“Internet of Things” (IoTs) has been broadly applied in various industries for decades.Civic IoTs is one of the fields practicing this technology. The concept of civic IoTs specifically refers to IoTs that mainly assist citizens by monitoring building safety, mitigating the impact of natural disasters, or helping farmers to detect the change of environments, etc.
OCF is collaborating with groups around the world and Taiwanese businesses to help local communities install and operate open-source environmental sensors. We are sending waterboxes and airboxes from Taiwan to oversea communities and providing training on how to install and monitor the devices. These devices will generate open access data to empower communities to understand their local environment and how it is changing over time.
OCF, via project “Civic Sense”, is dedicated to encouraging more communities to adopt open-source sensors by demonstrating the importance of civic IoTs and the influence of open access data. By applying open source design and development, the possibility of research, modification and redistribution of civic IoTs is maximized. Consequently Civic Sense accelerates localization of civic IoTs to fit the local need and infrastructure availability.
At the same time, the collaboration model in this project is committed to developing towards an "Inclusive Business Partnership". Through integrated collaboration, reaching bilateral complementation by the skills and resources exchanges among commercial companies and NGOs, forming transformative relationship models and exerting influence to solve the key development challenges of our generation, thereby achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
We believe the power of international public-private collaboration will promote open source adaptation and increase environmental awareness. By promoting the collaboration between Taiwan manufacturers and open source communities, we expect to allow more global civic tech organizations to purchase sensors with reasonable prices.
Learn more about our partner communities below.
EnSense Co., Ltd. provides total solutions with environmental sensing equipment as the core. EnSense integrates and applies real-time sensing data by combining IoTs technology, cloud platforms, and provides installation & maintenance services. EnSense also develops innovative technology with abundant experience, combined with big data analysis, as a decision-making application choice. According to customer needs, EnSense provide one-stop sensing services with diverse usage scenarios. Businesses include: smart poles, smart motion detection, noise monitoring, flood monitoring, and gate monitoring.
https://www.ensensetech.com/zh-tw/
Cameo Co., Ltd. was established in June 2000. Comeo is committed to big data mining, data cleaning, data analysis, AI, data animation, visualized intelligent analysis information system, AR/VR, immersive projection, motion capture and technological art, etc. Through Design Thinking, Cameo figures out key factors of experience design, helps customers to present value and tells influential stories.
https://cameo.tw/tw/
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is a membership-based network of organizations and activists, founded in 1990, to empower individuals, organizations and social movements to use information and communications technologies (ICTs) to build strategic communities to contribute to equitable human development, social justice, participatory political processes and environmental sustainability.
APC's value and uniqueness come from the local perspectives and contact with grassroots organizations that we gain from our members and the fact that we operate as a truly virtual, international organization.
https://www.apc.org/
Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) is an international engineering and management institute established in 1959 in Thailand. AIT focuses on three major education fields: engineering, environment and management. AIT has outstanding performance in civil engineering, environmental science and information-related fields. OCF collaborates with the telemetry and geo-information project team of AIT. We not only implement air quality sensing on the AIT campus, but also adopt the experience of cooperating with the Thai public sector to distribute affordable air quality sensing systems in Bangkok urban areas.
https://ait.ac.th/
Bangkok is the capital and largest city of Thailand. Unlike other local governors in Thailand who are centrally designated, the Bangkok City Government is one of the two cities in Thailand where the mayor is directly elected by citizens. When the current mayor took office, he stated that the electronic government would be his priority, and Taiwan's multiple electronic government platforms would be their reference examples. Current BMA also expresses the concept of " Open Bangkok '' as a main policy. Bangkok city government currently focuses on issues of public concern such as clean government, water management, road safety and street vendor control.
https://www.bangkok.go.th/
i-bitz Co., Ltd. is a geographical information consulting company located in Thailand that focuses on geoinformatics technology and geographic information systems. In the past 15 years, i-bitz has achieved many successful cases in cooperation with public sectors, covering the spectrums of network geospatial information processing and mobile spatial information technology. Associated sectors include Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), Thailand Budget Bureau, Thai National Bureau of Statistics and 1o other government agencies. i-bitz Co., Ltd. is also a member of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).
https://i-bitz.co.th/
AT Technology Anywhere Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as ATA) was established in 2019 in Bangkok. Business of ATA covers smart cities, automatic incident detection, perimeter defense, public safety, data centers, cloud solutions and many other projects. The company also cooperates with public agencies such as the Thailand Industrial Park Authority and the Thai Social Security Office.
https://www.atanywhere.co.th/
The Society for the Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment, Kerala (SPACE Kerala) is a registered society that has members from academia, the IT industry, professional societies such as IEEE and Computer Society of India, and the IT Administration of the Government of Kerala. The vision of SPACE is to promote the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in academics, governance, corporate and individual use, and to support the use of FOSS for employment generation in Kerala.
