Find out what happened at the one-day workshop Data for Development in Milan, the second of three events looking at how data science can support organisations that work to make the world a better place.
The one-day workshop Data for Development was the second of a series of three events looking at how data science can support organisations that work to make the world a better place.
Held at the Cariplo Factory in Milan, about 60 people came along – about 75% were representatives of NGOs working in the international development sector, plus we had lots of people from academia, companies like Vodafone and the IT sector.
What was the thinking behind the workshop?
The workshops were organised by me, Daniela Paolotti and Ciro Cattuto. We are research scientists and we work at ISI Foundation, where Ciro is the scientific director of the Institute. Three Italian foundations are supporting the project: Fondazione Cariplo, Fondazione CRT and Compagnia di San Paolo.
Our research is highly interdisciplinary and we have a core expertise in data science. We work on network theory, computational epidemiology, machine learning. With these events, we want to identify issues that are relevant for non-profit organisations and that can be tackled using the power of data science.
Who was speaking?
We had four great speakers:
- Josephine Goube, Techfugees
- Giulio Quaggiotto, Nesta UK
- Erin Akred, DataKind
- Natalia Adler, UNICEF
You can also download the slides of their presentations and take a look at the Storify of the event to see their highlights!
What did people take away from the event?
After the talks, we organised three working groups on three different topics: Health, Agriculture, Refugees.
The goal of the working groups was to come up with ideas about data-driven projects that could impact the work of the organisations that were present. We ended up with some good ideas and some case studies that will be further discussed in the next weeks.
When’s the next event?
There will be a third workshop in Torino on 15 December 2016 (please note this is a change from the original date of 16 December). And we will keep in touch with the participants through a mailing list, to have more face-to-face meetings and design the pilot studies we initially defined during the event.
How can people contact you?
Please visit the website
Register for more info here