Recent years have seen exponential growth in the amount of data being generated and stored around the world. There is increasing recognition that this data can play a key role in solving some of the most difficult public problems we face – including problems facing children around the world. However, much of the potentially useful data is currently privately held and not available for public insights. Data in the form of web clicks, social “likes,” geolocation and online purchases are typically tightly controlled, usually by entities in the private sector. Companies today generate an ever-growing stream of information from our proliferating sensors and devices. Increasingly, they—and various other actors—are asking if there is a way to make this data available for the public good. There is an ongoing search for new models of corporate responsibility in the digital era around data toward the creation of “data collaboratives”.

The twenty-first century will be challenging on many fronts. From historically catastrophic natural disasters resulting from climate change to inequality to refugee and terrorism crises, it is clear that we need not only new solutions, but new insights and methods of arriving at solutions. Data, and the intelligence gained from it through advances in data science, is increasingly being seen as part of the answer. This report explores the premise that data—and in particular the vast stores of data and the unique analytical expertise held by social media companies—may indeed provide for a new type of intelligence that could help develop solutions to today’s challenges.

In this report, developed with support from Facebook, we focus on an approach to extract public value from social media data that we believe holds the greatest potential: data collaboratives. Data collaboratives are an emerging form of public-private partnership in which actors from different sectors exchange information to create new public value. Such collaborative arrangements, for example between social media companies and humanitarian organizations or civil society actors, can be seen as possible templates for leveraging privately held data towards the attainment of public goals.

As part of the Data2X initiative, The GovLab, UNICEF, Universidad del Desarrollo/Telefónica R&D Center, ISI Foundation, and DigitalGlobe have joined forces to determine if gender plays a role in the way people move in megacities, and how transportation planning can become more gender-inclusive.

Santiago, Chile, was selected as the first location for the multi-dimensional research study, and the multi-national team will use Data Collaboratives as the platform for aggregating and analyzing a mix of corporate and open government data around gender and urban mobility.

Greater access to data on gender and urban mobility can inform regulations, policies and programs that help address real-world challenges experienced by women and children, and increase their safety and security. And Data Collaboratives offer a vehicle for understanding the intelligence gathered from public and private data sources to surface possible solutions.

The Santiago project team is creating a Data Collaborative on Gender and Urban Mobility to pair official government data (census, transport, crime report, socioeconomic indicators) with high-definition satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe, and aggregated, anonymized Call Detail Records from Telefonica to create create a human landscape and mobility map of Santiago.

Contracts for Data Collaboration (C4DC) seeks to address the inefficiencies of developing contractual agreements for public-private data collaboration. The intent is to inform and guide those seeking to establish a data collaborative by developing and making available a shared repository of contractual clauses (taken from existing data sharing agreements) that covers a host of issues, including security and privacy concerns, access provisions and use limitations, and governance mechanisms, among others. In addition to the searchable library of contractual clauses, the repository will house use cases, guides and other information that analyse common patterns, language and best practices.

To find new ways to lower the high transaction costs to establish Data Collaboratives, The GovLab — with generous support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation — is advancing the concept and practice of Data Stewardship to promote responsible data leadership that can address the challenges of the 21st century.

We are:

• Exploring the needs and priorities of current private sector Data Stewards who act as change agents within their firms. Responsible for determining what, when, how and with whom to share private data for public good, these individuals are critical catalysts for ensuring insights are turned into action.
• Identifying and connecting existing Data Stewards across sectors and regions to create an online and in-person community for exchanging knowledge and best practices.
• Developing methodologies, tools and frameworks to use data more responsibly, systematically and efficiently to decrease the transaction cost, time and energy currently needed to establish Data Collaboratives.

Circular Data for a Circular City: Value Propositions for Economic Development is The GovLab’s contribution to New Lab’s Circular City initiative and research journal.

Looking at potential high-value use cases in Downtown Brooklyn, we explored how “circular data”—the collection, production, and exchange of data and business insights between public and private sector stakeholders—can facilitate economic development to benefit both government and business.

Working with the City of New York and three “urban data” startups participating in New Lab’s Circular City program—CARMERA, Numina, and Citiesense—we developed a framework for thinking about the potential and realized value of circular data, identify and analyze 15 circular data-driven use cases, and reflect on the enabling conditions, challenges, and risks associated with the use of circular data.

Circular data presents abundant opportunities for economic development, and it is our hope that this work informs future opportunities for businesses to work intelligently, collaboratively, and responsibly with city government in a manner that will advance sustainable data-driven partnerships.