“Today, we stand at the edge of possibility.”

That powerful imagery from Dr. Ronda Železný-Green, program director of the Capacity Accelerator Network at data.org, kicked off a globally-attended webinar to release a first-of-its-kind new report, “Workforce Wanted: Data Talent for Social Impact.”

Workforce Wanted is informed by a review of 200 data talent initiatives around the world, 90 articles and reports, and more than 30 expert interviews, led by data.org and The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, in collaboration with Dalberg and with support from the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. 

Železný-Green points out that while social impact organizations are at the forefront of serving communities and improving lives, they continue to lag behind the private sector when it comes to using the power of data to advance change. Leveraging that power is the motivation behind the report, which speaks to the challenges and opportunities, success stories and gaps that must be addressed to create a stronger and more diverse talent pipeline to lead this work forward.

“The report shows the critical need and the tremendous opportunity for global data talent to enable the social sector to harness the power of data to solve the world’s most pressing problems,” said Mamadou Biteye, executive secretary for the African Capacity Building Foundation and moderator for the event. 

In the next decade, there could be as many as 3.5 million job opportunities in data science for social impact in low- and middle-income countries. But to get there, there is a lot of work to be done. 

An Emerging Field at a Crossroads

When Claudia Juech, vice president of data and society at The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, started on this kind of work five years ago, the conversations in the field were still heavily focused on the ‘why.’ Why is data science important? Why should we invest? 

The case has been sufficiently made, but social impact organizations continue to struggle with the ‘how.’ 

“We are now shifting. Now it is about ‘where is the talent that we need to do that work?’” Juech said. “‘How do we implement?’” 

In particular, organizations are often missing the ‘who.’ They lack the people power to maximize the use of data. Existing staff don’t have the skills, and attracting talent is difficult when competing with private sector peers that often advertise higher-paying jobs with bigger teams and more extensive records of data science investment.

“Through this report, our goal was really to articulate and better understand where the field is today and the scale of the opportunity ahead,” said Ginger Zielinskie, senior advisor at data.org, a lead author of the report, and a former social impact practitioner who has long seen the looming gap with data science staffing. “Talent continued to come up as an underpinning of each challenge we sought to solve.”

The Workforce Wanted project team identified four pathways to expand the talent pool in data for social impact:

1. New talent, or attracting early career professionals into the field through educational and workforce development pathways. Traditional programs often lack exposure to the social impact sector, so forging those connections is key.
2. Existing talent, or upskilling and reskilling workers who are already in the sector. They have already opted into mission-driven work. With the challenges around attracting and retaining this talent already solved, what can it look like when you give them opportunities for growth and development in data science? 
3. Transitional talent, or creating on-ramps that allow for greater exposure and access to employment opportunities. Hands-on fellowships, short courses, volunteer opportunities, and rotational leadership programs are all examples of how to support this pipeline.
4. Leadership, or helping those at the top of organizations to commit to the change process and implement meaningful approaches to build data-led cultures. 

Early on in the webinar, attendees were asked to identify the most important pathway, and the results were compelling. The four pathways  were neck and neck at 25, 24, 23, and 28 percent, respectively. 

In other words, they are seen as equally important, illustrating how much work has to be done across the board. 

“I was absolutely surprised by how early we are; by how much information and knowledge we still need to uncover and gain and aggregate and share and learn from,” Zielinskie said. “We have not yet used data and data science to our fullest potential. The opportunity is so massive.”

Finding the Right Talent

In an exhaustive review of the data talent landscape, the Workforce Wanted team heard over and over that there were not enough data talent professionals. More educational and training opportunities are needed, including university degree programs. Greater investment is needed to improve a growing number of ​​non-traditional training models, including massive open online courses (MOOCs), which have demonstrated varying degrees of efficacy. Leadership needs the opportunity to train and develop themselves in order to scale up what works and create institutional buy-in. And across all of these efforts, organizations must also consider the digital divide, and which communities do—or do not—have access to foundational tools like the internet and technology.

It isn’t just a question of having enough talent or enough training, either; it’s a question of having the right talent.

“The social impact sector sees the potential to use data and data science more effectively to tackle literally the hardest problems in the globe. The question is how do we use this powerful tool responsibly?” Zielinskie asks, calling out the most important theme of the report: lack of diversity. “If we actually want to build equity-centered data science solutions, we have to be proactive in focusing on building an inclusive and diverse workforce.”

The values of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) are generally acknowledged as important, yet not enough has been done to embed them in the field in a meaningful way. When considering the strategies listed above for expanding workforce development, Juech points out that these strategies must be developed in a way that specifically addresses attracting and retaining more diverse talent.

“It’s important that we think about diversity of data professionals because we know that data fairness is better achievable if the people who work on data, clean data, analyze data, really represent the communities and the contexts where the data originates from,” she said. 

In 2021, The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation invested more than $10 million in workforce development initiatives, focusing heavily on working not just with individuals, but with teams and organizations. This nuance is important, as it ensures that capacity building does not live with a single person; it becomes integrated into systems and is therefore more sustainable. It shifts from individual projects to systems-level thinking. 

That intentionality, Juech adds, is essential at every stage of the process. She often hears leaders say, for example, that they post data talent jobs but do not receive applications from candidates from historically underrepresented communities. Organizations must take responsibility and hold themselves accountable, expanding outreach efforts and peeling back the onion another layer to ask what other benefits, flexibility, or support could make a position more attractive for both external and internal candidates.

