While it is true that we live in a world of data, unfortunately most of it is gathered by large platform companies and can’t be used by citizens in ways that help them. In past work on sustainability and extraction, Chris Csikszentmihalyi found that the government kept data on narrow areas where it needed to enforce particular aspects of industry, but in many cases this data was 1) compromised by “regulatory capture,” and 2) of more relevance to industry than to citizen health and well-being. With this insight, Chris and his team created “spin off” enterprises that helped activists generate new forms of data. The three organizations that were perhaps most successful (and have been all running now for 10+ years) were publiclab.org, sourcemap.com, and littlesis.org.
In this conversation, Chris will examine his current work on helping these and other groups better understand how to create small, self-sustaining mission-led enterprises to do this kind of public interest technology work. He will discuss several different practical examples, focusing on different organizations create, use, and leverage data for progressive politics.
The conversation is expected to last 1h30 via zoom, and there will be ample of time for Q&A. Participation is free but you must register here.
Organization: DATA&US is an initiative of researchers from IADE (Universidade Europeia) and ICNOVA (Instituto de Comunicações da Universidade Nova de Lisboa) spearheaded by Ana Viseu (IADE/ICNOVA), in partnership with Cristina Ponte and Paulo Nuno Vicente (NOVA FCSH/ICNOVA) and Sofia Ponte (IADE/ID+).
Support by: IADE-Universidade Europeia & ICNOVA (Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
