Data Stories @ the Open Data Institute Summit

Data Stories @ the Open Data Institute Summit

The Open Data Institute Summit – first started in 2013 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Sir Nigel Shadbolt, and Jeni Tennison OBE – is a meeting of commercial, academic, charitable, and artistic ventures that explores the themes of open data, data value chains, and transparency. This year, Data Stories was proud to be present on a panel to discuss how foraging for meaningful data can help us to understand who we are, and how we can try to reinvent the world we live in

The panel was chaired by Hannah Redler Hawes, Associate Art Curator at the ODI, and included Professor Leslie Car, head of the Web and Internet Science group at the University of Southampton, and investigator on the Data Stories project; Harmeet Chagger-Khan, artist, filmmaker, Birmingham Open Media Fellow, and one of the hosts of the the Tribes, Treasure Hunts & Truth Seekers events; and Simon Johnson, artist and co-director of Free Ice Cream.

Harmeet had some real insight into the way people talk and think about data, and shared her thoughts of the day:

“The whole day was incredibly thought provoking but my favourite panel was the one on Data and Fairness: Kit Collingwood talked about how to create fairer more equitable societies and talked about kindness and protecting those who are vulnerable and Martin Tisne talked about how can Data give us back agency over our time.

Mr Gee and his poems were the equivalent of a tuning fork distilling the clarity of the days themes through eloquence and emotive poetry.

The Data Stories panel was lovely!  And I particularly enjoyed the audiences questions on unconscious bias and can it be avoided? Some answers included increase the sample size, acknowledge that you can’t, put people centre forward and curate with a mindful sensibility.”

Overall, the ODI Summit proved to be very insightful and generated a lot of really interesting discussions – we’re looking forward to seeing everyone again next year!