“Be intentional about who you hire, who you promote, and who you offer growth opportunities to in nonprofit organizations,” she said.

Putting Money Where Your Mouth Is

Building capacity requires intentionality. It also requires investment. Funders must ask organizations about the makeup of their teams and begin to distribute funds to signal that this isn’t just a nice to have—it’s a priority. 

At the organizational level, that can be a harder decision than it seems. When presented with a choice between providing direct services to communities or investing in digital infrastructure and data capacity, Zielinskie understands why data science often takes a back-burner.

But an investment today can yield dividends in the future.

“To train this next generation of talent to develop mechanisms to support the upskilling within organizations, to build clearer and porous pipelines between the technology sector and the social impact sector, and to support leaders in driving this transformation, we have to get real about the capital required,” she said.

She and Juech and the rest of the Workforce Wanted team are hopeful that this report will help spark an increased investment, and improve coordination across academia, philanthropy, social impact practitioners, and partners in the tech for good space. There are emerging bright spots, and wherever there is a lesson to be learned, it’s essential that best practices and effective strategies be shared. 

The momentum is growing, as long as cross-sector partners are willing to double down and get serious about building a stronger and more diverse talent pipeline.

“Be curious about what the data has to really tell you,”Zielinskie said. “Be agile enough to evolve and opportunistic enough to take advantage, and we can drive this change forward.” 

To learn more about building data talent capacity, watch the full webinar online and download and read the full report, “Workforce Wanted: Data Talent for Social Impact.” You can also access the data.org Resource Library, and get your organization started with the data.org Data Maturity Assessment.

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Today, in concert with the launch of  The University of Chicago (UChicago) Data Science Institute (DSI), we are delighted to announce seven new higher education partners committing to drive social impact through data science. This group constitutes the first hub in data.org’s Capacity Accelerator Network (CAN), and focuses on financial inclusion to address systemic issues of inequity. The collective goal of this consortium is to generate new pathways out of poverty for college students from low-resourced communities and increase the data science pipeline for social impact organizations collaborating with these students. We are honored to welcome our new partners into the data.org network. They are: 

• California State University, Fresno
• City Colleges of Chicago
• Howard University
• Morehouse College
• North Carolina State University
• The University of Illinois at Chicago
• University of Texas, San Antonio

These partners bring broad, interdisciplinary expertise—spanning from social policy to data science—to the challenge of financial inclusion. The consortium includes historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), minority-serving institutions (MSIs), Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs), and community colleges, among others. As an organization committed to IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access), data.org was pleased to partner with UChicago to identify these seven partners. These leading institutions represent different geographies and populations across the US, and share both a vision and a strong track record in developing highly qualified students, with priority focus on women and minorities for careers in data science or STEAM fields.  

Collectively, this financial inclusion hub will create an open curriculum, tools, and a model for experiential data science education that scales across diverse higher education institutions across the globe. While UChicago will play a key leadership and organizational role in this initiative, all consortium members will have an equal and powerful voice and make essential individual contributions, such as drafting data science apprenticeship models, developing co-curricular experiences for students, piloting experiential learning courses, and collaborating with local organizations to apply data science skills to local issues. This approach builds on the findings of our RECoDE report, which emphasized the critical need for data-driven solutions to be co-created with the communities they serve. All partners will engage regularly to share their work, ideas, successes, and failures as they drive data science for social impact at their own institutions. As each partner works within different communities and contexts, the learnings from their collective experiences will be shared and integrated into the open curriculum. 

A Platform for Partnerships, In Action  

As a neutral platform for partnerships, data.org is uniquely positioned to provide support across several areas critical for the initiative’s success. Earlier this spring, we announced funding from the Mastercard Impact Fund for data.org’s Capacity Accelerator Network (CAN), including an award to UChicago to steward this consortium of higher education partners. Through the data.org network, we connect academic institutions interested in data science for social impact with funders, sector experts, and leading social impact practitioners to ensure programmatic sustainability and scale. 

Crossing Sectors to Scale  

We are proud to announce this first milestone in building a consortium of partners committed to developing, refining, and deploying open data science curricula for social impact. Through piloting the curricula and playbooks, we are excited to see the reach of each partner’s contribution, from educating individual students to working with local social impact organizations to ultimately effecting meaningful and equitable change at leadership and policy levels. The challenges we face as a society are systemic, interconnected, and complex, and only by bringing together different disciplines, sectors, and perspectives can we build solutions that scale for everyone, everywhere. 

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Thibaut joins data.org as Software Design and Implementation Lead, responsible for system interoperability and automation across the Epiverse software packages. In this role, he will focus on building links within the Epiverse tools and with external collaborators and users, defining and implementing software design strategies, conducting research to maximize tool efficiency in outbreak response contexts, and serving as an advisor to relevant data.org programming. Working with the global collaborative of Epiverse building partners, Thibaut will lead the transformation of today’s epidemiological response tools, leveraging a robust and open software ecosystem.

