MarTech On A Mission: Spotlighting the Data for Good Movement

The Data for Good Movement – Data is big in business today. What if the same algorithms that companies use to increase profit is used to improve world issues like poverty and hunger?

How often do we talk about using data in more meaningful ways for humanity (and not just for meaningful customer engagement!).

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A little about the Data for Good movement and who its meant to serve:

The Data for Good movement was a social media movement first started by DataKind to highlight how data science could be used to help address a range of humanitarian issues.

DataKind is a collaborative network of organizations that together with data scientists leverage the science of data for social impact. Their efforts have led to the design of custom programs that enable changemakers to tackle various humanitarian challenges.

Although the Data for Good movement was a social trend started by DataKind, companies like SAS have joined and are heavily participating in projects by creating technologies to support humanitarian efforts.

According to I-Sah Hsieh who is a Corporate Social Innovation Manager at SAS, the movement aligns with what they’ve been doing since they opened their doors for business back in 1976 – that is, using their analytics capabilities to solve issues that relate to education, poverty, health, human rights, the environment, cities…

He comments, “As a company that has been doing “data for good” for over 40 years, engaging in this movement meant we needed to look at our past, present and future activities through that lens. We created a site that provides a snapshot into the myriad of ways we have actively helped with issues ranging from aid relief to animal extinction. One example of a specific goal we set last year was to allow anyone to participate in Data for Good initiatives (not just those with data science skills). We developed and launched the GatherIQ mobile app (a crowdsourcing community app). While many tech companies were hosting data dives and focusing on the data science community, we wanted to find a way to make analytics more accessible to anyone who wanted to help: teachers, lawyers, doctors, students, baristas, etc. With the GatherIQ app, anyone can explore data on important causes and share the insights on social media with their network or back to our data partner. So far GatherIQ has been downloaded in 71 countries and is an easy way for people to engage in Data for Good efforts!

He adds, “Whether in Nepal or San Bernadino, Boston or New Zealand … we are collaborating and engaging with a variety of organizations to help how people live.”

The Data for Good movement has contributed to various sensitive causes. The movement has also helped:

• Respond faster with disaster relief
• Protect the life of at-risk children
• Influence conversations on behavioral health
• Improve child welfare

Here’s a question to ponder – Shouldn’t we all use data more responsibly?

Oliver Schabenberger, (CTO and COO at SAS) once said, “data not analyzed is value not yet realized.”

At the most basic level, analytics is about curiosity. Analytics exists to ask and answer, “What if?”

So regardless of industry, the team at SAS still feels it is important to pay attention to the data at hand, acquire t responsibly, analyze it to find patterns and insights, and then find ways to implement change within your organization or elsewhere around the world too with those insights

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