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Data for Good in the Public Square

1 April 2019 434 views No Comment
This column is written for those interested in learning about the world of Data for Good, where statistical analysis is dedicated to good causes that benefit our lives, our communities, and our world. If you would like to know more or have ideas for articles, contact David Corliss.

David CorlissWith a PhD in statistical astrophysics, David Corliss leads a data science team at Fiat Chrysler. He serves on the steering committee for the Conference on Statistical Practice and is the founder of Peace-Work, a volunteer cooperative of statisticians and data scientists providing analytic support for charitable groups and applying statistical methods in issue-driven advocacy.

 

A couple weeks ago, I attended a regional meeting of a human trafficking task force. After a greeting and speaker presentation, we broke into groups—survivor support, housing, community partnerships, and so on. As usual, there wasn’t a group for statistics and technology, so I went from one group to the next giving my Data for Good elevator speech and asking if anyone was interested in partnering with a statistical scientist. It’s an idea most people I meet for the first time have never heard of.

Among the sciences, statistics often can be overlooked by the general public. For example, I ran the numbers on Google Trends for a variety of sciences—the standard list of departments one might find at a university. Statistics came in dead last in Google searches, with less than half the number for second-lowest astronomy. (I’m a statistical astrophysicist, embracing three of the bottom four in this informal survey …)

Most people think of us seldom and often have less understanding of what we do. As statisticians, we often don’t get much of a reputation at all in the public square and what we get often isn’t good, confused and conflated with others who misuse statistics for their own end. It’s an image problem Data for Good advocates are doing so much to change.

One organization doing a great deal of good in the public square is Code for America (CfA), whose Day of Civic Hacking was mentioned here in the February issue. Their mission is to make government work better and be more open, as well as leverage technology to help make that happen. CfA was founded by in 2009 by game industry executive Jennifer Pahlka, who spent a year as US deputy chief technology officer and continues to serve as Code for America’s executive director. Much of CfA’s work is done by brigades—local groups of coders and other technical experts working directly with local government. Code for America brigades have thousands of volunteers in more than 70 brigades across the county. You can connect with one though the Brigade Network page on their website.

With an overall objective to improve how government works, Code for America isn’t specifically a Data for Good organization. Instead, D4G is one important tool it uses to help government serve people better. Through their hosting of civic hackathons and other projects, Code for America offers many opportunities for D4G to have an impact on communities and how their governments serve them.

As part of its mission to use technology, including statistical analysis, to help government function better, Code for America began an initiative to help identify people convicted of crimes in the past who are eligible to have their sentences modified—reduced or even erased.

CfA’s Clear My Record project recently partnered with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office to identify persons eligible for modified sentences for marijuana offenses. When California changed their laws to permit recreational use of marijuana by adults in 2016, they made sentence modification possible for some related offenses. However, only a few dozen people hired a lawyer and applied for modification. After CfA’s Clear My Record project developed an algorithm to identify eligible individuals and created a web page and data pipeline to implement it, San Francisco cleared more than 8,000 convictions.

The impact for good is tremendous, with thousands of people who qualify under the new laws gaining access to more opportunities in employment, housing, and more.

Code for America isn’t just changing how people see government. It’s also changing how professional service in technology is seen as a force for good in the community. Through participation in the Data for Good movement, people can see statistics used to further peace, justice, and freedom. Analytics is applied in the service of health and wholeness. Mechanized statistics (a.k.a. machine learning) algorithms work to make stronger communities and a better world.

There are so many great organizations today—CfA, Statistics Without Borders, DataKind—along with thousands working as individuals on projects making an impact. In doing so, they are changing people’s perception of statistics. Once the invisible science, Data for Good is playing a leading role in shaping—and reshaping—the public image of statistical science.

Getting Involved
A number of organizations are accepting applications for summer programs in Data for Good. For example, Harvard’s Strategic Data Project at the Center for Education Policy Research offers a summer institute July 16–19, training data leaders at educational institutions. Early application ends April 12, with the regular deadline being May 31.

For those in the SAS community, I will be doing a Code Doctor session at SAS Global Forum at 11:00 a.m. April 28 with Data for Good as the area of expertise. This will be followed at 1:00 p.m. by a lunch roundtable discussing getting involved with Data for Good. I’m hoping to turn this opportunity into a D4G meetup and networking session. If SAS Global Forum is on your schedule, I hope to see you there.

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