OCF worked with SPACE Kerala to improve water quality monitoring in the Nallathanni River in Munnar, Kerala State to examine the effect of commercial establishments and solid waste dumping yards in the upstream. OCF provided the LASS devices, which are fully open source and open hardware, allowing SPACE to modify the source code and send the data to a local open data platform, and even hack the device to add additional/new modules if desired. By this means, SPACE could ensure the devices fit the local needs and obtain fully controlled.
https://www.space-kerala.org/
The Media Awareness and Justice Initiative (MAJI) is the culmination of a number of years of disparate participatory media, ICT, and capacity building training for marginalized groups and indigenous communities. MAJI uses low-cost human centered design and FLOSS technologies to democratize information dissemination, increase awareness and provide the platform for sustainable interactions between target groups. MAJI focuses on environmental, human, gender and digital rights.
OCF collaborated with MAJI to bridge MAJI’s Sootmap Project and our Civic Sense project. OCF provided airboxes, related installations and instructions to MAJI to help them obtain pm2.5 data in a region seriously lacking available data.
https://www.majinigeria.org/
Events
2023/09/21
Contributor
:
Dongpo Deng
Dongpo Deng
How can the internet of things (IoT) be used to promote environmental justice? On Thursday, 21 September, APC will dedicate its monthly EcoThursday initiative to exchanges around this issue through our social media and platforms. We'll be joined by Open Culture Foundation (Taiwan), Media Awareness and Justice Initiative (Nigeria) and Colnodo (Colombia), who will be sharing their experiences at a local and regional level, from using data to monitor air quality to working with community networks, governments and other stakeholders in advancing environmental justice.
2023/09/15
Contributor
:
Dongpo Deng
Dongpo Deng
,
Leaf Tseng
葉子
,
Wei-Chen Lim
weichen
In addition to sharing experiences, OCF also provides opportunities for implementation. The “IoT Sensors and Data (Hands-on)” workshop held on the next day of the forum presented the data-related application of Taiwan's civic IoTs. In practice, the OCF executive team designed several exercises, such as data cleaning, basic data analysis, and AI application for data cleaning and labeling, so that participants had better understanding about Taiwan's civic IoTs on the aspect of structures and techniques.
2023/09/14
Contributor
:
Dongpo Deng
Dongpo Deng
,
Leaf Tseng
葉子
,
Wei-Chen Lim
weichen
By hosting this forum in Thailand, OCF allowed international partners and overseas local organizations (including Thai non-profit organizations, government sectors, etc.) to have a better understanding of Taiwan’s civic IoTs solutions and achievements of promotion , as well as Taiwan’s progress in smart cities. In addition, this forum also enabled Taiwanese manufacturers and participating local organizations to jointly design and implement overseas field verification plans
2023/08/25
Contributor
:
Singing Li
singing
,
Wei-Chen Lim
weichen
,
Leaf Tseng
葉子
This event serves as a platform to connect attendees, enabling networking and project sharing, particularly focusing on IoT sensors for environmental monitoring enabled advocacy. Discussions will encompass environmental Open Data projects, especially those related to real-time air and water quality insights. The event will also introduce OCF's upcoming Thailand event. Attendees are urged to bring their insights, experiences, and queries regarding IoT's role in environmental sustainability.
2021/10/06
Contributor
:
Dongpo Deng
Dongpo Deng
,
Singing Li
singing
,
Leaf Tseng
葉子
,
Sam Robbins
翔鈞
Following the previous event, OCF held another webinar to understand attending communities, discuss their future plan with civic IoTs, in the meanwhile, explore the possibility of collaboration.
2021/09/09
Contributor
:
Dongpo Deng
Dongpo Deng
,
Singing Li
singing
,
Leaf Tseng
葉子
,
Sam Robbins
翔鈞
OCF is dedicated to encouraging more communities to adopt open-source sensors by demonstrating the importance of civic IoTs and the influence of open access data. By using open source design and development, the possibility of research, modification and redistribution of civic IoTs is maximized. Consequently Civic Sense accelerates localization of civic IoTs to fit the local need and infrastructure availability.
