Data innovation is happening around the world. Yet, many of the most exciting developments in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific go unreported and unnoticed. Data innovators in the Eastern Hemisphere do not often receive as much support as their Western counterparts.

The Open Data Policy Lab is addressing that gap today with the launch of its new Data Stewards Academy cohort focused on this region. From April to June 2022, leaders in data stewardship from fourteen different countries, from China to Cameroon, will learn ways to use data to promote public good. 

The executive education course, Developing a Data Reuse Strategy for Public Problems, is part of The GovLab’s Open Data Policy Lab, a program supporting responsible data re-use with support from Microsoft. The executive education course trains data leaders in the public, nonprofit, research and private sectors interested in developing data reuse strategies to solve public problems. Over the course of eight weeks, participants will learn about the ways they can use data to improve how they operate and pursue goals in the public’s interest. 

We’re excited to welcome our new cohort of twenty-one data leaders: 

• Jumana Baghabra, Digital Policy Expert, National Digital Transformation Unit (NDU), Saudi Arabia
• Nikesh Balami, Co-Founder & CEO of Open Knowledge Nepal, Nepal
• P.R. Bhavabhuthi, Lead Designer & Writer, Free Software Movement of India, India
• Leah Dowsett, Medical Geneticist at Ahahui o Na Kauka (Association of Native Hawaiian Physicians) Hawai’i, United States of America
• Gaurav Godhwani, Co-Founder and Director at CivicDataLab, India
• Mustafa Hameed, Senior Delivery Associate at the UNDP, Pakistan
• Meredith Hodgman, Chair, Smart Cities Workstream for IoT Alliance Australia, Australia
• Swati Joshi, Senior Research Associate at Centre for Technology, Innovation and Economic Research, India
• Mohammad Hossein Khani, Lead, Data Governance Team at Presidential Center for Progress and Development, Iran
• Kunal Kumar, Joint Secretary & Mission Director, Smart Cities Mission for the Government of India, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, India
• Tianyi Luo, Director, Aqueduct Project at the World Resources Institute, China
• Susmina Manandhar, Open Data Fellow at NAXA and Changunarayan Municipality, Nepal
• Kristi Mansfield, Co-Founder & CEO of Seer Data & Analytics, Australia
• Eva Muluve, Program Officer at the Population Council in Kenya, Kenya
• Jowil Mejia Plecerda, Policy Lab Lead at Data-driven Development in the Philippines (PH3D), Philippines 
• Megan Schroeder, Senior Manager, Support and M&E at Ona, Kenya
• Bindu Sharma, Managing Director for APAC at International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, Singapore 
• Dr Shyam Sundaram, Community Data Scientist, India
• Sioeli Tonga, Program Manager at Pacific Community (SPC), New Caledonia
• Lucy Tyndall, Senior Advisor at the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment, New Zealand
• Victor Bertrand Wamba, Civic Technologies Program Manager at AfroLeadership, Cameroon

To learn more about the course (or to follow along) see the self-directed resource available publicly on the Open Data Policy Lab website. 

If you are interested in learning more about these opportunities, be sure to sign up for the Data Stewards Network Newsletter where you can learn more about the Academy’s future course offerings and receive alerts when applications for additional cohorts open in the future.  

Image by Ben Parker/Unsplash is licensed under CC0.

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