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Markus Luczak-Roesch on Navigating a Heterogenous Data Landscape and Legislating for Big Data

May 23, 2016, 12:22 pm
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Data–Pop Alliance has been conducting ongoing research on Big Data, climate change and environmental resilience. With funding from the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID), we published a synthesis report evaluating the opportunities, challenges and required steps for leveraging the new ecosystem of Big Data and its potential applications and implications for climate change and disaster resilience. The report fed into the World Humanitarian Summit to be organized in Istanbul in May 2016.

This is the third podcast in a series of companion pieces that offer insights from the synthesis report.

This companion podcast to the synthesis report “Big Data for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience: Realising the Benefits for Developing Countries,” was funded by UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) was designed to probe experts to speak more about their work and their ideas about the potential and challenges of Big Data.

Titled “Markus Luczak-Roesch on Navigating a Heterogenous Data Landscape and Legislating for Big Data” this podcast features Markus Luczak-Roesch. Markus speaks about his work organizing the heterogeneous mix of data gathered from cell phones, social media, and other sources, and coordinating it flexibly so that the information may flow more easily between parties. He notes the challenges faced when trying to use this heterogeneous data to understand climate and disaster resilience.

Markus Luczak-Roesch (@MLuczak)

    Dr. Markus Luczak-Roesch is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southampton. He is working on the prestigious EPSRC programme grant SOCIAM (The Theory and Practice of Social Machines), a collaboration between the Universities of Oxford, Southampton, and Edinburgh. The SOCIAM project is pioneering methods for supporting purposeful human interaction on the World Wide Web, of the kind exemplified by phenomena such as Wikipedia, the Zooniverse citizen science initiative, and digital disaster response using the Ushahidi platform.
For more on our series:
Listen to the full podcast
Read the summary of the DfID videos and podcasts
Listen to the full playlsit of podcasts
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Big Data for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience: Who Needs to Get Involved to Tap its Potential?

June 2, 2016, 7:42 am
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Data–Pop Alliance has been conducting ongoing research on Big Data, climate change and environmental resilience. With funding from the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID), we published a synthesis report evaluating the opportunities, challenges and required steps for leveraging the new ecosystem of Big Data and its potential applications and implications for climate change and disaster resilience. The report fed into the World Humanitarian Summit to be organized in Istanbul in May 2016.

This is the third video in a series of companion pieces that offer insights from the synthesis report.

This companion video to the synthesis report “Big Data for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience: Realising the Benefits for Developing Countries,” was funded by UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) was designed to probe experts to speak more about their work and their ideas about the potential and challenges of Big Data.

Titled “Big Data for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience: Who Needs to Get Involved to Tap its Potential? ” this video identifies important actors needed at the intersection of Big Data, climate change, and disaster resilience. The video features three experts: Emmanuel Letouzé, Linus, Bengsston, and Bessie Schwarz.

Emmanuel frames Big Data outside of its volume, emphasizing the capacities and communities that are needed to create Big Data as a social phenomenon. Linus points to academic researchers, providers of new types of data, and the operational agencies as the needed actors for Big Data’s potential to be realized for climate change and disaster resilience. Bessie identifies local community as those who need to be involved in the assessment of vulnerability in resilience in those locations in order to produce simple solutions to climate challenges.

Emmanuel Letouzé (@ManuLetouze)

    Emmanuel Letouzé is the Director and co-Founder of Data-Pop Alliance. He is a Visiting Scholar at MIT Media Lab, a Fellow at HHI, a Research Associate at ODI, a Non-Resident Adviser at the International Peace Institute (IPI). His interests are in Big Data and development, economic demography, conflict and fragile states, poverty, migration, official statistics and fiscal policy.

Linus Bengsston (@flowminder)

    Dr. Linus Bengtsson is Executive Director and Co-founder of Flowminder Foundation. He pioneered the use of mobile operator data to monitor population displacement during the 2010 Haiti earthquake and to predict the spread of cholera during the same year in Hati. His academic research at Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, focuses on public health applications of information technology in low-income settings.

Bessie Schwarz (@Bessieschwarz)

    Bessie Schwarz is the Co-Founder of Cloud to Street and a Data-Pop Research Affiliate. She is a political and communications strategist developing innovative methods for engaging and mobilizing citizens on environmental issues. Bessie is currently the Communications and Outreach Director for the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
For more on our series:
Watch the full video
Read the summary of the DfID videos and podcasts
Watch the full playlist of videos
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Big Data for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience: Two Experts on their Work

June 2, 2016, 2:10 pm
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Data–Pop Alliance has been conducting ongoing research on Big Data, climate change and environmental resilience. With funding from the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID), we published a synthesis report evaluating the opportunities, challenges and required steps for leveraging the new ecosystem of Big Data and its potential applications and implications for climate change and disaster resilience. The report fed into the World Humanitarian Summit to be organized in Istanbul in May 2016.

This is the second video in a series of companion pieces that offer insights from the synthesis report.

This companion video to the synthesis report “Big Data for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience: Realising the Benefits for Developing Countries,” was funded by UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) was designed to probe experts to speak more about their work and their ideas about the potential and challenges of Big Data.

Titled “Big Data for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience: Two Experts on their Work,” this video goes into detail about the work of two experts at the intersection of Big Data and climate change and resilience. The video features two experts: Linus Bengsston and Bessie Schwarz.

Linus, a key contributor to the synthesis report, speaks in depth about Flowminder’s work using molbile operator data to follow how data can be used after earthquakes. The work Linus speaks about was a case study selected by DfID and included in the original report. Bessie, a co-author of the synthesis report, speaks of her work at Cloud to Street where she harnessed satellite and social media data to contribute to a better understanding of flood resilience.

Linus Bengsston (@flowminder)

    Dr. Linus Bengtsson is Executive Director and Co-founder of Flowminder Foundation. He pioneered the use of mobile operator data to monitor population displacement during the 2010 Haiti earthquake and to predict the spread of cholera during the same year in Hati. His academic research at Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, focuses on public health applications of information technology in low-income settings.

Bessie Schwarz (@Bessieschwarz)

    Bessie Schwarz is the Co-Founder of Cloud to Street and a Data-Pop Research Affiliate. She is a political and communications strategist developing innovative methods for engaging and mobilizing citizens on environmental issues. Bessie is currently the Communications and Outreach Director for the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
For more on our series:
Watch the full video
Read the summary of the DfID videos and podcasts
Watch the full playlist of videos
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Watch and Listen: “Big Data for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience” Videos and Podcasts

June 10, 2016, 8:25 am
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Data–Pop Alliance has been conducting ongoing research on Big Data, climate change and environmental resilience. With funding from the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID), we published a synthesis report evaluating the opportunities, challenges and required steps for leveraging the new ecosystem of Big Data and its potential applications and implications for climate change and disaster resilience. The report fed into the World Humanitarian Summit to be organized in Istanbul in May 2016.

These video and audio companion pieces offer deeper insights from the synthesis report.

Data-Pop Alliance has produced a set of videos and podcasts as an extension of our synthesis report, “Big Data for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience: Realising the Benefits for Developing Countries,” evaluating the opportunities, challenges and required steps for leveraging the new ecosystem of Big Data to monitor and detect hazards, mitigate their effects, and assist in relief efforts as poor communities become more vulnerable to natural hazards. Funded by the Department for International Development (DfID), the report also addresses potential applications and implications of Big Data for climate change and disaster resilience.

The three videos and seven podcasts were put together in a series titled “Experts Speak.” They were designed to probe experts – including major report contributors and leaders of cited case studies – to speak more about their work, their ideas about the potential of Big Data, major challenges and pitfalls of Big Data, and who should get involved to maximize the use of Big Data in the future. The experts featured in the “Experts Speak” series explain their contributions to the report, while contextualizing and expanding upon the work included in the paper.

The three videos are all available on Data-Pop Alliance’s Youtube Channel. Below is a breakdown of the videos:

1) “Emmanuel Letouzé on Big Data for Climate Change & Disaster Resilience” Featuring Emmanuel Letouzé, Director of Data-Pop Alliance.

2) “Big Data for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience: Two Experts on their Work” Linus Bengtsson, Executive Director of Flowminder Foundation; and Bessie Schwarz, a Data-Pop Research Affiliate and founder of Cloud to Street.

3) “Big Data for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience: Who Needs to Get Involved to Tap its Potential?” Featuring Emmanuel Letouzé, Director of Data-Pop Alliance; Bessie Schwarz, a Data-Pop Research Affiliate; and Linus Bengtsson, Executive Director of Flowminder Foundation.

