TO MARK THE LAUNCH OF THE MOOC “DATA AND URBAN GOVERNANCE”, THE CITIES AND DIGITAL CHAIR OF THE URBAN SCHOOL IS ORGANIZING A WEBINAR ON ISSUES OF DATA TRANSFORMATIONS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS.
In the last few years, a growing number of large local authorities have appeared to be seized, more or less at the same time, by the desire to do a sort of « data update » of their organizations and ways of doing. Cross-functional teams are set up to carry out a data agenda; new specialists’ positions are introduced (data scientists, engineers, analysts) in operational departments; information systems are redesigned to facilitate data circulation; and tools to extract value from these masses of data are experimented. If such an emphasis is placed on the use of data, it is because it should in theory unlock a series of positive benefits: productivity gains, more administrative transparency and accountability, budget savings, new innovative services, more evidence-based decision making, increased service responsiveness, etc. However, in practice, far from being straightforward affairs, these modernist endeavours entail a series of challenges, that are all at once technical, organisational, ethical and political.
To get a better grasp on these on-going dynamics, we will have the pleasure to welcome as part of an online discussion panel three prominent data-officers from the municipalities of London, Los Angeles and New-York. They have been at the forefront of data acculturation programs, data sharing schemes, various analytics projects, and many more. They have had to dealt with issues of data formatting, institutional collaborations, professional aversion to change, etc.. They will share and discuss their professional insights and experiences accumulated on their data-driven modernisation journey.
SPEAKERS:
- Eddie Coppeland, Director of the London Office of Technology & Innovation
- Martha Norwick, Chief Analytics Officer for the City of New-York and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics
- Eva Pereira, Deputy Chief Data Officer for the City of Los Angeles