Thibaut brings critical first-hand experience in outbreak responses, both as part of academic teams and in the field. Prior to joining data.org, Thibaut was an Associate Professor in outbreak analytics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and served as a consultant for the World Health Organization. Thibaut worked on several outbreak responses as an academic, including pandemic influenza, MERS-CoV, or the COVID-19 pandemic, and has also been deployed with the WHO to the Democratic Republic of the Congo where he used data science to inform the response to Ebola outbreaks. Pertinent to his role at data.org, Thibaut is extensively involved in developing data science software and has authored or co-authored over twenty R packages. This software has attracted an expansive user base, with packages garnering approximately 540,000 downloads and over 6,000 citations. He is also the founder of the R Epidemics Consortium (RECON), a non-profit organization for the development of free, open-source analysis tools and training resources for the response to humanitarian crises.

“Open-source software holds the power to alleviate the procedural bottlenecks that slow down infectious disease response. Epiverse’s technology will ensure that the information generated by one epidemiological analysis can be used seamlessly in another. The inclusive open-source Epiverse community will deliver greater insights across the globe, empowering the production of better products, solutions, and ultimately health outcomes. I am delighted to help data.org lead this charge,” said Dr. Thibaut Jombart.

Thibaut holds a Ph.D. in biostatistics from the University of Lyon, France, and is a part-time senior lecturer in outbreak analytics at Imperial College London.

“Dr. Thibaut Jombart is a leading expert and contributor to the field of outbreak analytics, and we are thrilled to have him lead technology development across Epiverse,” said Ibrahim Mahgoub, Program Director, Epiverse. “His interdisciplinary expertise and boots-on-the-ground experience will provide a critical focus on interoperability and field effectiveness, ensuring that Epiverse tools enable responders to be more connected and informed.”

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RECoDE was launched in partnership with data.org, Data Across Sectors for Health, Health Leads, and the National Alliance against Disparities in Patient Health. The project aimed to better understand how to undo antiquated and dangerous data systems and build in their place an ecosystem that provides all communities power over where, when, and how their data is used to improve individual and community outcomes. The process of this project has had a deep impact on considerations and practices at data.org, providing us with a renewed sense of purpose in building the field of data science for social impact (DSSI). The insights from RECoDE interviewees and workgroup members have helped guide who we are and how we think about the work that we are doing in the short and long term. 

Through this year-long project, we listened to community members that are most impacted by inequitable data systems. Our report is the amalgamation of these voices, and an act to amplify long known and felt truths. What we heard on what matters most, above all other priorities, was trust. RECoDE’s findings bring critical relevance across organizations and sectors: without trust, true partnership is not possible, and without true partnership, we will continue to build systems rife with the inequalities that perpetuate health and economic disparities. 

Solutions cannot be built in isolation in Silicon Valley, New York, or Boston, and parachuted into local communities; we have seen this ineffective approach time and time again. Co-creation, genuine partnership, and a fundamental re-balancing of existing power structures will enable healthy, inclusive community data ecosystems. At data.org, we have held this principle core to our work. For example, in our global initiative Epiverse, we are co-creating a trustworthy, open-source software ecosystem to power epidemic preparedness. From the outset, we committed to developing tools with local communities, building on the knowledge and capabilities of those most impacted by inequities in global health. In partnering with teams in The Gambia and Colombia, and through a fully representative, global open-source community, we are not only building trust-worthy solutions, but we are ultimately building better systems, products, and outcomes.  

Trust and co-creation are essential for building equity-centered community data ecosystems, but trusted partnerships are not developed overnight. A fundamental principle for doing this work well is to slow down, listen, and hear the voices of the community, to move slow and fix things. This approach requires significant resources—including money, people, and time—and with the need for more resources comes the need for funding. To build equitable data systems, we must examine the current funding structures that can empower or interfere with this work. Too often, progress is halted by short funding cycles, and success is measured by excessive emphasis on specific funder requirements – an approach that disables systemic changes and does not reflect the priorities or needs of the community. Co-creation is paramount to each project cycle stage, including co-creating funding priorities. RECoDE calls for partners and funders to lean on the expertise of grantees and shift towards community-led, long-term projects that will support and sustain community led social impact organizations using data to realize impact. 

None of this work will be possible without investment in local capacity. This starts with recognizing and funding existing work that is often undercompensated. Throughout the course of this project, it was striking how many people could identify someone in their community who goes above and beyond to make this work possible, the person who is coordinating partnerships with the food bank, the hospital, the women’s shelter on top of their official role. We can often point to the linchpins of community data ecosystems – but are they adequately supported so that they can sustain their work? Systemic change will also require many more people with data skills – from data literacy to data analytics to data science. We have an opportunity to invest in the professional development of a more diverse data workforce through upskilling existing workers and expanding the pipeline of new talent to reflect the diversity and lived experiences of our communities. Let’s rethink how data skills are taught and make this skillset more widely available. Through data.org’s Capacity Accelerator Network, we aim to train 1 million purpose-driven data professionals by 2032, and we believe that this goal will be met by a mix of locally-driven efforts and tools and resources that can be shared and adapted across a global network. 

data.org is a platform for partnerships to build the field of data science for social impact. As an organization we are both funders and grantees, we are partners, matchmakers, and public conveners. In this hybrid position, we have the unique and privileged opportunity to look at DSSI initiatives and data ecosystems from varying vantage points. We believe that our role following this report is to be the splash that causes a rippling effect – aiming to influence our extended network to make the necessary paradigm shifts that our RECoDE work demands. As we stated in the report, these are not radical ideas. But they require radical action. We hope that you will download, read, and share the RECoDE Report, and join us in the work of building equitable data ecosystems that improve health and wellbeing for all. 

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The initiative was a success—an example of data for good in action. 