The podcasts are available on Soundcloud, as well as posted on our website. Below is a list of the podcasters and the topics they discussed:

1. Patrick Vinck, Assistant Professor at Harvard University, Director of HHI’s program for Vulnerable Populations, Co-Director and Co-Founder of Data-Pop Alliance, a synthesis report contributor and reviewer, on Data Breadcrumbs, Who Should Get involved, and Kobo Toolbox

2. Mark Iliffe, Research Fellow at University of Nottingham and author of ‘Big Data for Flood Resilience in East Africa’ on Participatory Geography, Flood Mapping, & Private Enterprise vs. Government Action

3. Markus Luczak-Roesch, Computer Scientist at University of Southampton and author of ‘Inclusiveness in Crowdsourced Disaster Response (INCROWD)’ on Navigating a Heterogeneous Data Landscape and Legislating for Big Data

4. Marion Dumas, PhD in Sustainable Development, Columbia University, Research Affiliate, Data-Pop Alliance, a synthesis report contributor, on “Democratic Data,” Crowdsourcing, and Opportunities and Pitfalls of Big Data

5. Friederike Otto & Mamun Rashid of CPDN, Oxford e-Research Centre, on CPDN, Climate Modeling, and Extreme Weather Events

6. Silke Roth, sociologist at University of Southampton and author of Inclusiveness in Crowdsourced Disaster Response (INCROWD) on Crowdsourcing, Digital Inequalities, and Combining Cultural Knowledge with Big Data

7. Serge Guillas, Reader at Department of Statistical Science, University College London and author of ‘Big Data for Tsunami Hazard Warnings in India’ on Tsunami Hazard Systems in India, Local Action, & Uncertainties

Listen to the full playlist of podcasts
Watch the full playlist of videos
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How Emerging Digital Technologies Can Contribute to Achieving the SDGs for Persons with Disabilities: A Recap of the UN Side Event at the 9th Conference of States Parties to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

June 30, 2016, 5:19 am
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The UN side event, “How Can Digital Information Contribute to Achieving the SDGs for Persons with Disabilities?” at the 9th Conference of States Parties to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, was held on Wednesday, June 15, 2016, 8:00am – 9:30am.

As part of our investigation of how new data sources can contribute to various research areas related to disability, Data-Pop Alliance and the Secretariat for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities formed the UN Working Group on Disability and Digital Societies this past April to explore how new data sources may be useful in informing development efforts for disability. The Working Group presented a draft of a white paper at the side event delineating the potential for digital innovations could provide useful in the advancement of the SDGs and other development initiatives for persons with disabilities.

The event explored how new forms of digital evidence, such as social media or crowdsourced data, could help fill the gap of a lack of data about the situations of PwD and contribute to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for PwD, specifically SDG 4, 8, 10, 11, and 17. Speakers at the Side Event included:

  • Maria Martinho– Social Affairs Officer, UNDESA/DSPD/SCRPD
  • Jason DaSilva– Creator, AXS Map
  • Toshiya Kakiuchi– President, Mirairo INC/Nippon Foundation
  • Derrick L. Cogburn– Associate Professor and Director, IDPP, School of International Service, American University
  • Sunita Grote– Partnership Lead Innovation, UNICEF
  • Jordi Serrano– Consultant, World Health Organization; General Practitioner and Founder/CEO, UniversalDoctor
  • Dorodi Sharma– Advisor to Chairperson, Disabled People’s International
  • Arnt Hotle– Board Member, International Disability Alliance (IDA)
  • Patrick Vinck– Director, Program for Vulnerable Populations, HHI/Co-Founder and Co-Director, Data-Pop Alliance
  • Emmanuel Letouzé– Co-Founder and Director, Data-Pop Alliance

As global figures abut disability are outdated or incomplete, there is a dearth of evidence surrounding persons with disabilities, their rate, and their situation. Discussion at the event centered on alternative sources of information outside of traditional data gathered from censuses or surveys and their potential contribution to fill that lack. Digital technologies, such as AXS Map, AXS School, and Bmaps, apps that map accessibility of facilities and buildings for wheelchair users and others with mobility difficulties, are beginning to emerge as new goldmine for understanding the broader concept of the data ecosystem, development, and disability.

Speakers emphasized the need for collaborations, scaling, and open data sources in innovative technology initiatives for development centered on disability. In gathering the data from these technology initiatives, the CPRD and the SDGS must be kept in mind. This is especially important in developing countries, where 80% of people are disabled, yet knowledge is extremely lacking about persons with disabilities and the information required to reliably inform policy and development work does not exist. In gathering this information, access to employment, goods and services, democracy, and education can be increased for persons with disabilities.

An underlying message of inclusion though digital development echoed throughout the presentation at the Side Event. However, caution was noted surrounding the ethical challenges that could come with using digital information to understand the situation of persons with disabilities. These concerns included privacy, representation, oversampling, and ownership. As the nature of technology continues to change, the voices of persons with disabilities need to be heard at every stage of the transformation.

The side event concluded with a roadmap of what is needed to advance the SDGs for persons with disabilities, which included (1) scoping researcg and pilots, (2) capacity building and awareness raising, (3) policy and community engagements, and (4) funding.

Read and send feedback on the first draft of the white paper here>
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Unleashing Big Data-Driven Innovation and Promoting Responsible Data Governance in a Privacy-Centered Europe: #digitisingEU in Brussels, Berlin, Madrid, and Dublin in partnership with the Vodafone Institute

July 14, 2016, 7:19 am
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This post is a recap of our #digtisingEU events in Brussels, Berlin, and Madrid, and the announcement of the fourth event in Dublin in partnership with the Vodafone Institute.

While governments across Europe have embraced open government initiatives towards greater access and accountability, Big Data has increasingly been viewed as a critical lever of innovation for society. Enthusiasts of the big data revolution underline how big data can help society spot socially valuable insights, unlock new forms of economic value in data and uncover human and social dynamics. Much of the societal usefulness of big data being collected comes from discoveries in alternative uses of passively collected data from companies, such as the use of call details records (CDR) for humanitarian response and disease tracking.

Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland, Professor, MIT; Director of MIT Media Lab’s Human Dynamics Group; Academic Director, Data-Pop Alliance, at digitsing Europe Berlin
Source: Vodafone Institute

Once framed as the “3 V’s” (volume, velocity and variety) in the early 2000s, Big Data has emerged as an ecosystem of “3 C’s”: digital “Crumbs” (digital translations of human actions and interactions captured by digital devices); powerful Capacities to collect, aggregate and analyze data; and Communities of data generators, end users, policymakers, experts, privacy advocates and civic hacker communities involved in generating, governing and using data. Within such an ecosystem of activities and actors, the focus is no longer solely on the collection of government and survey data, but rather the integration of these traditional sources with proprietary, commercial data from the private sector.

Linnet Taylor, Marie Curie Research Fellow, University of Amsterdam; Research Affiliate, Data-Pop Alliance, at digtising Europe Brussels
Source: Vodafone Institute

In the last five years, several case studies have emerged involving companies sharing “private sector data” through various modalities (e.g. the Orange Data for Development Challenge, BBVA Innova Challenge, Twitter-MIT Laboratory on Social Machines, etc.) with the public sector toward social benefit; these experiments have been presented as exciting new opportunities to understand evolving societal behavior and improve policy and practice at large. Even as the social value of private sector data has been demonstrated by numerous academic studies and underlined by the EU Horizon 2020 and forthcoming regional initiatives, critical privacy and governance questions remain legitimately constrained by ethical, political, legal and commercial considerations. The data revolution is emerging out an initial phase of learning and experimentation, but much is needed to help the private sector and public sector—with the participation of citizens themselves—responsibly and effectively move beyond pilots and experiments towards longer-term programming and integration in existing systems.

Through a comprehensive series of European stakeholder dialogues and debates involving academic experts, private companies, civil society and the public, the digitising EU initiative aims to provide European companies and public sector institutions with a privacy-preserving, transparency-enhancing toolkit and roadmap for initiating big data-driven projects and partnerships in the data revolution. Particularly in Berlin and Brussels, these stakeholder dialogues and public debates have specifically taken place against the backdrop of ongoing debate surrounding the recently adopted General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)—in which EU policymakers and officials have debated how to find the balance between the opportunities of big data use and the risks to individual privacy protection.

The recent Madrid event focused squarely on the forming new kinds of public-private-people partnerships involving Big Data, exploring the potential for these new partnerships to both promote innovation and collaboration, as well as foster collusion and surveillance.

David Alandete, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of El País, at digitising Europe Madrid
Source: Vodafone Institute

Some of the questions that our partners and network of experts have been exploring include:

  • What principles should guide data use and ethical public responsible data sharing? What is the role of companies in keeping consumers informed in consent?
  • How can these decisions be taken when a company’s headquarter and data servers are in a different place than the people affected?
  • Who should participate in these decisions?
  • In what ways have government and public sector agencies partnered with companies to produce socially valuable insights through Big Data and the Internet of Things?
  • What are the critical lessons learned from these partnerships—from data sharing to civic engagement?
  • What kind of civic transparency and accountability measures exist in these initiatives and what is the role of both sectors in promoting civic participation, feedback and privacy protection?
  • What is required for scale?

