Data Collaboratives: Exchanging Data to Improve People’s Lives

New Medium Blog by Stefaan Verhulst and David Sangokoya, both at The GovLab: “In late July 2014, a sick passenger from Liberia traveled to Nigeria and brought the Ebola virus to Lagos, Africa’s largest city, with a population of 21 million. In response, government agencies, universities and hospitals collaborated with private telecommunications companies and healthcare organizations to collect and share data on infected patients and trace those who had come into contact with them. State government health officials also initiated emergency steps to share information on a daily basis among actors involved in stemming the crisis. After two months, the virus was contained in Nigeria and the country declared Ebola-free.

Several of society’s greatest challenges — from addressing climate change to public health to job creation — require greater access to data, more collaboration between public- and private-sector entities, and an increased ability to analyze datasets. This relationship between data and public benefits was vividly demonstrated in case study after case study at the recently concluded Cartagena Data Festival.

Yet for all the potential, a limiting factor is that much of the data valuable for solving public problems actually resides within the private sector — for example, in the form of click histories, online purchases, sensor data, and, as in the case of the above example, call data records. Amid the proliferation of apps, platforms and sensors, data on how people and societies behave is increasingly privately owned. We believe that if we truly want to leverage the potential of data to improve people’s lives, then we need to accelerate the creation and use of “data collaboratives.”

The term data collaborative refers to a new form of public-private partnership in which participants from different sectors — including private companies, research institutions, and government agencies — can exchange data to help solve public problems. In the coming months and years, data collaboratives will be essential vehicles for harnessing the vast stores of privately held data toward the public good….(More)”