pdf

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Map

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Map

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Tweet

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Tweet

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The Nehru you don’t know

praskrishna — 2016-05-15T13:40:23Z

Even as India's first PM is scrubbed out from textbooks, his reputation is being savaged on the internet.

The article by Amulya Gopalakrishnan was published by the Times of India on May 15, 2016. Pranesh Prakash gave inputs.

Jawahar, the Arabic word for pearl, could not have been chosen by any Kashmiri Brahmin as a name for his child.
Jawaharlal Nehru's grandfather was Ghiasuddin Ghazi, a kotwal of the Mughals, who changed his name to Gangadhar Nehru.
Nehru was born in a brothel in Allahabad.
Nehru got a Catholic nun pregnant, and was indebted to the church for spiriting her away from India. He died of syphilis.
Amitabh Bachchan is his son.

Welcome to the virtual world of Nehru vilification. Entirely unhinged from reality, these wild stories about India's first prime minister, who laid the foundations of its democracy, are nonetheless the default on the internet. Unlike the academic challenge of changing details in textbooks, the Web is a terrain for the taking. "Anything that questions dominant historical views is going to find visibility and virality online," says digital media scholar Nishant Shah.

Crackpot stories about Nehru have circulated for decades - for instance, former RSS chief K S Sudarshan has claimed that Nehru killed Gandhi. But "these are voices that never made it to the mainstream. Now, because there is such a preponderance of them online, these rumours take on a life of their own," says Rohit Chopra, media studies professor at Santa Clara University, who works on online Hindutva. This is particularly problematic because for many people now, reality is what they can find through Google, he says.

Nehru, of course, is highest on the list of hate objects for Hindutva extremists. "After Partition, and even more after Gandhi's murder, Nehru was convinced that India must not in any circumstances become a Hindu Pakistan. He saw the RSS as dangerous because of its demonising of minorities, and repeatedly and publicly attacked it," says historian Ramachandra Guha.

And the RSS continues to attack him right back. The hegemony of his ideas, and the persistence of his bloodline are both intolerable to them. "Indira's, Rajiv's, Sanjay's, Sonia's and Rahul's mistakes (real or imagined) are retrospectively attached to Nehru," says Guha.

On YouTube, a search for Nehru throws up smear after smear. The first, declaring him "Hindustan ka sabse ayyash aadmi", was watched 40,16,640 times at last count. These stories lay bare the campaign against him — Nehru must be cast as Muslim, westernised and dissolute, to discredit him. To establish him as a philanderer, there is a patchwork of images of Nehru at innocuous moments, with Jacqueline Kennedy and Mrinalini Sarabhai, embracing his sister at the airport, lighting a woman's cigarette.

Last year, Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society, caught sneaky edits to the Wikipedia entries of Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru, emanating from a central government IP address. Recently, a patently fake and misspelt "historical" letter did the rounds, where Nehru supposedly described Subhas Chandra Bose as a war criminal.

The right wing has mastered the arts of seeding misinformation, says Shah. Their claims do not come from one author, but from many different users, each adding layers to the rumours. Then, he says, "It is a matter of faith through repetition, rather than truth through inquiry".

While such conspiracy theories sprout all around the world, in India, they dominate search results, says Prakash. Apart from forums that rationally disagree with Nehruvian economics, foreign policy or defence, or make credible assertions about his positions, there are voices that simply slander Nehru. "Many kinds of right-wing animosities, economic, cultural and those that are reacting to the actions of the Nehru Gandhi family, come together in this attack," observes Prakash.

These ideas have also taken root, to some extent. A startup employee unconnected to any political party recently set up a Twitter handle called Nehruvian, trying to counter such propaganda. He explains why he was stirred into action - "On a train to Lucknow, I was reading The Discovery of India, when a young man in his twenties asked me, "kyon padh rahe ho is chor ki kitaab?"

And yet, there is no way to counter motivated rumours, short of undesirable censorship. Propaganda is a legitimate activity, and any rebuttal is also likely to be confined to its own echo chamber, Shah points out. Rather, what is needed is a new digital literacy, the "capacity to sift trustworthy information, to look critically at the sources they come from", says Prakash.

As for Nehru, it may not be easy for textbook warriors of keyboard guerrillas to dislodge him. If after 52 years, there's still so much panic about his legacy, there must be something very durable about it."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/times-of-india-amulya-gopalakrishnan-may-15-2016-the-nehru-you-dont-know