Data-Informed Societies Achieving Sustainability: Tasks for the Global Scientific, Engineering, and Medical Communities Proceedings of a Workshop–in Brief (2022) / Chapter Skim
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Data-Informed Societies Achieving Sustainability: Tasks for the Global Scientific, Engineering, and Medical Communities: Proceedings of a Workshopin Brief
Data-Informed Societies Achieving Sustainability: Tasks for the Global Scientific, Engineering, and Medical Communities: Proceedings of a Workshopin Brief
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The workshop examined current efforts and initiatives to harness data and data-driven services to advance sustainability around the world. Workshop discussions also explored crosscutting issues, including strengthening the engagement of scientific, engineering, and medical communities on data-related issues, addressing disparities in the ability of societies to utilize data, and lessons learned from global experience with the COVID-19 pandemic.2 Issues discussed during the workshop but not covered in depth that are important for future work include: the limitations to data availability especially in developing countries; the importance of ensuring data quality; the risk of creating datasets in a way that produce misleading results; social implications of data use such as increasing inequities among populations; and the recognition of the real-life challenges of implementation and delivery.
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Sustaining an open data ecosystem is also going to be a significant issue. While optimistic about the implications of rapid expansion of data, Claire Melamed, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, recognized the significant barriers that exist in terms of the use of big data.
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She added, "we need to consider how we can give as much of this power as possible to people and not take it away." BIG DATA, DIGITIZATION, AND COVID-19: LESSONS LEARNED AND WAYS FORWARD During the first session, panelists discussed issues related to big data, digitization, and the COVID-19 pandemic, noting lessons learned and efforts around promoting equity in sustainability. Barend Mons, Leiden University Medical Center, moderated a panel addressing lessons learned related to big data and the use of digital technologies during the pandemic.
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Additionally, panelists discussed the current lack of a data infrastructure, for example, to support data exchange. Funding is necessary to support this infrastructure as well as training for researchers, including around communications skills.
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The work in Togo also illustrates the potential for the applications of big data in sustainable development. Despite the challenges of reaching people without mobile phones, providing data access and data privacy, and safeguarding against future (mis)
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SOURCE: Richard Heeks, workshop presentation, September 9, 2021.11 Heeks noted that existing contextual inequalities of money, skills, and technology access, along with control over data rights create significant challenges for delivering data justice for sustainable development. To address this, data rights that are enshrined into law are needed.
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2017. How could citizen science support the Sustainable Development Goals?
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Beyond amplifying the spread, deep learning techniques allow creating fake visual (or "deep fakes") and textual digital content, which will not be distinguishable from real data, generating new threads for societies.15 For example, UN Global Pulse researchers were recently able to train AI to fake UN speeches in just 13 hours.16 Luengo-Oroz noted that the UN's Secretary General launched Our Common Agenda in September 202117 with specific proposals designed to accelerate the achievement of the SDGs, including a commitment to "improve digital cooperation" through a Global Digital Compact.
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Caldas also discussed the World Environment Situation Room (WESR) ,20 which implements the Big Data Initiative, a global project that includes geo-referenced, remote-sensing, and earth observation information integrated with statistics and data on the environmental dimension of sustainable development.
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Through satellite data combined with AI algorithms, it might be possible to assess poverty in real time.24 Huadong Guo, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) , discussed his work in assessing big data used in the Earth sciences, including the CAS Big Earth Data Science Engineering Program.
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Access to digital technologies has shown a direct impact on issues such as education and health. As discussed in earlier parts of the workshop, panelists emphasized that the pandemic created a new sense of urgency for addressing the digital divide and highlighted the need to incorporate global cooperation in our projects, the need for the scientific community to come together to support big data efforts.
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The importance of data quality was also discussed, including data generated in citizen science efforts that require robust procedures to ensure quality, as described by West. The pandemic demonstrated the value of data to decision makers; hopefully, this will change the way decisions are made in the future.
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, The World In 2050; Aleksandra Berditchevskaia, Nesta; Luis Bettencourt, University of Chicago; Jeanne Holm, City of Los Angeles; Solomon Hsiang, University of California, Berkeley; and Barend Mons, Leiden University Medical Center. Staff: Thomas Arrison, Director, Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI)
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