No, this isn't about Congress and the latest efforts to allocate funding to infrastructure. It's a thoughtful whitepaper from October 2020 that I just got around to reading, the product of research by Siegel Family Endowment. "Infrastructure: Building the Future We Deserve" resonates with me because it speaks to themes that reflect how I think [...]
Category: The lyricism of data
Ecosystems, through-lines, and Professor Viamonte
Lately I have been writing about how to create solutions that cut across a market with participants of unequal wealth or power. In other words, you see a complex ecosystem and wonder if there's some way to connect all participants in a way that brings benefits to the underserved and favored alike. I keep thinking [...]
The big tech vendor and trust
The “original gangster of big tech” has managed to dodge the bad headlines and congressional grilling that have ensnared its rivals by working with regulators and advocating its own solutions. --Daria Solovieva | 01.10.19 | Fast Company I was raising money for my first startup back in 1998. It was the seed round which focused [...]
The battle over personal data
Our adversaries are no longer international despots or dictators, they are multi-national companies who exploit every byte of data we produce to achieve unfathomable riches for themselves. Those who possess intelligence on our psyches revealing things we don’t even know about ourselves. --Chris Herd | June 27, 2018 | Medium I live and breathe personal [...]
Follow the money
My team and I participate in a number of groups trying to devise an ethical framework that guides data-driven applications and algorithms. Participants ask what data? How is it collected? How is it used? Does it drive greater fairness? Does it perpetuate bias? Are the answers all hidden in a black box architecture. I have [...]
What algorithms have to do with it
I originally wrote about the mysteries of algorithms and small business credit after attending two excellent conferences on the subject here in New York City. Here is a good panel discussion on the topic. Since then Cornell Tech has launched the Digital Life Initiative, offering an abundance of excellent research and deeper explorations. Background. There [...]
On the eve of the “truth, what truth?” election
Like many U.S. citizens, I can hardly wait for this campaign to end. But I cannot let it go without pointing out that there is another oft-ignored side to defining others without their participation and on a public scale. Obviously, people running for major office expect a certain amount of this. What makes 2016 unusual [...]
Small business at Harvard.edu!
I have long been a fan of Doc Searls from his seminal (co-authored) publication, The Cluetrain Manifesto, to his work with Linux Journal, and more recently his tireless battles for consumers who are tracked across the internet like so many bits of soulless data. Today Doc features small business and how credit cuts against them [...]
descant labs 