IGF 2019 WS #298
Building a Data Culture

Relevance to Theme: Data is everywhere. Often organizations focus on data science as the output of ‘data ready’ or a ‘data-driven organization.’ We are leaving people behind by not being equitable in the application of data skills, technology and the potential opportunities this brings. More and more organizations are making a data culture shift to upskill staff, processes, culture, and infrastructure to be more data savvy.

Many humanitarian organisations are currently focusing on improving data literacy. The Consortium provides a mechanism for humanitarian, development, business, and governmental organisations to share resources and expertise. The foundation for the Consortium is the Data Playbook developed by IFRC which is a collection of social learning resources to drive data literacy. The Data Playbook content has been developed internally in IFRC but is published on an open/creative common license that makes it available for external entities to reuse and modify. The consortium acts as a formal entity to help support the reuse and modification of the Playbook and also collect and integrate other relevant data literacy exercises by other humanitarian organisations. The IFRC Data Literacy Program targets the data curious to the data ready using social learning and human-centered design approaches. In consultation with other actors, including Fabriders and the Center for Humanitarian Data, IFRC found that other organizations seek to share and coordinate data literacy activities.

Relevance to Internet Governance: Data Governance and data protection/responsible data will only happen when we are equitable in the ownership of data skills. This requires collaboration of humanitarian, development, civil society, business, governmental, academic and other institutions to share best practices and support all the diverse data journeys. Without this, there will continue to be a power imbalance.