The power of data
Looking back on the first UN World Data Forum ever it feels as though we’re on the brink of a new era. An era in which policy makers, academia, civil society, public and private sector representatives and statisticians join together to provide citizens, journalists and governments with all the data they need to ensure progress and global change. Our fellow Dutchie, journalist Sanne Blauw, called it the World Championship for Statistics. Spot on: the Forum in Cape Town, South Africa, was epic, life changing and so much fun!
Thank you Ola Rosling (Gapminder) for inviting us to come over to Cape Town and present our views on teaching statistics. We got on a plane expecting to discover new innovative opportunities to make the world data literate and explore new ways to apply data and statistics to measure the Sustainable Development Goals. Well, we got what we bargained for!
In this blog we would like to introduce to you the organisations and insights from the UN Forum that struck us most.
Everyone data literate
We were looking forward to a few workshops in particular. Data literacy: What, Why and How? by (amongst others) Helen McGillivray and Delia North is one we had to see. Make sure to check Rahul Bhargava’s live blog about the workshop. It’s definitely worth the read if you couldn’t make it that day.
Sharing real life data
Afterwards we got engaged in a very interesting conversation with professor Delia North about teaching students statistics, something we appeared to have in common. The idea emerged to start working with open data sources from some of the organisations that greatly inspired us. Wouldn’t it be awesome, we figured, if we could use the highly valuable data from parties such as Open Data Watch and the African Development Bank as real life data in our teaching methods. Also, we would love to use the data from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as real life data in our visual statistics explainers for students and journalists. It tied things together in a way we couldn’t possibly have thought off before the Forum: sharing valuable data, increasing data literacy and reducing inequity and extreme poverty at the same time.
Power to the people
On our third day we met the inspiring Caroline Masendeke from Zimbabwe where she and her colleagues from RIS fight poverty and increase social inclusion through the continuous and systematic collection, analysis and utilisation of data. Where do they start? At the core of the nation! Working closely together with traditional tribe leaders Caroline has found a way to teach them and other local authorities in rural Africa (where electricity is often scarce or non-existent) how to use specially designed touchscreen computers to collect and henceforth set up an electronic village register using solar power. The village register proves greatly valuable for visualising and interpreting (patterns in) village demographics, such as new births and deaths. As a result, the provided insights in these day-to-day data become a powerful tool in helping locals take evidence-based decisions.
Power to the people
On our third day we met the inspiring Caroline Masendeke from Zimbabwe where she and her colleagues from RIS fight poverty and increase social inclusion through the continuous and systematic collection, analysis and utilisation of data. Where do they start? At the core of the nation! Working closely together with traditional tribe leaders Caroline has found a way to teach them and other local authorities in rural Africa (where electricity is often scarce or non-existent) how to use specially designed touchscreen computers to collect and henceforth set up an electronic village register using solar power. The village register proves greatly valuable for visualising and interpreting (patterns in) village demographics, such as new births and deaths. As a result, the provided insights in these day-to-day data become a powerful tool in helping locals take evidence-based decisions.
No time to waste
Carolines story makes us, as I Hate Statistics, even more ambitious to roll up our sleeves and make as many people as possible more familiar with data and statistics. Awesome if people start collecting data, but in order to make the right decisions, they will also have to be trained in interpreting that data in the right way. This accounts not only for tribal leaders, but also for everyone else. So that once and for all we get rid of misconceptions in the media and fill data gaps all over the world. And together with ‘public and private sectors, policy makers, academia, and civil society representatives harness the power of data for sustainable development’, like Stefan Schweinfest, Director UN Statistics Division, puts it so stridently in his blog. But also, as the story about the tribal heads from Zimbabwe goes to show, because we strongly believe access to data can be a strong step forward in empowering developing countries and reaching those SDG targets in 2030. Using and understanding data helps people to take evidence-based decisions which are their own. A great leap forward for humanity as opposed to telling people what is best for them.
