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Technology + Social Change = 2014 Resolutions that Make a Difference!

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Last year we rung in the New Year with  “One Click Resolutions”. 2014 brings with it a clean slate, a fresh list of resolutions we intend to fulfill. Why not incorporate technology and create some social change this year?

If you like millions of others are planning on working out, losing weight and generally being healthier, than I have an app for you. CharityMiles allows users to earn money for charity when you walk, run, or bike. Bikers earn 10¢ a mile and walkers and runners earn 25¢ a mile. Ending hunger is an issue that is very important to me, so I downloaded this free app and selected Feeding America as my charity of choice. The Capital Area Food Bank is also a great non-profit to support. Tuvel had the privilege of partnering with them in 2013 to help make a difference in the lives of those suffering from hunger.

Maybe working out is not on your resolution radar. For some it may be carving out time to volunteer. Whether you have five minutes, a few hours or weeks to dedicate, Create the Good is a great resource that connects you with volunteer opportunities to share your life experiences, skills and passions in your community. Idealist.org and VolunteerMatch also offer a variety of volunteer opportunities.

For others the resolution may be expanding horizons, more time with friends and family or trying new foods. Whatever it is, there is new geo-location app to try that has “do- gooder” twist, Check-in for Good. This app connects your social networking with fundraising and enables users to support causes. A simple check-in to your favorite places such as coffee shops, restaurants, sporting events and more generates a micro- donation to a great cause.

And for those who are still on quest to figure out your resolutions, why not use a search engine for change? Bene is an online platform and community dedicated to transforming a $50+ billion search industry into pure good. You can also try Dailygood. Use this site for everyday activities like searching the web, playing online games, shopping, dining out and more and raise money for your favorite charity.

If you are interested in discovering more about social initiatives and technology check out The Tool Box. This is a new platform for tools aiding social change. Here you can find the latest articles and apps that are making a difference.

What social change apps or technology are you planning on using this year?

1105 FOSE Meet-Up: Cybersecurity, Cloud Technology and Social Media

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We participated in a great onsite meeting at FOSE 2013 with top notch leaders in the information technology community. This guest post from CTOVision recaps the insights and discussions on the importance of cybersecurity, cloud technology and social media. The original posting of this blog can be found here.

1105 FOSE Meet-Up: Cybersecurity, Cloud Technology and Social Media

Guest post from CTO Vision

1105 Media Group, organizers of the FOSE and GovSec Conferences & Expos, hosted an FOSE 2013 Blogger & Speaker Meet-up on Wednesday, May 15 at FOSE.

I always look forward to the blogger meetups at events, because they offer a chance to get some visibility on other tracks or key points you’ve missed. It was a varied group. We had folks from all walks of life who work in the cyber realm, and the breadth of experience added to the conversation.

This meet-up included influencers, Ajay Budhraja, Chief Technology Officer, EOIR at the United States Department of Justice, Gadi Ben-Yehuda, Director of Innovation and Social Media for  IBM  Center for The Business of Government, Andrew Scott, Social Media Coordinator at Carahsoft Technology Corp.  Paul DeSoza, CEO of  CSFI, Sayngeun Phouamkha, VP of Business Development at  CSFI. Lindy Kyzer, Editor at  Clearance Jobs,  Erik Johnson from DC Gov and Michael Russell .

Right now the federal government is going through an incredible IT transformation. They are moving from IT as a way of getting work done, into IT as a strategic asset for business. The federal government is adopting today’s trends; mobility, agility and open APIs that are opening up federal IT and making it more functional and delivering more to our citizens.

Much of the talk focused on open data and data access. We talked extensively about the increasing amount of noise in the ether. From the deluge of tweets, to the host of open data released by governments it is becoming harder and harder to identify the signal. Paul De Souza of CSFI has created an open-source intelligence operating center for the CSFI that uses Silobreaker to create their own operating picture, and to create their own intelligence products. They also use the TVEyes capability to monitor TV streams from their smart devices, increasing their awareness of what discussions are occurring in the world.

