Lab Notes - October edition

The October edition of Lab Notes brings together a selection of reads for public sector and social innovators, from the present and future of innovation labs, to digital identity in India, to restoring trust in government.

This month's key lab picks

#1. The UN Foundation’s Data2X has whittled down 125 proposals to announce the ten winners of its Big Data for Gender Challenge. Initiatives range from using Facebook data to measure the gender gap in internet access, to improving women’s access to mobility services in Chile.

#2. Amid talk that we’ve reached “peak lab”, the UNDP and Nesta gather their thoughtsabout the present and future of innovation labs. Plus, an interview with Swedish innovation agency Vinnova about the concept of “Reality Labs”.

#3. Whether we’ve reached “peak lab” or not, policy labs are still emerging in governments across the world. Sarah Worthing writes for SSIR about how policy labs can enable better intra-governmental collaboration.

#4. Universal Basic Income (UBI) has become a hotter topic than ever in 2017. This podcast from NPR discusses how UBI can work in practice.

#5. The Indian government's biometric database, Aadhaar, has received praise and criticism since its inception. As fears mount about surveillance and cybersecurity, Aadhaar is now being challenged in the Supreme Court.

#6. In Paraguay, the Fundación Paraguaya has developed a new tool to measure poverty in a way that’s useful to people living poverty. Read the DIY Toolkit’s interview with the NGO.

#7. The team at Making All Voices Count have had a busy month, publishing reports on topics including open mapping, youth engagement in accountability initiatives, ICT for citizen engagement and legal empowerment of citizens.

#8. Public trust in government is lower than ever. A new collection of essays from the Open Government Partnership explores the reasons behind this and possible solutions.

#9. Empowerment is one path towards increasing trust in government. The Sunlight Foundation has just released a guide to facilitate better use of open data through collaboration with communities.

#10. We’re making headway on the Sustainable Development Goals, but we have a long way to go. To accelerate progress, the UN has set up the P4G Accelerator to bring together different stakeholders and support sustainable development.

#11. A new report from the GovLab explores how governments and civil society can make use of the vast amounts of data collected through social media to deliver social impact.