But when other African countries expressed a desire to adopt Novissi, it became clear that scaling up would be significantly hindered by a major limiting factor: talent capacity. 

“For programs like this to be sustainable, we—and that’s a collective we—really need to bolster the data science talent that already exists on the African continent, and connect this talent with opportunities for impact at scale,” said Carson Christiano, CEGA executive director.

Africa has one of the fastest growing tech sectors in the world, and has a history of being early adopters of new technologies, as well as a young population that is eager to learn. But building the talent pool to match these data-friendly characteristics requires a thoughtful, intentional approach. Mapping that strategy was the centerpiece of discussion during data.org and CEGA’s joint webinar, “Cultivating Capacity: Building Data Science and Data Centers Across Africa.”

Growing the Talent Pipeline

data.org has made this a key priority, launching the Capacity Accelerator Network (CAN) in January 2022 to increase skills and support for social impact organizations’ capacity to be data driven and deliver transformative change. The goal is that, by 2032, data.org will create one million purpose-driven data professionals, trained through global accelerators and digital public resources like those available through the continuously-expanding data.org Resource Library. 

CAN Program Director Dr. Ronda Železný-Green moderated the panel, made up of experts on data for social impact who are working to build a more skilled workforce in their respective spheres of influence. At the same time that their collective efforts are underway to upskill existing workers, there is also a bottom-up movement to grow the pipeline.

Engineer Bainomugisha is an associate professor of computer science and the chair of the Department of Computer Science at Makerere University in Uganda, where 80 percent of graduate students are now choosing to focus on artificial intelligence and data science. The demand is driven in part by the need. Across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, data science is increasingly looked to as a fundamental driver for building efficiency, increasing impact, and ensuring accountability. 

At Makerere, though, the demand has also been driven by an intentional effort to make data science more accessible.

“What we struggled with a bit at the start is that without local examples of what data science can do, it’s difficult for the students to appreciate skilling in data science,” Bainomugisha said.

To address the gap in exposure and understanding, the university established a research lab exclusively focused on AI and data science. The lab and its research brings examples of data science to life, spanning a range of applications with local relevance, like agriculture, health, and environmental monitoring. Students need to see themselves and their lived experiences reflected in the field.

“We are using these examples of research as a way to train the students. That doesn’t only stop at training the students, but also demonstrating to the local stakeholders in government and civil society on what you can actually do with data science solutions within the local context,” he said.

Improving Access and Inspiring Action

Davis Adieno, the director of programs for the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, agreed that it’s not just the potential talent that needs to see this work in action. The government and political apparatus often needs convincing, too.

“If you don’t get the politics right, then you are likely to fail,” he said. 

Understanding that politics can be an overwhelming barrier to success, Adieno’s organization works to bring people with varied backgrounds and experiences together to build relationships, forge partnerships, and illustrate the shared benefit of the use of data science for social impact. That includes opportunities for peer-to-peer learning so that best practices can be replicated and scaled up and mistakes can be avoided.

“We create an enabling environment for civil society, private sector, and other actors to come to the table, talk to governments, and really identify where the shared needs in that particular sector are; define where there is demand for access to data, tools, infrastructure, or capacity support,” he said. 

A community building approach to learning and development is also at the heart of Solar Sister, an organization that trains and supports women to deliver clean energy solutions to homes in rural African communities. Improving access to and understanding of data is essential for this burgeoning workforce to be successful. This is especially true in sub-Saharan Africa, where the scarcity of consumer and market data has been identified as a major barrier to innovation across the continent. 

“We’re investing in data science in a way that we’ve never done before, and it’s allowing us to scale more systematically and also to help our entrepreneurs maximize their business potential,” said Solar Sister’s Nigeria Country Director Olasimbo Sojinrin.

Working with the geospatial company Frame, on a project funded by data.org, Solar Sister is creating maps that provide market insights in communities, like employment and socioeconomic data. Entrepreneurs can explore new territories and decide where they should focus their attention in selling products to new neighborhoods. 

“What we’re trying to do is to amplify our impact by providing unprecedented insight into market potential for the women and the communities that we’re working in,” Sojinrin said. “We are able to harvest this data and try and put it in a bite-sized way such that all they get is an SMS with the four new areas in which they can expand to. So by the time it’s getting to them, it’s getting to them in a way that they can digest and a way that makes them act really fast.”

While there was broad consensus on the panel that skills building and talent development remain a top concern, there was recognition that it isn’t the only barrier to break down in order to build Africa’s data capacity. 

“In many African contexts, it’s quite difficult to get the data in the right formats and also at the right time,” Bainomugisha said. “The data collection methods being used are not necessarily up to speed of producing the data in a timely manner, in which case, it means that by the time the data is actually made available, maybe it has lost the value to have meaningful data science solutions.”

Adieno points out that the private sector is among the largest producers of data and also leads on innovation. Partnerships and cross sector collaboration to accelerate data sharing between social impact organizations and the private sector are building momentum in Africa. An example Adieno uses is that, in the wake of a natural disaster, a country can’t afford to wait for a public survey or census. Mobile data, however, can help locate people and track displacements in near real time. 

When those kinds of data are more transparent and accessible, the applications are endless — as is the potential for social impact.

“The biggest opportunity, for me, is the ability to use data to address some of the most important societal challenges,” Sojinrin said. “I think it would really take the continent further to where we want to be.”

To learn more about building data capacity, watch the full webinar online, access the data.org Resource Library, and get your organization started with the data.org Data Maturity Assessment.

