New York, NY | March 14, 2022– Today, data.org is delighted to announce its membership in the Digital Public Goods Alliance. As a platform for partnerships to build the field of data science for social impact, data.org recognizes the role that digital public goods play to support data use in the social sector. This new collaboration is underpinned by a shared mission: convening global stakeholders across philanthropy, private sector technology, government agencies, academia, and social impact, to deliver on the goal of closing the data gap and creating a more equitable world.
data.org is building the field of data science for social impact to help solve society’s most pressing problems, from global pandemics to climate, lack of racial justice to financial insecurity. This work is carried out through three strategic pillars: showcasing and supporting the cases of data science used in the social sector, strengthening data science capacity, and—most pertinent to their Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) membership—transforming the commons in creating and sharing digital public goods.
Digital public goods are open-source software, open data, open AI models, open standards, and open content that adhere to privacy and other applicable laws and best practices, do no harm by design, and help attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To ensure the integrity of this definition, the Digital Public Goods Alliance stewards the Digital Public Goods Standard, a set of specifications and guidelines designed to maximize consensus about whether a digital solution conforms to the definition of a digital public good.
Epiverse, a global collaborative powered by data.org, was founded on this commitment to creating transformative digital public goods for epidemic preparedness and response. Through a partner network of interdisciplinary experts, Epiverse is co-creating a trustworthy, open-source software ecosystem to power epidemic preparedness for users across sectors enabling rapid, robust, and reproducible policy-relevant modeling.
The Epiverse open-source epidemiological software and tools is being developed by a global team of building partners, including the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia (MRCG) at LSHTM, Universidad de los Andes (Uniandes), and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Javeriana). The vision for this suite of tools is to contribute to a global body of digital public goods. However, it is the commitment to community building and co-creation that sets the Epiverse collaborative apart from other open-source data distribution efforts and underscores the impact of their Digital Public Goods Alliance membership. No one sector can meet the challenge of infectious disease response alone – Epiverse starts with a fully representative, interdisciplinary group from around the world, engaged and ready to develop, apply, and maintain this software.
“Creating open and accessible digital public goods is at the heart of Epiverse’s mission, and we are delighted to contribute resources to this dynamic network,” said Ibrahim Mahgoub, Program Director, Epiverse. “data.org’s roadmap membership with the Digital Public Goods Alliance is an ideal match, and we welcome the robust Digital Public Goods Alliance network to the Epiverse collaborative to not only access but contribute to these innovative and lifesaving solutions.”
data.org's roadmap membership with the Digital Public Goods Alliance is an ideal match, and we welcome the robust Digital Public Goods Alliance network to the Epiverse collaborative to not only access but contribute to these innovative and lifesaving solutions.
Ibrahim Mahgoub Former Program Director, Epiverse data.org
In addition to the Epiverse initiative, data.org also offers a digital platform, including a Resource Library and Data Maturity Assessment. The Resource Library curates over one hundred of the best resources available and produced by community partners, builders, and experts, and seven data.org guides to provide Social Impact Organizations (SIOs) with starting points for using data for efficiency and effectiveness. The Data Maturity Assessment (DMA) provides a snapshot of an organization’s data maturity, offering organizations a sense of where they are in their journey of using data to advance their operations and mission.
“We at the Digital Public Goods Alliance are thrilled to welcome data.org as a new member and to collaborate with them to ensure their suite of tools is reviewed and recognized as digital public goods, discoverable on the DPG Registry. We look forward to our partnership with data.org through 2022 and beyond” said Lucy Harris, Co-Lead at the Digital Public Goods Alliance.
About data.org
data.org is committed to democratizing data for good. Founded by The Rockefeller Foundation and the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, data.org is a platform for partnerships, and works with organizations all over the world to increase the use of data science to tackle society’s most pressing challenges and improve the lives of millions of people. For more information, visit data.org and follow us on Twitter @datadotorg.
About Epiverse
Epiverse is a global collaborative led by data.org developing distributed data analysis tools as a transformative public good. Through its partner network of interdisciplinary experts, Epiverse is co-creating a trustworthy, open-source software ecosystem to power pandemic preparedness and, in the future, address a broad range of health and social challenges.
About The Digital Public Goods Alliance
The Digital Public Goods Alliance is a multi-stakeholder initiative with a mission to accelerate the attainment of the sustainable development goals in low- and middle-income countries by facilitating the discovery, development, use of, and investment in digital public goods. Member organisations that participate in the annual roadmap work collaboratively, transparently monitoring activities, and share updates.
Media contacts:
data.org: Emma Marty emma@data.org
The Digital Public Goods Alliance: Jameson Voisin hello@digitalpublicgoods.net