A $2.3 million grant from U.K.-based charity Wellcome is funding a data skilling program run by data.org, a global organisation backed by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. The program will work with three universities, data.org announced — Ashoka University, the Indraprastha Institute for Information Technology, and BITS Pilani — to launch the India Data Capacity Accelerator, which envisions one million Indians trained in using data to solve climate and health-related challenges.
“There is potential for 3.5 million data professionals across the world,” Danil Mikhailov, Executive Director of data.org, said at an event at the University of Chicago Center in Delhi to mark the launch of the accelerator. “We want India to be a big part of that.” The Chennai-based South Asia arm of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) will also work on the accelerator.
Supratik Guha, a professor at Pritzker Molecular Engineering, cited real time soil chemistry and river pollution data as two instances where complex but revelatory data collection could inform policy decisions. “It is difficult for engineers to be able to have a major impact unless they are unable to broaden their interaction and education,” Dr. Guha said.
Using data
Other speakers highlighted the need for intersectionality when working with data. Shawn A. Cole, a professor at Harvard Business School’s Finance Unit, brought up the example of a study by economics professor Ram Fishman that showed that when farmers in Bihar were given soil health cards, there was no change in their practices, as understanding of the cards’ implications was limited; however, when agronomists provided audiovisual resources, with door-to-door explanations by agronomists, farmer comprehension boosted sixfold.
“Having the data is not enough,” Dr. Cole said. “You need to deliver the data in a way that people trust it, believe it, and are willing to act on it.”
Talent gap
“The ideal candidate for even entry-level roles with many nonprofits … is somebody with a reasonably interdisciplinary training but with strong technical skills in one domain,” Santosh Harish, a Program Officer at Open Philanthropy said. “And this is something that expecting of like a 24-year-old, which I think is heroic,” Mr. Harish added, underlining the talent gap that needs to be filled in nonprofits working on social issues.
Multiple government departments “are custodians of large amounts of data,” Abhishek Singh, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s National e-Governance Division said. Mr. Singh pointed to how multiple data points could be used to predict and measure air pollution: “If we have access to the right data sources are able to build models which predict what parameters impact weather and air quality in what manner, we will be able to adopt mitigating strategies,” Mr. Singh said.
