Summary of the sessions I attended at the Open Data Institute’s Summit on 12 November 2019

Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt, interviewed by Zoe Kleinman

Tim Berners-Lee described commercial advertising as “win-win”, because targeted advertising is more relevant. But “political advertising is very different… people are being manipulated into voting for things which are not in their best interests.”

Nigel Shadbolt: There’s a risk that people just move on to new shiny things. Creating a common data infrastructure is unfinished business.

Berners-Lee: We should be able to choose where our data is shared, rather than it just being impossible because systems can’t speak to each other. “You can share things with people that you want to share it with to get your life done.”

Shadbolt: Data sharing has to be consensual. Public data shouldn’t be privatised. We need transparency and accountability of algorithms used to make decisions on the basis of data. Platform providers are controlling and tuning the algorithms.

Berners-Lee: How might we train algorithms to feed us news that optimises for ‘aha’ connection moments, rather than feelings of revulsion?

Kriti Sharma – Can AI create a fairer world?

If you’re building tools with data, the biases of that data are perpetuated and potentially amplified, which can worsen existing inequalities. e.g. access to credit or benefits, or deciding who gets job interviews.

  • Early on in a design process, think about how things could go wrong.
  • Train machine learning or AI on more diverse datasets.

An MIT test of facial recognition found an error rate of 1% with white-skinned men. For darker skinned women, the error rate was 35%.

  • Build diverse teams. Only 12% of the workforce on AI and machine learning are women. A more diverse team is more likely to question and correct biases.

Data Pitch accelerator

A EU funded accelerator, connecting public and private sectors to create some new data-driven products and services. A 3-year project.

28 data challenges, 13 countries.

4.6 million euros invested
14.8 million euros “value unlocked” – additional sales, investment and efficiencies. These are actual numbers, not optimistic forecasts.

datapitch.eu/datasharingtoolkit

How do we cultivate open data ecosystems?

Richard Dobson, Energy Systems Catapult
Leigh Dodds, Open Data Institute
Rachel Rank, Chief Exec, 360 Giving
Huw Davies, Ecosystem Development Director, Open Banking

Energy Systems Catapult:
If you want to move to renewable energy, you need to know what’s produced, where, and when.

So BEIS, through a Catapult scheme, set up a challenge on this. Seamless data sharing was crucial.

360 Giving:
Help grant makers open up their grant data in an open format so people can see who is funding what, why, and how much.

Open Banking:
Catalysed by regulation from the Competition and Markets authority. UK required largest banks to fund an implementation entity, to make sure it was effective and standards-driven to set up a thriving ecosystem. So they worked on standards for consent and security. Every 2 months the ecosystem doubles in size.

When encouraging people to contribute to an ecosystem, show value, don’t tell people about it.
Don’t talk to people about organisational identifiers. Show them why you can’t see their grants alongside the other grants because they haven’t been collecting these. People had such low insight into what other people were funding, that this was very compelling. Make people feel left out if they aren’t sharing their data.

Thoughts on making a healthy ecosystem:

  • You need standards for an ecosystem to scale
  • Accept that even with common standards and APIs you’ll get a few different technical service providers emerge, then people emerge who add value on top of this. (This was the experience in Open Banking)

“You can’t over-emphasise the importance of good facilitation at the heart of the ecosystem”
(I took this as: you need investment from somewhere to make this collaboration happen)
Open Banking did lots of work to collaboratively set up standards