Unlocking Data: Advancing Impact

Fiw Topic

Data Risks & Opportunities

Fiw Year

2024

Transcripts:

English

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French

Summary + Key Insights

The webinar discusses the role of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) in unlocking financial data for public health, featuring insights from industry experts.

🔒 Privacy-First Approach: Emphasizing a privacy-first strategy is crucial for organizations implementing PETs, ensuring compliance and trust. This approach helps address ethical and regulatory concerns while maximizing data utility.

💰 Financial Data Utility: Financial transaction data can reveal crucial information about spending behaviors, aiding in public health decisions. This application demonstrates the potential for data analytics to inform policy and program implementations.

🌟 Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Engaging experts from various fields enhances the effectiveness of PETs, as seen in differential privacy applications. Collaboration can lead to innovative solutions that address complex societal challenges.

🏥 Real-Time Health Insights: Local health officials can leverage PETs to gain insights into pandemic trends and make informed decisions. This capability supports timely interventions and resource allocation.

📈 Mitigating Bias: Identifying and mitigating biases in data sets is essential for creating equitable financial ecosystems. Understanding the underlying data is key to ensuring fair outcomes in financial inclusion efforts.

🔄 Innovative Tools for Developing Regions: Developing countries can benefit from PETs that enhance data sharing while protecting privacy. This opens up opportunities for data-driven decision-making in public health and economic development.

🙌 Community Engagement: Joining initiatives like Open Differential Privacy fosters a collaborative environment where best practices can be shared, leading to the wider adoption of PETs for societal benefit.

This session summary was AI-generated using NoteGPT.

This session will explore the transformative potential of Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs) in unlocking financial data to support public health decision-making, particularly in epidemiology, while ensuring responsible data practices and privacy protection. By addressing key data access challenges, PETs play a critical role in advancing financial inclusion and fostering equitable financial ecosystems.

We’ll showcase insights from data.org’s Privacy-Enhancing Technologies for Public Health Challenge, featuring awardees from India, Europe, and the US. These real-world examples demonstrate how PETs bridge financial and health sectors, empowering local health officials, such as those in Bogota, Colombia, with valuable data.

Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how PETs encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and promote responsible data use across sectors to drive social good.

Session Speakers

Shubham Kumar

Research Scholar, IIT Kanpur

Shubham is a final-year undergraduate in Aerospace and Electrical Engineering at IIT Kanpur, with a strong interest in machine learning and AI. He worked on ‘Lower Precision Training of Neural Networks’ under Prof. Anima Anand Kumar at Caltech, USA. He also led the ‘Autonomous Underwater Vehicle’ team, where we developed underwater robots for the Robonation competition. Additionally, he authored a research paper on image spam classification.

Uyi Stewart

Chief Data and Technology Officer, data.org

Dr. Uyi Stewart oversees the programmatic initiatives at data.org, leading projects like the Generative AI Skills Challenge and Epiverse, among others. With over 25 years of expertise in Data Science and AI, he has contributed significantly across the private and nonprofit sectors. Prior to his current role, he was at Seagen Inc., focusing on AI applications in cancer drug development, and also led AI Commons. At the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he centralized data and AI use to combat global inequities. As a co-founder at IBM Research – Africa, he innovated Big Data solutions during the Ebola outbreak and other challenges. Uyi holds a Ph.D. from McGill University, has 15 patents, published a notable dissertation, authored 65 papers, and has been recognized widely, including as the Black Engineer of the Year 2014.

Salil Vadhan

Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Harvard University

Salil Vadhan is the Vicky Joseph Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, and a Faculty Director of the OpenDP open-source software project. Vadhan’s research in theoretical computer science spans computational complexity, cryptography, and data privacy. His honors include a Harvard College Professorship, a Simons Investigator Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

John Derrico

Vice President, Data Strategy, Mastercard

John is responsible for the enterprise data strategy for alternative data and ensuring responsible data innovation at Mastercard through privacy enhancing technologies to create the next generation of products and solutions. He has delivered data products for startups and fortune 500 clients in clinical, retail, financial and payments industries. John is a Six Sigma Black belt, and a certified snowboard instructor based out of Stratton VT.

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