A few initial insights have been captured in event summary reports, which will inform the forthcoming paper and toolkit for the European private sector to unleash big data-driven innovation and promote responsible data governance for public good.
1. digitising Europe Berlin Report, November 2015
2. digitising Europe Brussels Report, January 2016 (forthcoming)
3. digitising Europe Madrid Report, July 2016 (forthcoming)

As a continuation of the #digitsingEU efforts to create constructive, interactive and informed spaces to debate what getting the data revolution “right” means and entails, the fourth and final event of the series will be held in Dublin. This roundtable will serve as a side event to the International Conference on Big Data for Official Statistics conference taking place August 30- September 1. More information about the side event is scheduled to be released in August.

Follow the conversation on Twitter using the hashtags:
#digitisingEU (Berlin & Brussels)
#FuturoBigData (Madrid)

The Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications explores the potential of mobile and digital technologies to improve political, social and economic participation and to give better access to education. The Institute is a think and do tank that fosters dialogue between science, business and politics. It initiates projects and research, and publishes reports as a source of practical recommendations for decision makers. rough events and social media communications the Vodafone Institute provides a platform for debate.

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Urban Living Lab in Bogotá Project Launch: a collaboration between Bogotá’s Economic Development Secretary, Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, & Data-Pop Alliance

August 1, 2016, 8:15 am
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The Bogotá mayor’s office, through its Economic Development Secretary, the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce and Data-Pop Alliance have been working this year to build a Living Lab for the city. On May 27, the three parties signed an official collaboration agreement.

The main objective of this partnership is to establish joint basis and guidelines to create and shape a living lab that will be an open space of interaction and collaborative work, in which the interdisciplinary analysis of Bogotá’s urban challenges results in innovative, applicable and replicable solutions. This space seeks to be at the forefront of people-centered public innovation, by creating solutions in an inclusive manner, engaging public and private sectors, the academia, and above all, citizens.

Even though this is not the first lab in Bogotá, it is the first one to associate the city’s administration, its entrepreneurs and the academy represented by MIT through Data-Pop Alliance.

The lab will build on three fundamental pillars:
1) Fostering citizen-driven innovation;
2) Use of ITC’s to understand people’s needs and problems through data;
3) Creating collaboration networks among existing and emerging initiatives, in order to offer solutions to the city’s relevant issues, resulting from the cooperation of the public and private sectors, academia and civil society.

Emmanuel Letouzé, Data-Pop Alliance Director & Co-Founder; Professor Sandy Pentland, Data-Pop Alliance Academic Director and also Director of MIT Connection Science; Freddy Castro, Economic Development Secretary; and Jorge Mario Díaz, Vice President of the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce were all present during the partnership formalization event.

Freddy Castro, Economic Development Secretary, declared: “innovating the city is a joint task for the public sector, the entrepreneurs and the academy, looking for citizen benefit. This initiative will be fundamental for providing Bogotá’s inhabitants with tools and programs for the development of their skills and capacities”.

Jorge Mario Díaz, Vice President of the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, expressed: “this is an opportunity for the private sector to contribute with solutions to urban problems through citizen-driven innovation. With the joint effort of the different public, private and, of course, academic actors that will be involved in this project, we can focus our efforts towards the development of the city of the future that we want”.

For his part, Andrés Clavijo, Data-Pop Alliance Coordinator and Lead Researcher for Colombia said: “it is of vital importance to properly use technological tools and data analytics to explore, find, understand and connect people’s needs with good public policies, adapted to the dynamic of our city”.

After the signature of the agreement, a 4-hour workshop was held with key stakeholders, including representatives from Telefónica Colombia, Uber, Tadeo University, National Planning Department and Fundación Ideas para la Paz among others. A total of 37 participants from 18 different institutions came to the event.

During the workshop, the Secretary of Economic Development, the Chamber of Commerce and Data-Pop Alliance presented their vision for the living lab. Also, Professor Pentland made a special intervention on the benefits of studying people’s decision-making patterns through data for better prediction and planning.

As a closing activity, participants were encouraged to discuss on questions such as How to make this project sustainable in time? What will the lab’s focus be? Should it be a Big Data unit or should a place for designing interventions based on data analysis?

Professor Sandy Pentland stressed that the sustainability of the project will depend on the focus that the involved parties decide upon for the lab, and on how these parties build an ecosystem that supports their interests.

Data-Pop Alliance will lead this initiative from the data perspective and will support all data related projects from the technical point of view. It is a privilege for Data-Pop Alliance to be part of this project, as it is aligned with our fundamental principles of inclusion, innovation, public value and human-centered design.

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El Laboratorio Urbano abre sus puertas en Bogotá. Un proyecto de la Secretaría de Desarrollo Económico, la Cámara de Comercio de Bogotá y Data-Pop Alliance

August 1, 2016, 8:20 am
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Data-Pop Alliance, junto con la Alcaldía de Bogotá (en cabeza de la Secretaría de Desarrollo Económico) y la Cámara de Comercio de Bogotá han estado trabajando a lo largo de este año, en la creación de un Laboratorio Urbano para Bogotá. El pasado 27 de mayo, las tres partes firmaron un acuerdo oficial de colaboración.

El objetivo principal de esta alianza, es establecer las bases y líneas de trabajo conjuntas para dar forma y crear un laboratorio urbano que se caracterice por ser un sitio abierto de interacción y trabajo colaborativo, en el que confluyan iniciativas en torno a la experimentación y el análisis interdisciplinar de los desafíos urbanos que enfrenta Bogotá, con el ánimo de generar soluciones innovadoras, aplicables y replicables. Este espacio pretende estar a la vanguardia en la innovación pública centrada en las personas, desarrollándola de forma participativa e inclusiva, con la participación del sector público y privado, de la academia y sobre todo, de la ciudadanía.

Si bien este no es el primer laboratorio de ciudad, sí es el primero que vincula al distrito, a los empresarios de la ciudad y a la academia representada por universidades internacionales como MIT y Harvard.

El laboratorio se construirá alrededor de tres pilares:
1) promover la innovación ciudadana
2) optimizar el uso de tecnologías de información para entender las necesidades de los ciudadanos
3) generar redes de colaboración entre iniciativas existentes y futuras, para ofrecer soluciones desde los cuatro sectores a los temas relevantes de ciudad.

Durante la formalización de la alianza estuvieron presentes Emmanuel Letouzé, Director y Fundador de Data-Pop Alliance; Prof. Sandy Pentland, Director Académico de Data-Pop Alliance y Director del MIT Connection Science; Freddy Castro, Secretario de Desarrollo Económico; y Jorge Mario Díaz, Vicepresidente de Articulación Público Privada de la Cámara de Comercio de Bogotá.

Freddy Castro, Secretario de Desarrollo Económico, afirmó que “la construcción de ciudad se logra a partir de la alianza entre el sector público, las empresas y la academia para el beneficio del ciudadano. Esta iniciativa será el pilar para que los bogotanos cuenten con los instrumentos y programas que requieren para el libre desarrollo de sus capacidades”.

Jorge Mario Díaz, Vicepresidente de Articulación Público Privada de la Cámara de Comercio de Bogotá, indicó que “es una oportunidad para que el sector privado contribuya a encontrar soluciones a problemáticas urbanas desde la innovación ciudadana. Con el trabajo conjunto de las distintas entidades públicas, privadas y, por supuesto, académicas que se unan a esta iniciativa, podremos enfocar nuestros esfuerzos hacia el desarrollo de la ciudad del futuro que queremos”.

Por su parte, Andrés Clavijo, representante de Data-Pop Alliance en Colombia, destacó que “es muy importante aprovechar las herramientas tecnológicas y la analítica de datos para explorar, encontrar, entender y conectar las necesidades de los ciudadanos con buenas políticas públicas, acordes con la dinámica de la ciudad”.

Posterior a la firma del acuerdo, se llevó a cabo una mesa de trabajo de 4 horas con actores claves para el laboratorio, incluyendo representantes de Telefónica Colombia, Uber, Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano , el Departamento Nacional de Planeación y Fundación Ideas para la Paz entre otros. Asistieron en total 37 participantes de 18 entidades.

Durante el taller, la Secretaría de Desarrollo Económico, la Cámara de Comercio de Bogotá y Data-Pop Alliance presentaron su visión sobre el laboratorio urbano. Asimismo, el profesor Pentland hizo una intervención especial en la que explicó los beneficios y ventajas de estudiar, a través de los datos, los patrones de toma de decisiones de las personas, para así mejorar la predicción y planeación.