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The first step toward progress is understanding where you currently are. data.org recently launched the Data Maturity Assessment with a goal of providing a snapshot view to help social impact organizations understand where they are in their data maturity journey, and serve up relevant resources to support their continued growth.

A free and open tool that provides a pulse check

The Data Maturity Assessment enables social impact professionals and departments to gauge their organization’s current state and progress, and to share that progress with stakeholders and community members invested in bringing the organization forward. A recent webinar hosted by Good Tech Fest founder Andrew Means and data.org’s Ginger Zielinskie, took a look at the approach to the tool and invited social impact organizations to the conversation.

Built by the community, for the community

The Data Maturity Assessment takes only about 12 minutes to complete with clear and concise questions, built from research and consultation with subject matter experts from more than 20 organizations. The assessment has questions that cover all main aspects of data practices to provide a meaningful picture and are presented as sections “Purpose”, “Practice”, “People”, and a final “Results” page. The team ensured that the layout is user-friendly on desktop and mobile, and users are able to go back and forth between sections to review their answers. There is also contextual help text to explain some questions or answers in more detail. Help text appears at the right, and can be opened on-site with a single click to avoid disrupting the flow. 

Actionable results

The data maturity assessment results provide a snapshot summary of where an organization is on its data journey and invite users to dig into the deeper analysis and available resources via the robust Resource Library. The results page also offers the ability to easily share results with team members and stakeholders who would benefit from understanding more about the organization’s data journey.

Data Maturity Assessment

Start your data journey here.

This tool offers a pulse check, helping you measure and understand where your organization stands in your data journey today and connecting you with the tools and resources you need to move forward.

Take the assessment

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Before joining data.org, I worked with UNICEF’s Innovation team. I was hugely inspired by UNICEF’s commitment to identifying and supporting local innovations on a global scale rather than building and exporting solutions from New York, where the Office of Global Innovation was based. Growing up in Egypt and having been part of supporting digital transformation in many countries, I have experienced the unparalleled power of inclusive co-creation. Furthermore, I understand the importance of solutions developed by a community of field and subject matter experts rather than an elite team of technologists trying to innovate and address the problem from a safe distance. These tools must be designed with and not merely for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to create an impactful and open ecosystem.

Epiverse, an initiative powered by data.org, aims to bring visibility and resources to the development of open-source and privacy preserving tools in the field of epidemic analysis and response. Achieving high levels of interoperability and adaptability is a common goal shared by researchers, technologists, and responders around the world. Today, the Epiverse community grows stronger by welcoming Dr. Bubacarr Bah as the Head of Data Science for the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia (MRCG) at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

Dr. Bah will lead the development of epidemiological data science tools for Epiverse. His appointment adds to the growing momentum behind Epiverse, powering the field of epidemiology with interdisciplinary collaboration and global co-creation. LSHTM’s and MRCG’s expertise in epidemiological modeling and open-source software will be integral to Epiverse’s success, and we are thrilled to have their collective creativity and rigor fuel this effort.

Global Collaboration

Dr. Bah, an applied and computational mathematician, joins the MRCG from Stellenbosch University and The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) where he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and the German Research Chair of Mathematics, respectively. His research in mathematical and computational methods and techniques—including modeling, sampling, and algorithms—for data science problems ranging from biomedical sciences, engineering, and social sciences make him uniquely suited for this role. Dr. Bah brings unparalleled technical expertise and a passion for building data science capacity, bridging the gap between academic research and delivering innovative software solutions.

The MRCG at LSHTM serves as a center of excellence in the West African region and is one of two research units established in sub-Saharan Africa by the Medical Research Council UK. As the council’s single largest medical research investment in LMICs , it’s an ideal partner in the fight for increased accessibility in data analysis. We are delighted to welcome MRCG to a growing group of global centers of excellence convened by Epiverse. The team behind Epiverse is working to bring the current state of epidemiological data analysis out of manual spreadsheets and ad hoc code and into scalable, open-source, interoperable systems. Dr. Bah and his dedicated software engineering team in The Gambia will play a key role in both delivering operational excellence and ensuring that the suite of data science tools in development are inclusive and relevant to LMICs. By increasing access to insights and implementation, Epiverse can disrupt the existing power structures that have led to the grave inequities in pandemic response.

Solutions Without Borders

Epiverse centers its mission on the pillars of global co-creation and open technology and data.  Whether it is COVID-19 or the next public health crisis, we believe true impact will be enabled by collaborative, cross-boundary solutions built in technologies that can scale. This LSHTM team represents the first of many Epiverse sub-grant awardees across the world, an important node in a global network collaborating on life changing solutions.

Under the leadership of Dr. Bah and together with their colleagues in London, the team at MRCG at LSHTM will grow and engage a dynamic open-source community – ready to develop, apply, and maintain the Epiverse software ecosystem. As we look ahead at this new year—one that is already challenging our pandemic response efforts—we are reminded that questioning norms, establishing capacity, and co-creating with other centers of excellence is how we will improve global infectious disease response. We will continue to prioritize global inclusivity, welcoming different ideas, and approaches from all corners of the world and building engaged communities to drive shared success.

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The opportunity for data to advance the social sector is enormous, but social impact organizations face many obstacles on their journey to using data in service of their mission. To get started, social impact leaders must be aware of the potential, develop the skills and capabilities to build a data competency, and marshal the resources to make it all happen.  