We also discussed how data is driving government, and see OSINT and other capabilities de-silo’ing the data. However, this led into the conversation of how the government can lessen the impact of social media providing valuable OSINT to our adversaries. Ajay brought up the importance of cloud data, policy and accessibility. While some organizations have social media policies, a government-wide policy that clearly states social media policies could be beneficial. parental blocker Limited access to social media could also benefit the government and limit exposure. While social media can be a great asset to the citizenship of the country, we must be cautious that it does not endanger those citizens.

To access the full program agenda and find out about FOSE 2014, visit www.fose.com.

 

About CTOVision.com
At CTOvision.com we write about technology, with a focus on technology of relevance to enterprise technologists. The blog was founded by Bob Gourley, CTO of Crucial Point, a high tech consultancy. We also publish technology concepts and evals at our sister site CTOlabs.com.

 

Our premier publication is our monthly technology review. Every month we send

this to over 12000 technology thought leaders. This monthly summarizes reporting from the CTOvision.com blog as well as tech trends from the IT industry. The monthly also provide links to our technology assessments. Other products include our Daily CTOvision.com summary, the Daily Fedcyber.com summary, and the Weekly Government Big Data Newsletter.

 

1105 Meet-Up: Sequestration & Government Events, Mobile & Government Workforce

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We participated in a great meeting with top notch leaders in the information technology community. With all the buzz around sequestration and  potential effects on events, we thought this was a timely piece. This guest post from GovEvents recaps the insights and discussions. The original posting of this blog can be found here.

 

1105 Meet-Up: Sequestration & Government Events, Mobile & Government Workforce

Vienna, VA—1105 Media Group, organizers of the FOSE and GovSec Conferences & Expos, hosted a FOSE 2013 Blogger & Speaker Meet-up Thursday, March 21 at 1105 Media Group offices in Vienna, VA. Invitation-only and held specifically for government technology influencers, the FOSE 2013 Blogger & Speaker Meet-up is the fifth in an ongoing series of high-level meetings, where FOSE speakers and bloggers are given an opportunity to discuss significant topics including sequestration and government events, mobile and the government workforce, cybersecurity and more.

This meet-up included influencers Brand Niemann, Ph.D., Director and Senior Enterprise Architect – Data Scientist at Semantic Community, Ghadi Ben-Yehuda,  Director of Innovation and Social Media for IBM Center for The Business of Government., Brad Barker, Director of Professional Services at Master Key Consulting and Young AFCEANs  National Capitol Region President , Ajay Budhraja, Chief Technology Officer, EOIR at the United States Department of Justice, and Nick Wakeman, Editor-in-Chief at Washington Technology. The meet-up was also attended by representatives from the Capital Area Food Bank and GovEvents.

 

After brief introductions, the topic of sequestration and government events was first to arise. Program Manager for GovEvents, Stacie Flynn, provided details on how the government events industry is currently being affected by sequestration. She noted that while sequestration will not help the already ailing events industry due to travel restrictions and continued backlash of conference overspending, only a few conferences have been cancelled since it actually took effect on March 1. Stacie also announced that GovEvents will soon be rolling out a new program aimed at assisting event organizers with delivering content through a virtual conferencing platform (keep an eye out for details!).

This announcement led into a discussion of virtual conferences and webcasts, praising them for their cost-cutting abilities, while also sharing the challenges of online events, such as lack of interaction and captivation of viewers. In brainstorming, the group came up with several ways webcasts and virtual conferences could be enhanced to create an extensive engagement span of viewers:

  • Create ways to multi-task within the webcast/virtual forum—many people will gravitate to email or other tasks while participating in a webcast.
  • Change the value proposition of what attendees expect to gain from the webcast/virtual forum.
  • Speakers–get right to the point! Too much ‘pipe-laying’ causes distraction to come easily to the viewer.

The topic of mobile and the government workforce was headed up by Ghadi Ben-Yehuda from IBM Center for The Business of Government, discussing the upside of mobile’s flexibility—allowing professionals to work virtually from anywhere, at any time. However, it was noted by others in the room that the flexibility mobile allows becomes a management priority when employees telework regularly. Proper training and management of both managers and employees was deemed the ultimate key to a sound teleworking staff.

Be sure to stop by GovEvents booth at FOSE 2013, May 14-16 in DC!

GovEvents is the premier web portal for all Government & Military events worldwide.