Como actividad de cierre, se animó a los participantes a discutir preguntas tales como ¿cuál será el enfoque del laboratorio? ¿cómo hacer que este proyecto sea sostenible en el tiempo? ¿debe ser el laboratorio una unidad de Big Data o un lugar para el diseño de intervenciones basadas en el análisis de datos?

El profesor Sandy Pentland destacó que la sostenibilidad del proyecto dependerá del enfoque que las partes involucradas den al laboratorio, y de cómo dichas partes construyan un ecosistema que soporte sus intereses.

Data-Pop Alliance liderará esta iniciativa desde la perspectiva de los datos y proveerá soporte técnico en los proyectos con un fuerte componente de datos. Para Data-Pop Alliance es un privilegio hacer parte de este proyecto , ya que se encuentra completamente alineado con nuestros principios fundamentales de inclusión, innovación, valor público y diseño centrado en las personas.

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Open algorithms: A new paradigm for using private data for social good

August 25, 2016, 8:33 am
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This article first appeared on Devex on July 18th, 2016.

Few data collected are actually used to improve people's lives or in the design of better public policies, write AFD’s Thomas Roca and Data-Pop Alliance’s Emmanuel Letouzé, in this guest column for Data Driven. How can we turn this around, ensuring that information is used in a privacy-conscientious and inclusive way? Photo by: reynermedia / CC BY

The term “datafication” was coined to describe the consequences of the digital revolution: the growing generation, collection and storage of digital information concerning all aspects of the physical world (including earth activity, weather, climate, and biosphere), human lives and activities (including DNA, vital signs, consumption, and credit scores), and societal patterns (including communications, economic activity, and mobility).

The datafication of the world is fueled by the automatic generation of data through the billions of digital devices that surround us: cellphones and tablets, e-devices, security cameras, credit cards, badges and satellites. However, little of the generated information is actually used to improve people’s lives or in the design of better public policies.

Data, the commodity of the 21st century

The flow of information resulting from the data deluge is mainly stored within data centers, as a commodity, typically legally owned by the private companies collecting them – telecom operators, social media companies, or banks, among others.

These data are analyzed for internal and commercial purposes – think of how Amazon or Facebook operates, for example – and hold tremendous fiduciary value. Companies whose investments, innovations and systems contribute to generating and storing these data cannot simply surrender it.

But many private companies do not realize the public good value of these data – including how they could benefit from opening up “some” of their data if it helps to grow economies or prevent epidemics. Even when they do, they face not only commercial but also ethical and legal incentives not to open their data further. Indeed, not all data should be open. Personal data collected through our usage of social networks, our mobile phone activities, sensors and connected devices all inform pretty accurately our way of life: our location, whether real time or historical; the people we communicate with; the content of our private messages or emails; our heart rate, or even our most intimate feelings – we wouldn’t like such information to be publicly available.

Meanwhile, the case for opening and using data has become clearer in recent years. First, the “open data movement” has shown how opening up data could foster public innovation, foster civic engagement, accountability and transparency. Second, a handful of companies – chief of which telecom operators, including Orange, Telefónica and Telecom Italia – have experimented with “data challenges,” whereby some data are made available to researchers in a tightly controlled manner – making them difficult to scale.

The successes and results of these challenges revealed and stirred up growing demands for more “private” data to be made available. Some, such as Kenneth Cukier, the Economist's senior editor for data and digital, even consider that not using these data is “the moral equivalent of burning books.” But the dilemma remained between privacy and utility; between commercial, individual and societal considerations, and so on.

Which data should be accessed, for what and by whom?

Two recent developments further complicate the debate. One is the finding that “anonymizing” data was much harder than previously thought – the uniqueness of our behaviors and the interconnectedness of datasets in which we appear, makes “reidentifiability” possible. This all but rules out the option of “simply” releasing personal data without personally identifiable information as a long-term solution.

Another development was the “Facebook emotion study,” where the social media giant used data and manipulated the newsfeeds of hundreds of thousands of users as part of an experiment that was perfectly legal but deemed unethical – putting the notion of what “informed consent” meant and entailed back at the forefront of these debates.

The concern that algorithms operate as “black boxes” that could embed and help entrench biases and discriminations has also gained ground. And the pressures to use these data to improve people’s lives will most likely continue growing – including in support of the Sustainable Development Goals – alongside people’s demand to have greater control over this use – in ways that respect individual and group privacies, commercial interests, and of course prevailing legal standards.

Leverage and strengthen public-private-people partnerships and local ecosystems

The Open Algorithm project: Developing indicators, capacity and trust

To address the complex challenge of data access, Orange, MIT Media Lab, Data-Pop Alliance, Imperial College London and the World Economic Forum – supported by Agence Française de Développement and the World Bank – are developing a platform to unleash the power of “big data” held by private companies for public good in a privacy preserving, commercially sensible, stable, scalable and sustainable manner.

In its initial phase of deployment, the Open Algorithm project, or OPAL, will focus on a small set of countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, with technical support from a wide range of partners including Paris21, Microsoft, and Deloitte Consulting LLP.

OPAL’s core will consist of an open technology platform and open algorithms running directly on the servers of partner companies, behind their firewalls, to extract key development indicators of relevance for a wide range of potential users, including national statistical offices, ministries, civil society organizations, media organizations, etc. Examples of potential indicators and maps produced with greater frequency and levels of geographic granularity currently available include poverty, literacy, population density, social cohesion – all on which the literature has shown that “big data” analysis could shed light.

As a “platform” to unleash the power of these “big data” held by private companies for public good, the AFD-supported OPAL initiative has three key aims:
  1. To engage with data providers, users and analysts at all stages of its development, including during the development of algorithms.
     
  2. Contribute to building local capacities, connections and help shape the future technological, political, ethical and legal frameworks that will govern the local collection, control and use of “big data” to foster social progress.

    By “sending the code to the data” rather than the other way around, OPAL seeks to address these challenges and spur dialogues and develop data services on the basis of greater trust between all parties involved – including between citizens, official statistical systems and private corporations.
     
  3. To build data literacy among users and partners; not just data literacy defined as “the ability to use data,” but conceptualized in a broader and deeper sense as literacy in the age of data and defined as “the ability to constructively engage in society through and about data.” In the 21st century, being “data literate” in that sense will be as much a fundamental human capability as a useful professional skill set; both an enabler and marker of human agency.

    Mass data literacy will be as essential to development and democracy as mass literacy has been during the 20th century. Building this kind of data literacy across institutions and groups will require large-scale sustained initiatives and investments that have not yet materialized.
     
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Announcing Nuria Oliver as Data-Pop Alliance’s first Chief Data Scientist

November 7, 2016, 8:19 am
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We are honored to announce that Dr Nuria Oliver will serve as Data-Pop Alliance’s first Chief Data Scientist starting November 8th, 2016.

Dr Oliver served as Scientific Director of Telefónica for close to 9 years, and was previously a researcher at Microsoft for 7 years. Dr Oliver holds a PhD from MIT Media Lab, where her dissertation, conducted under the supervision of Prof. Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland, our Academic Director, focused on perceptual intelligence. Dr Oliver had been one of Data-Pop Alliance’s Research Affiliates since our launch.

Dr Oliver is one of the world’s foremost computer scientists working on machine-learning based computational models of human behavior, human computer-interaction, intelligent user interfaces, and mobile computing. She is also well known for her work on Big Data for Social Good. She has published over 150 scientific papers and book chapters that have been cited over 10,400 times and received numerous awards, including, in 2016, the Gaudi Gresol Award to Excellence in Science and Technology and the Spanish Ada Byron Award by the University of Deusto. She is a Fellow of the European Association of Artificial Intelligence and a Distinguished Scientist by the ACM.

As our first Chief Data Scientist, Dr Oliver will provide strategic guidance to Data-Pop Alliance’s analytics projects and plans, oversee specific parts of our work on algorithmic governance, contribute to our engagement and training activities towards women and girls in Africa and other developing regions, and help develop Data-Pop Alliance’s partnerships and presence around the world.

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Data-Pop Alliance launches its Global Professional Training Program in Bogotá!Nov 29 – Dec 2, 2016

December 23, 2016, 1:00 pm
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Following a pilot event at MIT Media Lab in June, Data-Pop Alliance formally launched its Global Professional Training Program with its first full fledged four-day intensive workshop on “Leveraging Big Data for Sustainable Development” in Bogotá, Colombia, from November 29th to December 2nd. Up to 10 workshops will take place in 2017, in Colombia, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, Thailand and the United States (at MIT and New York City); other countries being considered at this time include Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Ethiopia.

