The public has lost trust in government information on many levels and across the political spectrum. To restore that trust, we need to address the challenges facing government data - including low survey response, privacy concerns, and flawed statistical methods - and consider alternatives. Panelists on this webinar will discuss these issues in federal data, possible government solutions, and the role of complementary data from nongovernment research, citizen-generated projects, and "nontraditional" data sources.
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Panelists:
Joel Gurin (moderator), President and Founder, Center for Open Data Enterprise (CODE)
- Joel Gurin is the President and Founder of CODE and author of the book Open Data Now. Before launching CODE in January 2015 he conceptualized and led the development team for the GovLab’s Open Data 500 project, the first thorough study of the use of open government data by the private sector. Joel’s background includes government, journalism, nonprofit leadership, and consumer issues. He served as Chair of the White House Task Force on Smart Disclosure, which studied how open government data can improve consumer markets, and as Chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. For more than a decade he was Editorial Director and then Executive Vice President of Consumer Reports, where he directed the launch and development of ConsumerReports.org, which was then the world’s largest paid-subscription information-based website. He is a graduate of Harvard University with an A.B. in Biochemical Sciences, Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa. In 2023 he was named as one of the FCW Federal 100 and elected as a Fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration. He can be reached at joel@odenterprise.org.
Chris Jackson, SSRS Civil Society Research Lead
- Chris Jackson is a Senior Vice President and Civil Society Research lead at SSRS. The Civil Society Research practice is dedicated to pulling together all the strands of research that focuses on understanding and improving American public life. Our research combines politics and governance, media and information, and commerce and the economy to understand a complete picture of the American experience. Chris is an expert on American electoral and public polling with a deep background in the American political system. Over his career, he has conducted over 3,000 published polls across a wide range of research subjects – including technology, healthcare, policy, energy and consumer issues – and mastered a wide range of research techniques– including multiple survey methodologies, focus group moderating, in-depth interviewing, and others. Chris has been a commentator in major news outlets in the United States and abroad, including the New York Times, ABC News, Politico, USA Today, Reuters, and the BBC as well as original commentary.
Beth Jarosz, Senior Fellow at the Massive Data Institute at Georgetown University and Vice President of the Association of Public Data Users
- Beth Jarosz has more than 25 years of experience in understanding and communicating data nuance to help decisionmakers answer complex questions. Her career has spanned local government, academic, nonprofit, and contractor roles. Currently she is a Senior Fellow at the Massive Data Institute at Georgetown University, a collaborator on the dataindex.us project, and Vice President of the Association of Public Data Users.
Francesca Perucci, Director of Policy and Partnerships, Open Data Watch.
- Francesca directs the policy and partnerships work of ODW. An expert in the field of development data and global data initiatives, she leads ODW’s work to scale up data and statistical capacity, technical services, and strategic partnerships. She brings many decades of experience at the United Nations, most recently as Assistant Director of the UN Statistics Division. A true trailblazer in the use of data and statistics to inform policy, monitor progress, and influence decision-making, she led the development of the Sustainable Development Goals indicators that now are the basis of SDG data work around the world.
Stefaan Verhulst, Co-Founder, The GovLab (New York), Co-Founder, The Data Tank (Brussels), Research Professor, Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, Editor in Chief, Data & Policy Journal (Cambridge University Press), Co-Chair, Data for Policy Conference
- Dr. Stefaan G. Verhulst is an expert in using data and technology for social impact. He is the Co-Founder of several research organizations including the Governance Laboratory (GovLab) and The DataTank in Brussels where he serves in leadership positions. As a research professor at the Tandon School of Engineering of New York University, he focuses on using advances in science and technology, including data and artificial intelligence, to improve decision-making and problem-solving. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the open-access journal Data & Policy (Cambridge University Press) and has served as a member of several expert groups on data and technology, including the High-Level Expert Group to the European Commission on Business-to-Government Data Sharing and the Expert Group to Eurostat on using Private Sector data for Official Statistics. In addition, Dr. Verhulst has been recognized as one of the 10 Most Influential Academics in Digital Government globally. He has published extensively on these topics, including several books, and has been invited to speak at international conferences, including TED and the UN World Data Forum. He is asked regularly to provide counsel on data stewardship and governance to a variety of public and private organizations.
