Returning to a Familiar Friend
After a winding career in international development and policy I’ve returned to embrace data in a new light
The trials and tribulations of data collection and analysis have been a part of my research and academic life since 2014. My research thus far has underscored the importance of bottom-up political movements in the former Soviet Union, the need for greater transparency in international development, and most recently the call for decentralization. I gravitate toward the underground movements of data’s new frontiers.
Blockchain Takes Hold
When I learned about blockchain in a heady D.C. summer morning of 2019, I instantly wanted more. At the time my forward thinking colleagues were discussing Ethereum and Bitcoin, two words that I had barely begun to conceptualize. After 5 years of working in the international development and development finance sectors, I knew there had to be a more efficient and sustainable solution to connect aid to marginalized communities. Blockchain evidenced as a new way to store data, eliminate intermediary third parties, and increase decentralized power. After one course, a flurry of white papers, and a night researching digital wallets, I was hooked. During my fall semester of my master’s program at Brandeis University, I attended conferences such as the Cryptoeconomic Systems Conference and joined the mentorship program at she256. However, unbeknownst to me I would end up right where my love for data started, at 427 Scotland Street.
Back in 2014, I joined AidData’s newest team, the “Non-Development Assistance Committee (Non-DAC). In its early days Non-DAC carved the landscape for further research on Chinese development aid and South-South Cooperation. At the time I was a newly minted Global Studies major where my job was to seek out data in the Soviet Republics. It was during these initial semesters at Non-DAC that I found the thrill of the hunt in data exhilarating. Our team was always on the edge of a data precipice where newer forms of aid flows cropped up, forcing our team to reevaluate and set course for another analytical narrative. In blockchain as it was in Non-DAC, the data is far-reaching, contradictory, and elusive. To me, this is what makes it all the more fun. I revel in the sleuthing, holding up to the light the potential discrepancies in data while pivoting toward new frameworks and variables.
Each byte tells a story. Joining the William and Mary Blockchain Lab reminded me of the careful practice of data collection and evaluation. Our pilot project started in Latin America, apropos and reflexive of my first assignment for Non-DAC. Starting the pilot, I experienced the familiar feelings of traversing a new landscape, where the data can be minimal to nonexistent. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies in itself are a niche field where in some contexts elicits a pop-cultural fanfare or, negatively, an outright ban. However, coming across nonexistent data can tell a story just as rich as bountiful data. With blockchain evolving at a rapid pace I hope to contribute a new voice and perspective to the decentralization movement.
Decentralizing Policy
This summer I will be tackling the crux of a question I have posed so many times: what happens when you decentralize policy and bring it to the public? While the answer is far from clear, I inch ever so slowly toward a newer understanding of how to ensure transparency, privacy, and decentralization in an area where it may be needed the most. As part of my research interest I will be working toward incorporating the voices of the underrepresented and marginalized.