The main objective of the program and of each workshop, developed and offered in partnership with the United Nations Systems Staff College (UNSSC), and with financial support from The Hewlett Foundation, is to enhance participants’ “Big Data literacy” by providing them with a deeper understanding, skills, resources, and connections to address the key applications and implications of Big Data in their work related to sustainable development, and as citizens. A key goal of the program, echoing Data-Pop Alliance’s conceptualization of Big Data not merely as ‘big data’ as large datasets but rather as a techno-scientific phenomenon shaped by the 3Cs of Big Data, is to shed light on the political economy and ethical dimensions of Big Data for sustainable development.

This inaugural workshop brought together 36 participants from 19 organizations representing the private and public sectors, civil society, academia, and international organizations. The resulting spectrums of perspectives, interests, experiences and expectations amongst participants contributed to the richness of the sessions and discussions. Some participants were eager to learn to use tools to incorporate Big Data approaches into their organizations, others were keen to turn societal challenges into data question to yield and communicate insights from data; yet others were focused on understanding the political and ethical significance of the phenomenon.

The program was structured around Data-Pop Alliance’s 4 building blocks of ‘Data Literacy’, with Day 1 especially focusing on Concepts and Contexts, Day 2 on Methods and Tools, Day 3 on Design and Storytelling as well as Ethics and Engagement, and Day 4 culminating in a day-long Data Partnership and Project Development Lab where teams formed through the workshop were given time and resources to develop a data-enabled solution to a development problem. Each of the first 3 days used a combination of learning methods and session types, ranging from keynote presentations, instructor-led tutorials, hands-on group-work, case-study pitches, and a data expedition, culminating in a full day of project work in teams.

The workshop was led by 7 Data-Pop Alliance staff members and UNSSC’s training coordinator, Ugo Caruso, with interventions and support from an exceptional group of external speakers and facilitators, including Marco Bressan, Chief Data Scientist of BBVA; Alvaro Ramírez, Business Intelligence Director at Telefónica Colombia; Luisa Fernanda García, expert on personal data protection; Alvaro Riascos, Professor at Los Andes University; as well as Diana Vidal and Iván Mantilla from the National Department of Planning. Patrick Vinck, Assistant Professor at Harvard University and co-Director of Data-Pop Alliance gave a presentation by teleconference on the ethics and politics of Big Data.

Highlights of the event included the initial keynote framing presentation of Big Data and development, an interactive session on data storytelling with support from Rahul Bhargava and Catherine Dignazio (co-creators of datatherapy.org and databasic.io), hands-on technical tutorials on analytical tools, the Data Expedition on Colombia’s peace process, and the Data Partnership and Project Development Lab on Day 4.

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The objective of the 5-hour Data Expedition of Day 2, organized in partnership with our partner Fundación Ideas para la Paz, was to better understand the drivers and dynamics of the October 2nd peace referendum in Colombia through sentiment analysis, using a dataset of over 1 million related tweets and other open datasets on reported instances of violence and previous electoral results. The Data Expedition was concluded with the presentations of 5 groups. They used different analytical tools like R, Stata, Python and ArcGIS. Most of the teams analyzed the correlation between the number of victims per town and the results of the referendum, or the positive and negative sentiments using the tweets that mentioned the referendum. Other interesting analyses included a look at the changes in sentiments on the day after the referendum and the effect of money transfers from the national government to the municipalities on the results of the referendum.

Similarly, during the Project Development Lab of Day 4, participants worked in groups to put to use the tools and techniques presented over the previous days to develop a blueprint for a collaborative Big Data project. The development challenges chosen by participants covered a wide range of topics including the effect of corruption in education quality in Colombia, empowering displaced populations – specifically women – to enter the formal economy, development of digital apps to monitor school performance, improving quality of health and education, encouraging more balanced rural and urban development, and sustainable mobility solutions for better quality of life of citizens.

Day 3 ended with Happy Hour Chat in a nearby restaurant with presentations on the implications of Big Data for the global development agenda and the implementation of the SDGs from Diana Nova, Coordinator of the SDG Working Group at DANE and Daniel Rodríguez, Institutional Partnerships Coordinator at CEPEI, as well as mini-burgers and drinks, which were greatly enjoyed by all.

The Data-Pop Alliance team thanks all the participants for their hard work during the workshop and for bringing their enthusiasm, experience, dedication and good spirit to all of the sessions and activities. We also express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our speakers, who made this a memorable and meaningful experience. We would also like to thank the UNSSC and Ugo Caruso for his tireless support, the Hewlett Foundation for its financial support, and The Bogotá Chamber of Commerce for graciously hosting the event in its modern space.

In the next few weeks, we will be reviewing the detailed feedback received from all participants as we prepare the next workshop to take place at MIT Media Lab from March 27th to 31st, so as to keep improving the experience and take-away for all future participants. More information will be available on our site ahead of this next event.

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Algorithms and the Social Fabric: Accountability, Governance and Ethics

March 2, 2017, 9:04 am
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Algorithms are profoundly changing the world we live in; they seem to be everywhere, yet often hidden and generally poorly understood by the general public. They are referred to as ‘black boxes,’ concealing sophisticated mechanisms that crunch citizen-consumers’ data to make predictions that turn into prescriptions, and lock these subjects into their condition. However, the rise of algorithms may also provide a historical opportunity to reengineer current power structures and decision-making processes within data-infused societies in positive ways.

Public and private sector actors—researchers, companies, governments, financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and also citizen groups—are actively experimenting and adapting algorithmic decision-making tools for various purposes. In what ways are algorithms being used by public and private sector actors in developed and developing countries? To what extent have these algorithms impacted society as a whole and populations within society (specifically, marginalized communities)?

This initiative focuses on the use of public and private sector algorithms, specifically focusing on innovation, accountability, and ethics in developing countries. Our goal is to explore how algorithms have been used by public and private sector actors, and, together with partners and researchers in our network, assess and design technical and non-technical strategies for embedding layers of accountability, transparency, and ethics. Working in areas such as governance innovation, justice, digital news and others, this initiative highlights both the positive opportunities that are created through data-driven algorithmic decision-making, and the potential negative consequences that practitioners should be aware of and address in order to foster accountability, fairness and participation in society.

Initial research, working papers, and articles 

  • The Tyranny of Data? The Bright and Dark Sides of Data-Driven Decision-Making for Social Good
    Bruno Lepri, Jacopo Staiano, David Sangokoya, Emmanuel Letouzé, Nuria Oliver

    Through an analysis of specific use cases and approaches, we elaborate on the need for these algorithms to provide transparency and accountability, preserve privacy and be tested and evaluated in context, by means of living lab approaches involving citizens. We turn to the requirements which would make it possible to leverage the predictive power of data-driven human behavior analysis while ensuring transparency, accountability, and civic participation.

Training

  • As a co-organizer of the Open Algorithms Project (OPAL), we are working with both public and private sector actors on designing open algorithms to safely analyze private sector data (i.e. call detail records) behind company servers to gain insights for sustainable development and official statistics. Recently we’ve conducted the first of several workshops in Dakar, Senegal on algorithmic governance. For more on our work in OPAL, please visit http://opalproject.org

Engagement

  • Recent presentations at the Oxford Internet Institute and during the Open Government Partnership Summit in Paris 2016 on the impact of open algorithms for democracy and development

  • In partnership with ThoughtWorks NYC, we’ve hosted two recent discussions on algorithms and society:
    • “Weapons of Math Destruction”: Does Big Data Threaten Democracy & Equality?
      Nominated for a Nonfiction National Book Award, Cathy O Neil (Data-Pop Alliance Research Affiliate) discussed her recent book, Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. The book argues that the use of algorithms and mathematical models pervade modern life and threaten to rip apart our social fabric, and demands more transparency and ethical standards when using data. The event started with a presentation of the book by the author followed by a panel discussion with Augustin Chaintreau (Columbia University) moderated by Emmanuel Letouzé (Data-Pop Alliance and MIT Media Lab) and Q&A on the use and governance of algorithms in modern societies.
    • Ethical Tech: The Ethics of Algorithms
      A evening discussion on the ethical implications of the rising popularity of algorithmic decision making in everything from criminal justice to humanitarian aid. Panelists included:
      • Hadassah Damien (Technology & Engagement Manager, Participatory Budgeting Project)
      • Emmanuel Letouzé (Director & Co-Founder, Data Pop Alliance)
      • Brittny Saunders (Deputy Commissioner for Strategic Initiatives, NYC Commission on Human Rights)
      • Rob Sherman (Deputy Chief Privacy Officer, Facebook)
      • Sara Jayne Terp (Fmr. Director of Data Projects, Ushahidi / Adjunct Professor, Columbia University).

For more on the various research, training and engagement components of this initiative, please contact algorithms@datapopalliance.org.

