The first World Data Forum was held in Cape Town, South Africa earlier this year. The gathering brought together statisticians, data scientists, business people, public officials and NGOs to learn from each other about how data are being used to measure and drive progress globally.
In this episode, marking the end of the first season of Between 2 Geeks, I share some highlights from the event.
The World Bank hosted a session on “The Future of Data” where the recurring theme was “data integration” - combining multiple sources of data, from multiple types of organization, with multiple types of technology and approach to offer insights that are greater than the sum of their parts. You can watch a video of the whole session here and in the podcast, hear from Mark Ryland of Amazon Web Services, Molly Jackman of Facebook and Andy Tatem of the World Pop Project and University of Southampton.
I also spoke with Anna Rosling Rönnlund of Gapminder who told me about her organization’s journey to make data more understandable and to help promote a fact-based world view. One of the projects they were demonstrating is Dollar Street - a site that lets you explore photographs of the everyday life and possessions of the poorest to the richest people around the world. What’s striking is how similar life looks for someone living on say $100/month in almost any country you care to look at.
This episode of Between 2 Geeks is hosted by Tariq Khokhar and produced by Richard Miron. You can chat with us on twitter with the hashtag #Between2Geeks, listen to new episodes on the World Bank Soundcloud Channel and subscribe to “World Bank’s Podcasts” in your podcast app or on iTunes.
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