Hello winter & happy new year!
Snowmen designed by Freepix
It’s winter, and another year is coming to a close. If you’re like us, the New Year is a favorite holiday, because it’s both a time of reflection and of turning a new page. Whether the Gregorian calendar we use in the US, Tết, Nowruz, or Vaisakhi (check out Wikipedia if you want to go down a rabbit hole), a new year is a good time to pause for a minute.
In 2024, Data Reframed was “hatched” after five years as LA Tech4Good – rebranding to reflect our focus on data equity and our growth beyond Los Angeles.
• We celebrated with a LA launch party in November
• Hosted a comprehensive workshop for the general public funded by the Internet Society
• Presented to the national YWCA Leadership & Capacity Building Institute in Atlanta
• Webinar-ed with Institutional Research professionals at northeastern colleges and universities
• Hosted an in-person event on the Pros and Cons of Gen AI In Creative Workflows
• Were an inaugural member of the Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium, under the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
• Have publicly advocated in support of Gaza through the year long tragedy
Where does Data Reframed fit into a challenging year ahead? We celebrate a broad community – of which you are a part – that is influencing, implementing, changing and defining holistic data practices in service to people not numbers. Ethical data is a tool that we can and should use across all of the pressing social issues our community is working to address.
We’ve started planning for 2025 data equity workshops and have scheduled our second launch party for January 30 in New York City. Our goal is to create more impact utilizing our consolidated approach to data equity and ethics and its implementation. We want to build that out in new formats, be it trainings, frameworks, data equity index, certifications or more and teaching it in ways that people and organizations can apply data equity to their respective fields. We’ve got some initiatives brewing that we looking forward to announcing in the near future.
❄️ RSVP to our NYC launch party here
❄️ If you're interested in joining a spring workshop, sign up to be notified here
From our December newsletter
Take Action
✏️ Defeat HR 9495
This “Stop Terror-Financing” Act aims to give the Treasury unprecedented power to designate any nonprofit as a "terrorist supporting organization" and revoke its tax-exempt status, with the aims of attacking the critical work of nonprofits and silencing us all.
Vu Le of Nonprofit AF lists several actions you can take, and Fund the People has a more extensive action list here. Here are some of the many voices raised.
✏️ Protect the Internet Archive
Book publishers and major music labels hate the Internet Archive and their Wayback Machine!
Major music labels are now suing the nonprofit Internet Archive for $621 million in so-called damages for streams of the 50-120 year old 78 records they preserve. And recently they lost a major copyright case brought by book publishers objecting to the archive’s digital lending library. Here’s some context about the Internet Archive’s work, who’s out to get them and why: The Internet Archive is even more essential than I realized, and We're losing our digital history. Can the Internet Archive save it?
If you know that the Internet Archive, the Wayback Machine, internet history and its accumulated knowledge are critical resources and appreciate their importance…
✏️ Sign Fight for the Future’s petition demanding that that record labels drop their suit to destroy the Internet Archive.
Resources on migration and immigration
California Immigrant Data Portal
USC's Equity Research Institute developed a resource and progress tracker for immigrants and those serving immigrant communities across the state of California. The portal presents data and case studies that can be used to better understand and promote the well-being of immigrants, their families, and their communities.
You can find it here.
Migration Data
It is expected that by 2050 climate change could lead up to 216 million people to move within their countries if no urgent action to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions is. Discover the Migration Data Portal’s newly designed thematic page dedicated to environmental migration, which offers insights on how climate-induced challenges shape migration patterns globally.
The Global Migration Data Portal is here.
Watch
Surveilled – HBO documentary
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow illuminates a clandestine industry that is reshaping the concepts of privacy and power, revealing the ethical dilemmas that both governments and citizens must navigate in the brave new world of cyberespionage.
Also, Farrow’s recent article The Technology the Trump Administration Could Use to Hack Your Phone opens with the Department of Homeland Security’s $2M September contract for an Israeli spyware product focused on breaching applications like Telegram and Signal. He paints a picture of where things might be headed, quoting Emily Tucker of Georgetown Law: “Every single person should be worried.”
Watch the Surveilled trailer here.
Data Workers Inquiry
All 14 videos from the DAIR Institute’s 2023 speaker series are now online.
Read
Protecting Black Pregnant People’s Health—and Data
You will appreciate additional perspective by Joan Mukogosi if you got a chance to watch Establishing Vigilant Care: Data Infrastructures and the Black Birthing Experience back in the summer and are looking to follow this important work related to the crisis in Black maternal healthcare.
Find it here.
What Makes Time Series Data Unique?
Nexleaf Analytics is a nonprofit tech company whose data platform operationalizes continuous, automated data from IoT sensors at health facilities to safeguard the global vaccine cold chain. Software Engineer Chris Combs digs into the opportunities and challenges presented by time series data, and reflects on how creating a culture of data in health systems is key to holistic success.
Read his blog post here.
ChatGPT Has No Place in the Classroom
By Emily Bender, DAIR Institute and University of Washington Linguistics Professor
Bender calls on instructors to “say no to ChatGPT and all other GenAI in the classroom,” and she, along with DAIR, is very outspoken on dangers of AI. While this article might be seem anti-AI, perhaps it’s greatest value is the way it breaks down a newly released guide for K-12 teachers to implement ChatGPT. Her article will help you “resist the sales pitch” and further understand what AI is and is not, regardless of whether you’re in K-12 education or not.
Read the article here.
Takeaways from LA TechWeek's responsible AI event
We especially recommend remarks by Dr. Sarah T. Roberts, Associate Professor at UCLA, and Kareem Saleh, Founder and CEO of FairPlay AI in this report by Kimberly Owens.