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SD Talks Special Series on Data for Sustainable Development – Session 1: Big Data: What is it and how can it contribute to Sustainable Development

April 4, 2017, 1:31 pm
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 Session 1: Big Data: What is it and how can it contribute to Sustainable Development of the webinar series on Data for Sustainable Development, developed and delivered in partnership with the UNSSC Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development, as a part of its SD Talks Special Series initiative, successfully kicked off with a record 400 registered participants and 128 attendees! If you were not able to attend you can still watch it now:

This first session was delivered by our director and co-founder Emmanuel Letouzé. It opened with an overview of the historical context and significance of the question and the description of a framework conceptualizing Big Data as an ecosystem rather than just large datasets; it then discussed its potential for monitoring progress across Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including through examples of research projects that have used data analytics for studying poverty, literacy, criminality, and mobility; it ended by covering key hurdles and requirements beyond measurement considerations, such as fostering data literacy, direct control over data and local data ecosystems, for effectively leveraging and shaping Big Data in support of sustainable development. The Keynote presentation is available here.

Stay tuned for the next webinar!

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Launch of the Webinar Series on Data for Sustainable Development in partnership with UNSSC

March 20, 2017, 1:38 pm
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Big Data: What is it and how can it contribute to Sustainable Development?
Thursday, 30 March 2017
02:30 PM CEST

Data-Pop Alliance is pleased to announce the launch of the Webinar Series on Data for Sustainable Development, developed and delivered in partnership with the UNSSC Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development, as a part of its SD Talks Special Series initiative. The webinar series aims to examine the critical role that data can play in achieving sustainable development.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has underscored the significance of high-quality, reliable and disaggregated data for the purpose of measuring progress across Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). More recently, the first UN World Data Forum held in Cape Town, South Africa from 15-18 January 2017, highlighted the need to build capacity for collection of better data for the effective follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to use disaggregated data to address inequalities and to ensure that no one is left behind.

Against this backdrop, UNSSC and Data-Pop Alliance have launched the Data for Sustainable Development webinar series as a step towards increasing data literacy. The aim is to build capacity of relevant stakeholders and development practitioners to effectively use data to measure progress on the achievement of SDGs. The series will equip participants with knowledge and understanding of the concept of big data, global partnership mechanisms for sustainable development data and best practices for data innovation. It also intends to provide useful insights to UN country teams and partners for strengthening statistical capacities of National Statistical Offices (NSOs).

The first session of the webinar series, titled ‘Big Data: What is it and how can it contribute to Sustainable Development?’ is scheduled to take place on Thursday, 30 March 2017 at 02:30 PM CEST.  This session will unpack the theory and concept behind Big Data and explore the role of Big Data for achieving sustainable development. The webinar speaker for the first session of the series is Dr. Emmanuel Letouzé, Director and Co-Founder of Data-Pop Alliance, a coalition on Big Data and development co-created in 2013 by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, MIT Media Lab, Overseas Development Institute, joined in 2016 by the Flowminder Foundation as its fourth core member.

The webinar session will be followed by a Q&A session where the speaker will take live questions from the audience.

To join the live webinar, please go to http://bit.ly/S1Data4SD (event number: 955 309 569, event password: Data4SD)

For more information about the webinar series, please contact:
Ugo Caruso, UNSSC Knowledge for Sustainable Development (u.caruso@unssc.org)
Sadaf Basharat, UNSSC Knowledge for Sustainable Development (s.basharat@unssc.org)
Natalie Shoup, Data-Pop Alliance (nshoup@datapopalliance.org)
Julie Ricard, Data-Pop Alliance (jricard@datapopalliance.org)

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SD Talks Special Series on Data for Sustainable Development – Session 2: Partnership for Sustainable Development Data

April 20, 2017, 8:04 am
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Partnership for Sustainable Development Data: Mobilising Data for Leaving No One Behind
Friday 28 April 2017
02:00 PM CEST | 8:00 AM EDT

After the successful launch of our SD Talks Special Series on Data for Sustainable Development in March 2017, we are pleased to announce the second webinar session of the series. Organised in partnership with the UNSSC Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development, the second webinar session on Partnership for Sustainable Development Data: Mobilising Data for Leaving No One Behind will be held on Friday 28 April 2017 at 02:00 PM CEST. The webinar session will shed light on the importance of partnering around data and introduce the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data initiative, which is a global network of governments, NGOs, and businesses working together to strengthen the inclusivity, trust, and innovation in the way that data is used to address the world’s sustainable development efforts.

The speaker for the webinar session will be Dr. Claire Melamed, Executive Director of Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. She was previously the Head of the Growth and Equity Programme at ODI, and prior to that, the Head of Policy at ActionAid UK. Dr. Melamed has been involved with a number of data revolution initiatives, including as lead author and editor of “A World That Counts,” an influential report commissioned by the United Nations Secretary-General on the importance of data to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

The webinar session will be followed by a Q&A session where the speaker will take live questions from the audience.

To join the live webinar, please go to http://bit.ly/SDTalksData2 (event number: 953 012 838, event password: Data4SD). Please register for this webinar in advance by going to http://bit.ly/SDTalksData2, clicking on Register and entering your details.

For more information about the webinar series, please contact:
Ugo Caruso, UNSSC Knowledge for Sustainable Development (u.caruso@unssc.org)
Sadaf Basharat, UNSSC Knowledge for Sustainable Development (s.basharat@unssc.org)
Natalie Shoup, Data-Pop Alliance (nshoup@datapopalliance.org)
Julie Ricard, Data-Pop Alliance (jricard@datapopalliance.org)

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SD Talks Special Series on Data for Sustainable Development – Session 2: Partnership for Sustainable Development Data

May 8, 2017, 7:35 am
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Session 2: Partnership for Sustainable Development Data: Mobilising Data for Leaving No One Behind of the webinar series on Data for Sustainable Development, was delivered by Dr. Claire Melamed, Executive Director of Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD). If you were not able to attend you can still watch the session now and learn more about the GPSDD and the importance of partnering around data to strengthen inclusivity, trust and innovation in the way that data is used to address the world’s sustainable development efforts.

This webinar series is developed and delivered in partnership with the UNSSC Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development, as a part of its SD Talks Special Series initiative. We look forward to having you join us at the next session!

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Overview of Data-Pop Alliance-United Nations Systems Staff College Training Course on “Leveraging Big Data for Sustainable Development” in Nairobi June 27-29, 2017

June 30, 2017, 12:03 am
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[This post has been updated to include the supporting pedagogical material]

Data-Pop Alliance ran a 3-day training workshop from June 27-29, 2017 on “Leveraging Big Data for sustainable development” at the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON) in partnership with the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC), as part of a comprehensive program to respond to major ‘Big Data literacy’ and data science needs and gaps of development and policy professionals around the globe, especially in Africa, Latin American and the Caribbean, and Asia and the Pacific.

The program includes a series of similar training workshops taking place in global policy hubs (Nairobi, Dakar, Kigali, Bogotá, Bangkok,..) a webinar series, supporting pedagogical material including a generic Toolkit and a workshop-specific participants Guidebook developed by Data-Pop Alliance available in open source, as well as an e-library of curated resources on Big Data and Sustainable Development to be launched in September 2017. It was developed with initial core funding from the Hewlett Foundation and supplementary funding from UNSSC and the United Nations Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (UNECLAC).

Madame Sahle-Work Zewde, UNON Director General, and Emmanuel Letouzé, Director and co-Founder of Data-Pop Alliance

The workshop, opened by Madame Sahle-Work Zewde, UNON Director General, brought together 50 participants from the UN system, National Statistical Offices and other government agencies, civil society organizations, and academia, representing 25 countries from the region (Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, Somalia), as well as India, Italy, Tunisia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam, among others.

As its predecessors, this workshop reflected Data-Pop Alliance’s conceptualization of Big Data as a socio-technological phenomenon and ecosystem to be shaped towards development and democracy rather than just large datasets to be mined for insights. Based on our initial research with the MIT Center for Civic Media and Internews, it also considered and sought to promote ‘data literacy’ as ‘literacy in the age of data’ beyond technical skills, to promote community engagement and empowerment.

As such, the workshop was structured around 4 key dimensions, or “building blocks,” of data literacy for policymakers, practitioners, private sector staff and citizens, to build and contribute to inclusive Big Data innovation projects, policies, partnerships and innovations in their work and daily lives. These 4 building blocks are termed C2 for Contexts and Concepts, M+T for Methods and Tools, D*S for Design and Strategy, and last but certainly not least, as a primary lens rather than an afterthought, ε for Ethics and Engagement, each with 3 specific learning objectives.

 

An overarching goal of these workshops is to stimulate participants’ incentives and capacities to engage responsibly and effectively in Big Data initiatives within and between key regional stakeholders, and to create connections between them, towards the creation of regional and global Communities of Practice. The features and functioning of these Communities of Practice will be announced shortly. To that end, the training’s agenda was composed of a mix of interactive lectures, short presentations and panel discussions, group activities, and hands-on technical tutorials led by Thomas Roca (AFD). 

The full agenda can be accessed here. 