Additionally, deploying data science in the social sector requires particular nuance — it isn’t just a rinse and repeat of what works for the private sector. To apply data and data science responsibly, social impact organizations need to develop approaches that honor the context and complexity of the specific social sector challenges to be addressed. In addition, solutions must prioritize engagement and meaningful co-creation with the communities they are intended to serve in order to be effective —  and to avoid a plethora of unintended consequences. 

At data.org we have heard (and personally experienced) the challenge of needing to get smarter about data, and the frustration of wading through a trove of search engine results. It takes not only time and effort, but also field experience and subject matter expertise for social impact leaders to determine if a resource is from a trustworthy source, current enough to be relevant, and appropriate for their stage of data strategy. To solve this challenge, we have built two new elements into our data.org digital platform: a Resource Library and a Data Maturity Assessment Tool. 

A Resource Library as a Launchpad 

The Library is created by the community, for the community. We first introduced this concept with users at Good Tech Fest in May 2021, and engaged community stakeholders throughout the design, development, and content creation and sourcing. Our goal is to provide a neutral platform to build capacity in the field. We curate and categorize a manageable set of resources to provide social impact organizations with a jumpstart on their data journey. Resources are categorized into topics including analysis, governance, leadership, and strategy; users can start from a topic they’d like to learn more about, or browse the entire catalog. 

Beyond the resources, the Library contains a series of consumable guides addressing particular topics from How to Build Your Data Stack to Getting Started with Data Visualization.  In addition, we are including time-bounded opportunities: for funding, research, and for employment applying data science to roles in the social sector.  

We are grateful to all those who contributed ideas, recommended resources, and tested early prototypes for this first release. In the coming months, we’ll be listening to your feedback and watching the analytics to understand what’s working and what can be improved. We look forward to continuing to evolve this experience to enable more specific matchmaking between social impact organizations and funders looking for ways to maximize field-building impact, and to increase connections among social impact organizations to one another.  

A Tool to Chart a Data Journey 

We are delighted to be launching the Data Maturity Assessment. This project, too, began with the community: an early alpha co-developed in the spring of 2021 with DataKind was tested with ten organizations, and in-depth interviews yielded insights about the data topics needing investigation. With this experience and extensive desk research in hand, we sought to create a solution that was short enough to be taken online, but substantive enough to identify areas of opportunity. Our goal was to provide organizations with a pulse check, helping them measure and understand where they stand today on their data journey.  

Mindful of organizations’ need to act on an assessment, we ensured the results page offers not only a benchmark score, but also specific resources aligned with areas for growth. Integration of the Tool with our Library of guides and resources via a shared taxonomy on the backend ensures that organizations receive results with specific, vetted resources for delving more deeply into content. We also heard from social impact organizations that a significant obstacle in launching and sustaining a data competency is developing and communication a shared understanding of areas for opportunity and growth. With this challenge in mind, the results page is mindfully designed to be sharable with organizational leadership, boards, or funders to provide clarity, and to set the stage for an ongoing data conversation.  

Stepping Stone to Building the Field 

We know that a Resource Library and Tools are useful starting points and not the whole picture. Social impact organizations need funding, training, and connection with one another to advance their data practices. As a platform for partnerships to build the field of data science for social impact, we are committed to enhancing the digital platform to fuel these connections – both online and offline – to convene the community, and learn together.  

 
Acknowledgments: We’d like to thank the many community members whose feedback informed this work – too many to list here — and Rachel Wells, Senior Manager, Center for Excellence at DataKind and Jake Porway, Fellow at data.org for hands-on guidance and insights. We are also grateful for the smart product thinking from our colleagues at Upstatement. 

We also acknowledge the prior and current community members tackling this data maturity challenge, including Accion, CARE, Center for Data Science and Public Policy at the University of Chicago, DataKind UK, Data Orchard, and IBM.

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Ibrahim Mahgoub joins data.org as Program Director of Epiverse, responsible for driving the development and delivery of open-source, privacy-preserving data analytics software for pandemic preparedness and response. In this role, Ibrahim will work with teams across the globe, delivering on the shared commitment to equitable and inclusive community co-creation of software and tools. By supporting subgrantees developing novel software tools and fostering partnership across government, academia, and local communities, Ibrahim will lead the deployment, scaling, and adoption of Epiverse’s novel methods.

Ibrahim most recently led UNICEF’s pathfinding initiative supporting ten low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in leveraging open software and open data to strengthen public services. During his tenure at UNICEF, Ibrahim piloted new approaches, leveraging entrepreneurial ecosystems to scale innovations in Vaccine Delivery and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH). Ibrahim brings to his new role an extensive network of accelerators and innovation hubs in LMICs and an ability to source, support, and curate multiple innovations into toolkits of scalable, interoperable solutions.

“In creating open channels for epidemiologists, technologists, governments, and citizens around the world, Epiverse powers interdisciplinary collaboration. More critically, each individual’s progress, insight, and implementation benefit the collective, leveling the playing field and giving all a practical chance against this pandemic and the next public health crisis,” said Ibrahim Mahgoub. “I am delighted to join the data.org team and apply my experience building partnerships across sectors to advance equitable open data solutions.”

