Building back better: the new data paradigm and how we can use it to build strong and inclusive societies

07/08/21 • 26 min

We talk to Emmanual Letouze, Director and co-Founder of Data-Pop Alliance, a coalition on Big Data and development co-created in 2013 by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, MIT Media Lab, and Overseas Development Institute.

Emmanual takes a philosophical approach to understanding how new data opportunities fit within wider global trends, explaining how new data opportunities provide a lens on the nature of our challenges as well as a lever to help solve them. Of particular importance to him are socially inclusive ways of innovating with data and building bridges between different disciplines, sectors, and social groups.

Links:

Data Science and the Art of Persuasion, (Harvard Business Review): https://hbr.org/2019/01/data-science-and-the-art-of-persuasion
Frontier Technology Hub blog post: Medium
Full FCDO report: Frontier Data Study - releasing the power of digital data for development

Links:

Previous Episode

Complex Cities, Digital Data: Building urban climate resilience through the locally led production of new data

We talk to Edward Anderson, Senior Technology and Resilience Specialist for the World Bank based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Edward works at the nexus of urbanization,climate risks, and the leveraging of frontier data technologies for greater resilience in African economies.

A critical challenge for many developing country Governments is the limited availability of spatial data that can inform planning and coordination for climate risk reduction, especially in fast-changing urban areas like Dar es Salaam. Giving examples from his work on the World Bank- and FCDO-funded Tanzania Urban Resilience Programme, Edward explains how to work alongside local government institutions to support the production and use of frontier data technologies to enhance the capacity to identify and respond to climate shocks and disasters.
Links

Frontier Technology Hub blog post: Medium
Full FCDO report: Frontier Data Study - releasing the power of digital data for development

Next Episode

Testing beyond the tech

We first speak to Ruth McPake from the Frontier Technologies Hub. Ruth is a Senior Consultant at IMC Worldwide, one of the partner organisations that make up the Hub.
The Hub has explored the use of drones predominantly through its Livestreaming programme, which since 2016 has partnered FCDO staff with technologists and other actors to test an idea for impact within a pilot project. Ruth talks about what we’ve learned from testing drone technology in a wide variety of use cases.
Next, we hear from Kush Gadhia, Senior Business Development Manager at Astral Aerial Solutions, a drone company and affiliate of Astral Aviation, an all-cargo airline based in Kenya.
Kush has been working on one of the pilots supported by the programme, which has looked specifically at whether drones can be used as a complementary solution to tackle the desert locust problem in East Africa. We discuss Kush’s experience of leading a small, local team, and what the next steps are when it comes to testing drones in this nascent use case.
Links:
Village Reach Evidence Generation Guide - https://www.updwg.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/UAS-Evidence-Generation-Toolkit-V2-Nov-2019.pdf
UNICEF sustainability toolkit - https://unicef.github.io/drone-4sdgtoolkit/

FTL UAV Portfolio Review - https://www.frontiertechhub.org/resources/uav-portfolio-review
Frontier Technology Hub Website - https://www.frontiertechhub.org/