Participants developed Big Data projects in groups (here around Ugo Caruso, UNSSC Course Coordinator) over the course of the 3 days to try and address a development challenge, considering all steps and requirements of the process including ethical principles

Patrick Vinck, co-founder and co-director of Data-Pop Alliance, Assistant Professor at Harvard University and Director of Research of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative leading a session on data ethics

To provide a wide range of perspectives, the agenda included a dozen speakers and facilitators from the private sector (Sanda Ojiambo, Safaricom; Silas Macharia, IBM Kenya; Skyler Speakman, IBM Research), civil society (Davis Adieno; Civicus, Bill Anderson, Development Initiatives, Joshua Owino and Zacharia Muindi, Map Kibera; Al Kags, Open Institute), multilateral and bilateral donors (Thomas Roca, Agence Française de Développement; Joseph Marindi, UNOCHA; Jilian Campbell, UNEP, Ugo Caruso, UNSSC), government (Nixon Mageka Gecheo, Communications Authority of Kenya) and academia (Emmanuel Letouzé, Data-Pop Alliance and MIT Media Lab; Patrick Vinck, Harvard University and Data-Pop Alliance).

The workshop’s sessions, and its group activities running over 3 days in particular, were facilitated by Data-Pop Alliance team members from the US and Colombia (Natalie Shoup, Julie Ricard, Ana Lucía Martínez, Emmanuel Letouzé, Patrick Vinck), UNSSC (Ugo Caruso), and institutional partners (Thomas Roca from AFD, Jos Berens from HumanityX). They also benefited from support from UNON leadership and staff.

 This workshop was the 3rd under our partnership with UNSSC with initial funding from the Hewlett Foundation, following a pilot held at MIT Media Lab in June 2016 and the inaugural full-fledge workshop organized in Bogotá in December 2016. Five more will follow in the next few months: in Dakar in October, in Bogotá, in December, then in Kigali, Addis-Ababa and Bangkok in Q1-Q2 2018.

Other training workshops are and will be offered to complement these flagships workshops. Data-Pop Alliance and UNECLAC are already offering another series of workshops more squarely focused on Big Data and the digital economy in the LAC region for UN and governmental staff, which started in Santiago de Chile (March 2016), and will next be delivered in São Paulo (September 2017), Mexico City (October 2017) and Bogotá (Q1 2018).

Soon, Data-Pop Alliance will be leading the capacity building and community engagement components of the Open Algorithms (OPAL) project pilots in Senegal and Colombia, as part of our efforts to address urgent needs and gaps to empower professionals and citizens to realize the promise of the Data Revolution and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

For more information, suggestions or questions, please contact training@datapopalliance.org

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Data-Pop Alliance – ECLAC Training Course on Big Data and Digital Economy, in São Paulo September 27-29

October 13, 2017, 12:20 pm
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Foto: Ricardo Matsukawa

In partnership with the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and Cetic.br, Data-Pop Alliance ran a 3-day training workshop from September 27-29, 2017 on “Big Data for Measuring the Digital Economy” in São Paulo. Focused on Big Data and the digital economy in the LAC region, targeting UN and governmental staff, this program was launched in Santiago de Chile (March 2016), in collaboration with ECLAC. It is part of a comprehensive program to respond to major ‘Big Data literacy’ and data science needs and gaps of development and policy professionals around the globe.

The workshop, opened by Alexandre Barbosa (Cetic.br) and Sebastián Rovira (UNECLAC), brought together 40 participants from Brazilian ministries, municipalities, and well as national statistical offices and other government bodies, private sector, civil society organizations, and academia.

Photo: Ricardo Matsukawa

Day 1 started with a keynote from Wilson Peres (Senior Economic Affairs Officer, UNECLAC) discussing the challenges and opportunities in Latin America in the context of the most recent technological breakthroughs, and followed by our director Emmanuel Letouzé’s keynote “Policies, Societies, and Literacy in the Age of Big Data: Building capacities to foster social change” and two panels focusing on Brazil’s Big Data ecosystem and Digital Economy Experiences. The panels gathered representatives from the public sector (Miriam Wimmer, MCTIC; Denise Britz do N. Silva, ENCE/IBGE; Daniela Swiatek, Mobilab; Fernando Nogueira, Prefeitura de São Paulo), the private sector (Paschoal D’Auria, IBM Brasil), civil society (Natalia Mazotte, Escola de Dados; Silvio Meira, Porto Digital) and academia (Eduardo de Rezende Francisco, FGV; Karin Breitman, Association for Computing Machinery; Wagner Meira Jr., UFMG).

On Day 2 we took a deep dive into the use of Big Data methods and tools, with exciting presentations from Thiago Cardoso (Hekima) and Andrés Clavijo (Data-Pop Alliance) and a 4 hours hands-on Technical Tutorial conducted by Rodrigo Lara-Molina and Andrés Clavijo (Data-Pop Alliance).

Finally, Day 3 started with an introductory video on “Social Physics” by Data-Pop’s academic director Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland (MIT, Data-Pop Alliance) and was followed by a panel on Legal Frameworks for Ethical Data Use bringing together brazilian experts Thiago Tavares (CGI.br), Bruno R. Bioni (NIC.br-Legal Dept.) and Danilo Doneda (UERJ). This last afternoon featured an engaging  presentation on Data Ethics, by Carolina Bigonha (Hekima).

“Project Lab” group activities: during the 3 days, participants explored the stages and issues around building a ‘data-driven project’
Foto: Rogério Lorenzoni

Our next edition entitled “Big Data, Digital Economy and Sustainable Development” will be held in Mexico City next October 17-19, and co-organized with ECLAC, CEDN, the Coordination of the National Digital Strategy, from the Mexican Federal Government.  More information about this upcoming edition is available here (in Spanish)!

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Seminar and Training on “Big Data, Digital Economy, and Sustainable Development” in Mexico City, October 16-19, 2017

October 25, 2017, 3:03 pm
$
0
0

 

Data-Pop Alliance led a training workshop on “Big Data, Economy, and Sustainable Development” in Mexico City on October 17-19, 2017 in partnership with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC) and the Mexican Presidency’s Coordinación de Estrategia Digital Nacional (EDN). The workshop is part of a comprehensive program, which includes other trainings and activities developed in collaboration with UNSSC with initial funding from the Hewlett Foundation, aimed to respond to major ‘Big Data literacy’ and data science needs and gaps of development and policy professionals around the globe. This workshop was the 3rd under our partnership with UNECLAC, following Santiago (March 2017) and São Paulo (September 2017).

It was preceded by a 1-day high-level seminar “Think Big: Data Innovation in Latin America and the Caribbean” on October 16th, organized by UNECLAC, EDN, and the MIT Sloan School of Management, featuring Alejandra Lagunes, Coordinator of EDN, Miguel Luengo-Oroz, Chief Data Scientist of UN Global Pulse, Emmanuel Letouzé, Director of Data-Pop Alliance (DPA), Lorenzo Valle, Director of Business at ITESM, Jorge Guzmán, researcher at MIT Sloan, Yolanda Martínez, head of the Digital Government Unit of Mexico. 

The 3-day training workshop, hosted by the Digital Cultural Center, brought together 40 participants representing a diverse array of civil servants, data scientists, educators, and entrepreneurs from Mexico. Following DPA methodology, the workshop was structured around 4 “building blocks” of data literacy, termed C2 for Contexts and Concepts, M+T for Methods and Tools, D*S for Design and Strategy, and last but certainly not least, as a primary lens rather than an afterthought, ε for Ethics and Engagement, each with 3 specific learning objectives.

This professional training course included a series of presentations, panel discussions with experts in the field, and hands-on training sessions allowing participants to employ the skills and techniques discussed. The sessions and group activities were facilitated by Data-Pop Alliance team members from the US, Colombia, and Chile (Emmanuel Letouzé, Julie Ricard, Andrés Clavijo, Rodrigo Lara Molina, Natalie Grover), Estrategia Digital Nacional (Diana Blanco, Jorge Díaz, Paul Hindriks, Nancy Garcia), the UNECLAC (Jorge Patino), and MIT Media Lab (Alejandro Noriega).

 

Panels and Keynotes

The training workshop commenced with introductory remarks from Mario Castillo, Chief of the innovation and new technologies unit of CEPAL, and Jorge Díaz, Deputy General Manager of EDN, discussing the critical importance of big data in the development of Mexico and Latin America at large. Following this, was a framing presentation on Big Data’s applications and implications for development and democracy by Emmanuel Letouzé, of DPA.

