This section contains a selection of projects I've been playing a main role in. A list of current engagements is available here.
Did you know that consent is actually a really tough question when it comes to architecture of government systems? One of the major contributors is unfortunately that most people get it wrong from the beginning.
Manifesting a best-practice for consent is a core motivation for the members of the GovStack Consent working group. Its output is specification for a consent system that can handle the human and legal aspects of consent.
https://govstack.gitbook.io/bb-consent/
Before joining a GovStack on Consent, I started to dig into how to handle consent in a way that resembles Privacy by Design and Privacy by Default.
This project has bee dormant 2021-2023, but is coming back to life after a Consent Building Block specification from GovStack was released.
https://github.com/django-denmark/django-consent
In 2008, I started django-simplewiki, which developed into django-wiki by sponsorship of MIT/edX. The project has been alive since then, and it should be able to maintain a decent level as a "batteries included" core application of Django.
The vision is to create a project that's more than a prototype, but represents incremental improvement and is something that's reliable enough to base other long-term projects on.
http://github.com/django-wiki/django-wiki
During the pandemic, it was pretty hard to figure out how to do projects with a real impact.
But through gathering a coalition from the Computer Science Department of Copenhagen University and the ICT Department Mzuzu University, we managed to facilitate a process that had a grant from the SIGKDD Impact Program.
It forged a new community of Data Science experts in Malawi, as well as bringing life to a new Python community through a Python Week of Code, a concept transferred from Python Namibia.
Benjamin Bach, master thesis, IT University of Copenhagen, 2013
Abstract: I present a novel software development approach which is a synthesis of co-realization and rapid development methods. Analysis of this hybrid through a case study reveals several strengths when applied to smaller software projects. The method demonstrates cost efficiency, but implies a high degree of uncertainty regarding how to limit and facilitate the pre-analysis process and thus how to arrive at a construction phase. In the case study, the risks for the participants, implied by the experimental development approach, did not cause failure of the software project.
Rather, the design space, created by rapid development and IT facilitation, meant that information for design decisions was easy to obtain, and even resulted in features outside of the initial project scope. Furthermore, my participation as IT facilitator at a strategic level of the organization meant that the new IT system and organizational practices were aligned.
Most of my work revolves around computer reuse because I consider the mis-production and mis-use of ICT one of the biggest challenges that I can address as an ICT professional. By this, I mean that far too many people and companies replace their equipment prematurely, and far too little attention is given to the value and possibilities of having durable equipment rather than cheap disruption full of planned obsolescence.
In addition to that, FAIR works with the idea of equal access to knowledge, education, and the tools needed for this.
The end-result is that we collect the most easily accessible and high-quality fraction of e-waste in order to repurpose this for education.
ToughRoad was an educational, live role-playing and digital simulation game. It focuses on the global trade of coffee. I've made the digital platform, including a simulation of futures exchange.
It has been played with >5,000 students in Denmark, ~1,500 students in Norway, and premiered in Sweden where it's to roll out soon.
This means that as a software, it has endured for long-term support and a broad adaptation, not least multilingual.
The challenges in this project are the compromises between technical details and pedagogy, meaning that students have to acquire all their knowledge about the rules of coffee trade while they play. Thus, demands for user interaction are fairly high, although lots of work done in terms of printed materials and instructor training has been an essential key.
Video about the project: https://vimeo.com/166110955
