What if we had a world of data makers? In 2013, our School of Data team has trained over 1000 people around the world. Our goal is to keep up this momentum by training more data makers and supporting them better through a network of mentors. With that, we’ve been ramping up our efforts by seeking more funding. We are very proud to be considered one of the 196 candidates in the Making All Voices Count Grand Challenge.

Steve Kenei of Development Initiatives leading a School of Data Training in Nairobi, Kenya (November 2013)

Making All Voices Count is a global initiative that supports innovation, scaling, and research to deepen existing innovations and help harness new technologies to enable citizen engagement and government responsiveness.

This Grand Challenge focuses global attention on creative and cutting-edge solutions, including those that use mobile and web technology, to ensure the voices of all citizens are heard and that governments have the capacity, as well as the incentive, to listen and respond.

Vote for the School of Data!

“We’re blown away by the number of high-quality proposals. The competition has gained the interest of top designers and developers, and we’re intrigued to see which ideas resonate most with the public” Mathias Antonsson (Programme Manager, Ushahidi’s Innovation Component).

Where we trained this year – help us bring School of Data near you! Vote for us.

Our Making Voices Count Submission

We want to create School of Data where you are. Join the international network of Schools of Data, share our resources and tools, teach your community to better understand how data can help them achieve the change they want.

School of Data gives you the chance to learn how to use data to advance your agenda. Get new skills to find, clean, interpret and analyse data. Tell your stories. Get School of Data in your language and your country.

As more governments are making commitments to publish the data they collect. We need to empower citizens with the skills to turn data into actions. Whether you aim at increasing transparency and accountability, empower citizens to engage with governments or improve services and to advocate for change – the School of Data has something for you. The feedback loop between government and citizens can only be catalysed by empowering media, civil society and individual changemakers to understand and use data that has been released. People need skills to find, clean, interpret and analyse data in order to gather the evidence, create the visualisations, tell the stories and ultimately add force to their arguments for change. School of Data is a critical tool in this process of empowerment, providing participatory data training and online tools to empower people to achieve their desired social, political or environmental change.

Vote for the School of Data Now!
Hop over to the Ideas site, create an account and start voting. The competition is tough.
We’re fans of all the world changing folks!