Calling All Data Do-Gooders

theodp writes: We're entering a new era of data-for-good, writes SAS CEO Jim Goodnight, who explains how SAS and the International Organization for Migration are using analytics and data for disaster relief efforts, but issues a broader call-to-action: "These projects just scratch the surface of what's possible when new data, and those that know how to use it, are applied to humanitarian needs. Organizations such as DataKind and INFORMS, through its new Pro Bono Analytics program, are rallying data scientists to lend their time and expertise to helping people around the world. And there are many more data sets out there that could help with relief and other humanitarian efforts. It's an exciting time to be in the world of big data and analytics. We're just beginning to understand how technology can tackle society's grand challenges." Please share your ideas on what unlikely data sources might help with disaster relief. And, how can we bring the world's analytics talent to bear on these challenges.

Comments

Want more donations for a nonprofit?

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

This is just my thoughts(I could be wrong), but I think if you want more money for disaster relief: Document the change your nonprofit did. Show videos of before and after of housing built. Show happy faces getting food. Talk about how many people your doctors helped.

People who donate like two things. #1 They like to see you have a track record so their money will be used for good. #2 They like to meditate, dwell, and think about your charity daily if it is a positive attitude instead of a defeatist attitude.

Play up donators as people who are heroes, rather than defenders of the Alamo.

Re:Want more donations for a nonprofit?

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Everyone deserves sympathy because they're people. Everyone matters.

I'll tell a story about helping people related to Katrina. There were two types of people who went down to help. One person jumped in their car and came down immediately and said,"What can I do to help." The other person loaded their car with bottled water, chainsaws, gasoline and canned food then came down. The person who came loaded used their own supplies and just started chainsawing trees in the road. If they saw someone who could use help, they donated supplies. They helped. The other person used the local gasoline jacking the prices higher, and used supplies needed for the people. The unprepared helper was a net negative to helping out. The lesson in this is that helping others is a lifetime job. We educate ourselves always, work a moral job, live a frugal life so we can help others maximally. If we simply gave away all our money and capital all at once, we become part of the problem.

Humanitarian Big Data

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a PR campaign for the evils perpetuated in the name of analytics.

#3 Don't abuse your mailing list

[NotQuiteReal]

Just because I give money to your cause, doesn't mean I want to give money to dozens of other organizations.

I could supply combustible materials for a village to cook over, with the unsolicited mail that is stuffed into my mailbox on a weekly basis.

Google "charity ratings" before you give, to make sure your donation is going toward the cause, and not to pay for marketing...

Re:So why do we see so much censorship?

[SirSlud]

I don't think you have any idea what actual censorship, online, or offline even means.

Charity CEO compensation is outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

There are fat cats running some of these charities, especially the name brands that people have heard of. Maybe Mr. Goodnight should raise his voice about that - that alone could make an enormous difference.

Is this why people become CEO's of charities - so they can enrich themselves and fly private jets to exclusive country clubs, while millions are starving? There's a basic disconnect of values here. A charity CEO should be making $125,000/yr.

Aid tracking once dropped off? I haz food fitbits?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Since so much of the food and other aid gets siphoned off long before it actually helps the people it was aimed at, how about a cheap, hard-to-detect, hard-to-destroy, hard-to-forge, harmless if eaten/smashed aid tracking device, like a rice-grain sized sensor in each bag of rice. Or fitbit-style biometric-tied glucose monitors to track which people are actually getting food.

Re:So why do we see so much censorship?

[dave420]

Did you complain so much about the other periods in time where systematic, ingrained discrimination caused measurable detrimental effects to swathes of society? Or only when it's you being called out for your lazy behaviour? Putting justice in quotes only highlights your desire to paint certain actual struggles as nonsense.

The Reddit communities you discuss being "destroyed" were engaging in blatant assault on people. Reddit, being a private company, can censor that if it doesn't want to be associated with such behaviour.