James Holston will discuss the Social Apps Lab that he and Greg Niemeyer (Art Practice and New Media Studies) created in 2011 at UC Berkeley. The Lab focuses on developing interactive mobile and web applications that engage issues of urban citizenship and direct democracy.  It uses social science – especially anthropological investigation – and aspects of gameplay to identify social problems that apps can productively address by reformulating the terms of democratic assembly and civic motivation.  Among its various project during the past two years, the Social Apps Lab is building an application to promote crowdsourced initiatives to combat dengue fever called “Dengue Torpedo:A Community-Based Interactive Web and Cellphone Application for Dengue Vector Control”.  The lab is currently developing this project in Brazil and Mexico with the support of international funding and scientific collaboration.