Experts and leaders from both the private and public sectors also convened in a series of six panels throughout the workshop to delve more deeply into the four building blocks of Big Data. In “MX Futuro”, Lina Ornelas of Google Mexico, Raúl Rendon of the Mexican Secretary of the Economy, Sebastián Garrido of CIDE, and Alejandro Mazza of OPI discussed the ecosystem of Big Data in Mexico at the present. As they examined, there exists a great potential for public policy to benefit from the use of Big Data, from crisis responses to economic reforms. However, political, institutional, and education systems to support development of this field are insufficient and must be supported in order to realize the full potential of the technology at hand.  

In the following panel, The 2030 Agenda in Mexico, Paulina Terrazas from the Mexican President’s office, Luis Iñaki Alberro of SEDESOL, and Enrique Ordaz of INEGI, related aspects of the current state of development in Mexico. The panelists outlined utility of data in making evidence-based actions and policy decisions. In addition, as Mr. Ordaz explained, the development indicators currently being gathered represent a small proportion of the population and use limited mechanisms to assess poverty in Mexico, leaving significant room for technology to improve the subjective nature of the present system. 

As the recent series of earthquakes in Mexico vividly illustrate, there exists a great need for a coherent Emergency Response System. Miriam González of Humanitarian OpenStreetMap, an independent crowdsourced mapping initiative, described how the freely-reusable geospatial data aggregated on the platform aided in earthquake recovery efforts. Macarena Piombi from Google México, shared how their resources bring engineers to the localities most in need. Leonel Castañeda of the National Digital Strategy department of the Mexican President’s office provided insight into how the national government also utilizes these platforms and mass of data in public policy and targeting high-need areas.

The subsequent panel, Data in Action, expanded on the applications of Big Data in Latin America. Paul Hindriks of the National Digital Strategy department of the Mexican President’s office related their effort to track and report violence against journalists in the republic. The platform gathers reports of journalists’ locations and provides statistical analysis on the probability of future aggressions in certain localities. From the TIC Survey Division of CETIC Brazil, Fabio Senne recounted how web-scraping and tracking access to broadband internet has aided in the prediction of a host of other socioeconomic indicators. 

The final panel, Privacy, Ethics, and the Legal Framework for Data Use in Mexico, provided a lens to consider the apparent tradeoff between taking advantage of the potential of Big Data in development applications, and the high risks of privacy and ethics violations in the process. Edgardo Martínez Rojas of INAI and Carlos Fernando Esponda from ITAM discussed the lack of a coherent plan in the Mexican government to manage these applications, including both in public and private usage. Alejandro Noriega Campero from the MIT Media Lab then confirmed the existence of a stark tradeoff between data usefulness and reidentifiability, building on a study exploring the value of CDRs at various spatial and temporal granularity levels and suggesting we need appropriate data sharing models coupled with spatiotemporal generalization levels to balance utility and privacy. Dra. Anahiby Becerril from INFOTEC, discussed the present lack of an ethical framework, such as the one outlined in The Menlo Report, to regulate the digital economy and its potential to violate personal privacy.

 

Technical Tutorials

Experts in the field presented several technical tutorials to provide the participants with tools for their projects. Andrés Clavijo from Data-Pop Alliance discussed a variety of methods and tools for mapping Big Data (Ushahidi, OpenStreetMap, and CrowdVoice, among others) and applications for Machine Learning. Rodrigo Lara Molina, also of Data-Pop Alliance, led the participants in an exercise of webscraping for internet prices using Python in order to evaluate and compare housing prices in several cities. Lastly, Javier Pérez Trufero and Jaime de Mora from Carto presented their ‘location intelligence’ platform to manipulate data using an SQL interface and the data visualization capacity of creating layers on a map.

 

Group Projects

During the three-day workshop, participants explored the stages and issues around building a data-driven project in six small groups. The project development required the participants to identify a target impact area, identify a need for innovation using Big Data, and design a comprehensive program to solve it. As the groups further refined the project objective, they analyzed potential project archetypes including the potential impact, resources, and results to be gained from each. Finally, following the Ethics Panel discussion on day three of the workshop, project groups revisited their proposals and received individualized input from Dta. Anahiby Becerril.

The subjects of the six group projects were:

  1. Inclusion in the Labor Market
  2. What do you do with my vote? Transparency and the electoral system
  3. #H2OMX Access to Clean Water
  4. MoviLab: Transit in Mexico City
  5. MOVITOOL: Partnership Building for Improved transit in CDMX
  6. SEGURApp: Real-time mapping of violence against women

 

Conclusion

An overarching goal of these workshops is to stimulate participants’ incentives and capacities to engage responsibly and effectively in Big Data initiatives. within and between key regional stakeholders, and to create connections between them, towards the creation of regional and global Communities of Practice. Participants’ evaluations of the workshop can be seen here. Our next training workshops will be held in Dakar, Bogotá, Bangkok, and Addis-Ababa. For more information, suggestions, or questions, please contact trainings@datapopalliance.org.

 

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Upcoming 3-Day Training at MIT Media Lab

August 20, 2018, 2:15 pm
$
0
0

Upcoming 3-Day Training on
"Big Data for Sustainable Development" at the MIT Media Lab

October 15-17th, 2018

Overview
About the Course
Agenda
Speakers
Facilitators


Overview

Our next training workshop on “Big Data for Sustainable Development” will be held at the MIT Media Lab on October 15-17th, as part of our Global Professional Training Program developed and delivered in partnership with the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC) and financial support from the Hewlett Foundation. 

This 3-day training, delivered and facilitated by MIT and Harvard faculty and global experts, is tailored towards development practitioners, policymakers, and researchers interested in strengthening their knowledge and skills to leverage Big Data in their work. 

The training is offered at a fee of $1,750 for the 3 days, with possibilities of fellowships waiving this fee. For this edition, additional financial support by the MIT Sloan Latin America Office will grant a $700 stipend to 4 fellows from the region. More information on these fellowships is below.

Registration is now open! 

REGISTER NOW

About the Course

Through the session, participants will be exposed to a blend of learning formats, including traditional instructor-led teaching, keynote speakers, and interactive and hands-on technical sessions, led by some of the best experts in the world. All participants who follow the entire course will receive a certificate of completion from Data-Pop Alliance and UNSSC. The workshop will be structured as follows:

Learn More about the Training Program


Agenda

Speakers

Prof. Alex 'Sandy' Pentland

MIT, Data-Pop Alliance

Bio

Prof. Danielle Wood

MIT Media Lab

Bio

Prof. Patrick Vinck

Harvard Humanitarian Initiative,
Data-Pop Alliance

Bio

Dr. Aleksandra (Saška) Mojsilović

IBM Research AI

Bio

Prof. Albert Ali Salah

Boğaziçi University
Utrecht University

Bio

Michiel Bakker

MIT Media Lab

Bio

Rahul Bhargava

MIT Media Lab

Bio

Prof. Jackie Carter

University of Manchester

Bio

Faine Greenwood

Harvard Humanitarian Initiative

Bio

Dr. Vanessa Higgins

University of Manchester

Bio

Dr. Emmanuel Letouzé

Data-Pop Alliance, MIT Media Lab

Bio

Alejandro Noriega

MIT Media Lab

Bio

Daniel Scarnecchia

Harvard Humanitarian Initiative

Bio

Facilitators

Valentina Casasbuenas

Data-Pop Alliance

Bio

Natalie Grover

Data-Pop Alliance

Bio

Samant Kakkar

UNSSC

Bio

Thad Kerosky

Data-Pop Alliance

Bio

Rodrigo Lara Molina

Data-Pop Alliance

Bio

Julie Ricard

BWH / Harvard Humanitarian Initiative

Bio

Micol Stock

Data-Pop Alliance

Bio

Fellowships Opportunity

Learn More
Contact Us

Data-Pop Alliance offers fellowships covering the $1750 course fee, not including travel and accommodations, to selected professionals working on Big Data for Development in their respective countries and regions with preference given to applicants from the public sector and civil society or NGOs.

Candidates should have a good statistical and/or quantitative background and a basic understanding of data methods and tools. The workshop will be conducted fully in English. 

Please note that these fellowships will cover the cost of course only – and do not cover any other costs, including  travel, accommodation, visa costs, etc.

In addition, with funding support from the MIT Sloan Latin America Office, Data-Pop Alliance is pleased to offer additional support for candidates from Latin America. This fellowship is available to four participants and will cover the $1750 course fee as well as $700 in additional funding for travel or accommodation. 
 
This highly competitive fellowship will be granted to candidates working in the Big Data for Development field, with a proven strong background in statistics and / or quantitative analysis and a basic understanding of data methods and tools. Candidates should work for organizations in civil society, media, or research institutions. Interested candidates should specify in their fellowship applications if they are also applying for the MIT Management Latin America Office Fellowship.

Fellowships for Latin American Candidates

Contact Us
MSLAO MITSloanLogo_MASTER_Print[1]

Watch the evaluations and reactions of participants from our last course held in Nairobi in June 2017 to see what they have to say about the training experience with Data-Pop Alliance and UNSSC:

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