Interpretation is vital
However, as much as collecting, providing and sharing data is a great and wonderful thing, it does not become meaningful unless you interpret those data in the right way. In our opinion understanding data and statistics is all about liking it. But how do you get the average citizen and the average media consumer who hates statistics to like data? Right, by making it relevant to them and their everyday decisions and opinions. In other words, by telling stories that they won’t forget. Stories that they share with their colleagues over a coffee break and with their family over dinner. Stories for example that might worry them a little and which strongly influence their actions and behaviour. But what if they take those decisions based on biased and wrongfully interpreted evidence? Take a look at this story for example in which the (mis)interpretation of data plays a vital role. The title says it all: Bacon, cancer, and the vital importance of statistical reasoning.
Help civil society become data literate
After grazing through all those inspiring workshops it was time to present our own views on “making statistics sexy”. Turning even the biggest statistics haters in statistics advocates, or at least making them like it a little more. During our workshop we went on an interactive quest together with the audience in order to discover which essential data concepts we expect all citizens to grasp. In order to come up with a curriculum for civil society we asked the participants four questions:
- “When” do people need to be able to understand data and statistics?
- “Who” (which groups) need to understand data and statistics?
- “What” (which statistical concepts) do they need to understand?
- “How” (which method) can we help these groups data and statistics?
With the help of the audience the answers to our questions resulted among other things in three groups for whom the correct interpretation of data is of the utmost importance:
- Policy advocates and policy makers
- Students and teachers
- Journalists and citizens
We are presently going through all the notes the participants have created in the workshop and will soon be posting our analysis of the results.
For those of you who would already like to know more about the workshop: live blogger Rahul has written an excellent summary which features all the highlights from the workshop. Thank you, Rahul!
Personal eyeopener
In our opinion teaching statistics is all about getting people to experience that data can be great storytellers. Data tell stories in a quantitative way. In that respect the playful workshop by Rahul Bhargava and Natalie Shoup proved to be one of the most valuable lessons we personally got out of our stay in Cape Town. Pim who teaches statistics to college students was greatly impressed by their innovative way of empowering people with data skills. A true eye opener for teaching statistics both offline and online.
The best storytellers in town
Eager to discover more approaches we went to a panel session on data journalism with some of the most prominent journalists and statisticians in the field, such as Rebecca Goldin and David Spiegelhalter. Pim asked the panel: ‘Where to start when you want to communicate statistical concepts to journalists and consequently also to the general public? If there is one topic you can pick, which one would it be?’ Their answer was as brief as it was clarifying: ‘make journalists understand the difference between absolute and relative numbers. And show them how to separate percentages and chance.’ It makes total sense. If journalists can’t seem to get (data) stories right, how on earth will the general public be able to distinguish facts from fiction? Data without knowing how to interpret it is rather useless as the given example from the bacon story shows. This is exactly what we’re planning on doing with our new project SnapStat. Working together with (data)journalists we have come up with a simple and accurate way for journalists to interpret data. SnapStat uses visual explainers to help journalists interpret statistical data more quickly and more efficiently, and in doing so makes journalists less dependent of experts. So journalists can keep telling data stories and get them right!
Sharing one goal
On our way back to Amsterdam we first got the chance to put our amazing experiences in perspective. Too excited to sleep we scrolled through all the Twitter feeds from the past week. Offline and online the World Data Forum found ways to engage thousands of people into lively conversations about (open) data for all. It put a smile on our faces to think that this can only be the beginning. The UN World Data Forum has been a great initiative which now calls for straightforward action. In the near future open data will be published activating people to make decisions based on that data. Beautiful. But if people choose to ignore data or simply do not know how to interpret it, that data will still remain pretty useless. Let’s make data literacy the backbone of our data filled society. We fully share and support the UN’s mission. Let’s all think hard about our personal effort and contribution to making the world data literate. Thank you UN World Data Forum for making us push even harder. See you next time!
Pim Bellinga and Thijs Gillebaart, founders of I Hate Statistics
More reading and catching up:
https://medium.com/r/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gapminder.org%2F
http://undataforum.org/WorldDataForum/sessions/data-literacy-what-why-and-how/
https://www.ihatestatistics.com/student.php
https://datatherapy.org/2017/01/16/un-data-forum-curriculum-to-make-civil-society-data-literate-liv/
