Crowdsolving Complex Problems

In the evolving landscape of master-planned communities, strategic decisions about amenities and infrastructure are traditionally made by a few, often based on assumptions about what residents might want. But what if we could democratize this process and let residents actively shape their community's future? Our latest paper, " Democratizing Strategic Planning in Master-Planned Communities ," presents a cutting-edge tool designed to do exactly that. Using data from brief online surveys, this tool captures residents' preferences on various large-scale projects—whether it's a new park, recreation center, or road expansion. The result? A detailed ranking of potential plans based on anticipated utilization, cost sensitivity, and risk assessment.  created for this post with ImageFX What makes this tool powerful is its foundation in utility theory, incorporating exponential models to reflect diminishing returns on investments in quality, cost, and risk mitigation. In e...

With the rise of crowdsourcing and the increasing popularity of platforms that allow individuals to collaborate and share information (knowingly or unknowingly), it's important to consider how these tools can be leveraged to advance health and medicine.  Crowdsourcing is used in medical research for clinical data collection, data analysis and clinical trials, as well as to crowdfund biomedical research.  The ‘crowd’, or large numbers of people, can be used to contribute knowledge inputs (and expert inputs in particular) to solve complex problems. Extreme citizen science and  quantified-self  movement would provide valuable data and insights. However, since active participation is limited, passive methods are more commonly used. Passive crowdsourcing refers to the process of collecting data or information from individuals without their explicit knowledge or consent, typically through the use of tracking technologies such as cookies or by analyzing data from...