Ibrahim will earn an Executive Master’s degree in Digital Transformation & Innovation Leadership from IE University in the Spring of 2022.

data.org also welcomes Dr. Ronda Železný-Green as Program Director of the Capacity Accelerator Network (CAN). As Program Director, Ronda will lead the global CAN team and support network partners to deliver on data.org’s commitment to train one-million purpose-driven data professionals by 2032. In this role, Ronda will lead collaboration across sectors to build on the momentum of open-source curricula development, and engage and explore effective and scalable strategies to deliver on this ambitious goal.

Previously, Ronda served as the Global Head of Training and eLearning for the Internet Society and as the Policy and Regulation Training Delivery Director at the GSMA. As a mobile technologist, trainer, and researcher, Ronda’s professional experience spans five continents and the public, private, and civil society sectors. Hallmarks of her career include championing, coaching, and mentoring women in tech; learning with tech; and empowering people to use technology as transformative tools to live their best lives.

“I am delighted to join data.org and meet the challenge to transform the sector, not only building data science capacity for emerging talent but for organizations as well. In developing diverse data-driven leadership, infrastructure, strategy, and culture, I look forward to empowering social impact organizations to leverage 21^st century skills to unlock the power of data to achieve their missions,” said Dr. Ronda Železný-Green. “CAN is a call to my passion for leveraging technologies for socio-economic development and builds on my experience creatively solving challenges through collaboration.”

Ronda earned a  Ph.D in Human Geography and Master of Science in Practicing Sustainable Development with ICT4D specialism from Royal Holloway, University of London. She obtained a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics and a Graduate Certificate in Instructional and Technology Design from the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She also earned a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Spanish (Honors) with a minor in Non-Profit Management from Salem College. 

“New data.org initiatives, Epiverse and CAN, grew from ideas to fully-fledged programs over the past year, made possible by our dedicated and nimble team. Our organization enters this new year with exciting momentum, and the addition of Ibrahim Mahgoub and Dr. Ronda Železný-Green further strengthens our ranks,” said Dr. Danil Mikhailov, Executive Director, data.org. “These Program Directors are true leaders in their respective fields with deep domain knowledge, proven global track records, and passion for driving transformation in the field of data science for social impact. We are enormously excited to welcome them to the data.org team!”

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We are proud to welcome the members of the Epiverse Expert Advisory Council:

• Dr. Philip Sami Onsy AbdelMalik, Team Lead, Information Systems and Analytics Initiative Lead, Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources (EIOS), WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE)
• Dr. Regina Barzilay, Professor, School of Engineering Distinguished Professor for AI and Health, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
• Chapin Flynn, Senior Vice President, Mastercard Enterprise Partnerships
• Dr. Josie Golding, Epidemics Research Lead, Wellcome
• Dr. Chonnettia Jones, Vice President, Research, Michael Smith Health Research BC
• Dr. Rebecca Kahn, Senior Scientist, CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, Visiting Scientist, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
• Dr. Sam Scarpino, Vice President, Pandemic Prevention Institute, Health Initiative, The Rockefeller Foundation
• Dr. Uyi Stewart, Chief Data and Technology Officer, data.org
• Kaitlin Thaney, Executive Director, Invest in Open Infrastructure
• Dr. Peiling Yap, Chief Scientist, International Digital Health & AI Research Collaborative

Bringing on the Best and Brightest

By harnessing the brainpower of the collective, the newly formed council is an embodiment of Epiverse’s community approach. Members represent leaders from different specialist areas: infectious disease, epidemiology, epidemiological modelling, and public health; data science, software engineering, product development, cloud infrastructure; and privacy-preservation approaches (differential privacy, privacy ML, homomorphic encryption).

“Each member of the Epiverse Advisory Council brings their own unique set of personal passions and professional expertise. This assembly is a testament to the critical need for an open and interdisciplinary collaboration to power pandemic response. We are incredibly lucky to be able to convene such a diverse group and look forward to having their guidance as we continue to expand the initiative globally,” said Dr. Danil Mikhailov, Executive Director of data.org.

Global Co-Design and Creation

As COVID-19 cases edge toward the 300 million mark worldwide, the need for accessible, accurate data analysis in public health remains urgent. Leveraging data.org’s platform for partnerships, the team behind Epiverse has already begun the task of collaborating with some of the best and brightest scientists and academics from around the world, as evidenced by the recent launch of our work with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine – but that is only the beginning. Looking ahead to 2022, data.org will engage both the public and private sectors with innovative programs to create and maintain a suite of open-source software tools that will not only uncover new insights in the fight against the pandemic but will work toward addressing inequalities in data analysis accessibility in low-to-middle income countries.

“I am honored to join the Epiverse Advisory Council, particularly as this effort is focused on co-creating these important and much-needed epidemiological tools with experts in low-to-middle income countries. It is important that our work to combat the pandemic is developed with those most at risk, not just in mind, but actually in the room – true co-design, adaptation, and maintenance from a global community is how we get ahead of the next public health crisis.” said Dr. Uyi Stewart, Executive Director at Seagen Inc. and Chairman of Data Science Nigeria.

Expert Navigators Across Industry

The group will serve on the advisory council for a term of three years and be integral to Epiverse’s growth and success. Members will advise on the program’s strategic direction, participate in the upcoming privacy-preserving technology challenge, and offer overall perspective and guidance on complex partnerships and collaborative efforts between researchers, governments, technology companies, social impact organizations, funders, and academics. On the heels of the LSHTM and Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia (MRCG) at LSHTM partnership, unveiling this advisory council is another demonstration of the momentum developing around Epiverse. We look forward to growing the council to include more voices from around the world, ensuring that Epiverse continues to put data equity, inclusivity, and the collective good at the center our strategy.

