Nicole Wong
Federal Agencies and the Opportunities and Challenges of Big Data
On June 19, the Obama Administration will continue the conversation on big data as we co-host our fourth big data conference, this time with the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy’s Massive Data Institute.
The conference, “Improving Government Performance in the Era of Big Data; Opportunities and Challenges for Federal Agencies,” will build on prior workshops at MIT, NYU, and Berkeley, and continue to engage both subject matter experts and the public in a national discussion about the future of data innovation and policy.
Drawing from the recent White House working group report, “Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values”, this event will focus on the opportunities and challenges posed by Federal agencies’ use of data, best practices for sharing data within and between agencies and other partners, and measures the government may use to ensure the protection of privacy and civil liberties in a big data environment.
[Wong is US Deputy Chief Technology Officer at the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy]
More Big Data Ideas
On March 17, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Data & Society Research Institute, and New York University co-hosted the second in a series of public events focused on big data that Office of Science and Technology Policy is co-hosting with academic institutions across the country.
The full-day workshop focused on the social, cultural, and ethical dimensions of big data. The day concluded with a public plenary session, featuring an active discussion with a panel of experts covering a range of issues including privacy, the use of genetic data, educational applications, and financial inclusion. The webcast of the public session, as well as materials from the day’s workshops will be available here.
We will continue to build on the ideas developed in the first two workshops at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and New York University at a third event on April 1st in Berkeley, California. This workshop will be co-hosted by OSTP and the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley and the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, and will focus on the values and governance issues raised by big data technologies.