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To deliver on these ambitious but critical targets, countries met to discuss the phase-out of coal, expansion of renewables, ecosystem restoration, and smarter investments, among other priorities. Also essential, conference leaders say, is the need for global cooperation and collaboration. 

That, and better data. 

At the SDG7 Pavilion at COP26, data.org, a platform for partnerships to build data science for social impact, convened a panel of experts for an engaging conversation on how data-driven approaches can get us closer to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7, increasing global access to clean, affordable energy. 

This compelling session, held in the Pavilion supported by The Rockefeller Foundation and IKEA Foundation, puts data at the center of sustainable climate solutions.

SDG7 Data Science Success in Action

Approximately 840 million people still live without access to electricity. And according to The Rockefeller Foundation’s analysis, at the current rate of growth and power distribution, only 650 million people will be on the grid by 2030.

But increasingly, investments on the ground – in both tools and capacity building – are charting a path forward, including through data.org’s network of Inclusive Growth and Recovery Challenge awardees, like Solar Sister and the Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy (BASE).  

In Sub-Saharan Africa, Solar Sister has empowered more than 6,000 women entrepreneurs to build clean energy businesses, generating family-sustaining income while expanding the use of solar-powered products like lighting and clean cookstoves. Over 2 million people in Nigeria and Tanzania have access to clean energy thanks to this network.

In India, where lack of refrigeration leads to 40 million tons of food wasted annually, worth $13 billion per year in that country alone, BASE has created a mobile application that makes it easier for smallholder farmers to access sustainable cooling facilities. Their data-informed tools, like a virtual coaching assistant, help level the playing field for these small businesses, providing critical insights into how to store and when to sell foods.

And around the world, the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data continues to grow its network of partners. With more than 300 members and counting – including data.org – this community shares a commitment to leveraging data and data technology in pursuit of fulfilling the SDGs, the world’s shared plan to end extreme poverty, reduce inequality, and protect the planet by 2030.

Three organizations, three stories that showcase how grassroots, data-driven approaches can make a difference across contexts.  

“At data.org, we are committed to helping social impact organizations in the energy sector to build a sustainable future that grants affordable and reliable energy access to people around the world,” said panel host Danil Mikhailov, the Executive Director of data.org. “You can’t just kind of translate the same solution and plant it in different countries without understanding how it might change to serve the needs of the communities.”

Why is Data Important for Climate Justice?

Dr. Claire Melamed, CEO of Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, says that data can be a game-changer when it comes to scaling up solutions, particularly when reaching rural and remote communities.

Take satellite data, for example. This information can quickly illustrate where opportunities exist to maximize the efficacy of solar panels. Instead of manual surveying, developers or government planners save time and money and improve the accuracy of information by integrating data that already exists.

“We’re often used to data giving us bad news, telling us all the things that are going wrong. But data can also sometimes give us good news stories. And those are absolutely critical in making the changes that we all need to see,” Melamed said. “We see data as being critical at every point in the decision-making chain.”

Utilizing high-quality data also establishes trust in the process and can build greater consensus around decision-making, says Thomas Motmans, the Senior Sustainable Energy Finance Specialist at BASE. Data can serve as the foundation that keeps policymakers anchored in the real needs of a community, and can likewise empower the community to lobby more effectively for responsive policies and programs. 

Quality is key, though, and the panelists recognized that challenges remain in building better data systems. 

How Can We Accelerate the Use of Data? 

There is a growing awareness of how data science can be leveraged in the fight against climate change. But problems persist with data collection and analysis and must be overcome to accelerate progress. 

First, Melamed points out that more collaboration is needed. Partners need to share data and make information accessible and transparent whenever they can, so datasets can be combined to tell a more holistic story. Motmans agrees, noting that data silos continue to be a challenge. Even well-intentioned data providers, like governments or civil service organizations, sometimes collect information without a vision for how it will be used, and then stop short of making the information public in a usable format. 

“In the world of data, we tend to see that once we have the data, then the problem is solved,” Melamed added. 

Second, all data should not be treated equally.

“I’m passionate about this,” said Katherine Lucey, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Solar Sister. “Whenever we are working with data and trying to understand it and learn from it, we need to apply a gender lens. We need to make sure that we’re disaggregating data, that we’re understanding our populations are not monolithic and that averages don’t really tell us much.”

And perhaps one of the most significant and consistent barriers that the panelists see is lack of capacity. For data to be truly inclusive, accessible, and actionable, people at every level of decision-making need the skills to understand it, from the community level up through heads of government. Those skills must also be distributed across diverse groups to ensure that the voices and perspectives of communities are represented at the table. 

“People can only do the things that they know how to do. Skills are absolutely important, not just to help us get better decisions, which is critical, but also I think to democratize the world of data,” Melamed said. “We need to democratize this world and to have more people who feel confident understanding data.”

Building capacity and closing the skills gap takes investment, and investment grows from demand. The panelists pledged to do their part to increase capacity, demand, and investment for data for good, and through convenings focused on actionable outcomes, a growing network of partnerships, and support for force-multiplying efforts like the Inclusive Growth and Recovery Challenge, so will data.org.

Learn about data.org’s work to democratize data for good, read more stories of impact, and sign up for the newsletter for the latest news and upcoming events.

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