The GovLab at NYU Tandon welcomes Data2X as new partner on the 100 Questions Initiative

BROOKLYN, New York, Wednesday, September 4, 2019 — The Governance Lab at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering welcomed Data2X as an institutional partner to the 100 Questions Initiative — an effort to identify the most important societal questions whose answers can be found through greater access to data and data science methods.

Data2X — an alliance housed at the United Nations Foundation — will provide financial support and expertise in improving the quality, availability, and use of data in the gender domain of the initiative. Data2X will also guide efforts to include gender-related issues in the other nine domain areas of the 100 Questions Initiative.

The 100 Questions Initiative, launched with initial support from Schmidt Futures, seeks to address challenges on such topics as migration, disinformation, climate change, the future of work, and more.

“Our partnership with Data2X will help The GovLab advance gender as a central consideration to all topics included in the 100 Questions Initiative. This approach aligns with our desire to promote innovative ways to frame and define the challenges we face and develop data-informed solutions,” said Stefaan Verhulst, co-founder and chief research and development officer of The GovLab.

At the core of the initiative’s work is a global community of “bilinguals,” practitioners across fields who possess both domain knowledge and data science expertise. Networks of these experts will work collaboratively to identify the 10 most pressing, high-impact questions answerable through a combination of new and existing data sources and data science methods in each domain area.

As part of the initiative, The GovLab, its bilinguals, and partners will also initiate data collaboratives. This new form of collaboration, which goes beyond the public-private partnership model, will be used to unlock the public value of previously inaccessible data.

After starting with migration, the 100 Questions Initiative launched its second domain: gender. Gender inequality remains a persistent challenge around the world, a fact recognized in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  As highlighted in the SDGs, gender inequality presents a barrier to equal work opportunities, hinders access to quality education, and stunts overall economic growth potentials.

Yet, Data2X’s research demonstrates data is available for less than one-quarter of the key gender indicators across the SDGs. Securing policy-relevant data about the lives of women and girls is essential to creating targeted programs. Leveraging the subject-matter and data expertise of participating bilinguals, the 100 Questions Initiative aims to identify and develop data resources to fill this gap.

“Without quality gender data, it’s difficult to understand the lived realities of women and girls and to design policies that really improve their lives. Numerous sectors don’t collect gender data that would support and inform global efforts against inequality, discrimination, and poverty,” said Emily Courey Pryor, Executive Director at Data2X. “Embedding gender throughout the 100 Questions Initiative and convening a network of gender bilinguals will raise awareness around the key gender issues that we need data to tackle. This project will help us identify needed data sources and promising data collaboratives while promoting gender-sensitive data collection methods.”

This partnership will also inform Data2X's Gender Data Gaps Mapping project, which aims to identify gaps of information on gender equality across key policy domains such as health, education, and politics.

Anyone interested in collaborating is encouraged to send an email to contact@the100questions.org. For more information about the 100 Questions Initiative, visit www.the100questions.org or contact Stefaan Verhulst, lead of the initiative, at sverhulst@thegovlab.org.

About the 100 Questions Initiative

The 100 Questions Initiative is presented by The Governance Lab at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering with initial funding support from Schmitt Futures. It is supported by a global advisory board comprising data science and subject matter experts from the public, corporate, and non-profit sectors. Members include Ciro Cattuto, scientific director of ISI Foundation; Gabriella Gómez-Mont, founder and former director at Laboratorio Para La Ciudad; Molly Jackman, leader of Content-Product Data Science and Engineering at Netflix; Vivienne Ming, founder of Socos Labs; Wilfred Ndifon, director of research at AIMS Global Network; Denice Ross, fellow at Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation; and Matthew Salganik, professor of sociology at Princeton University. For more information, visit the100questions.org.

About The Governance Lab at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering

The Governance Lab's mission is to improve people's lives by changing the way we govern. Our goal at The GovLab is to strengthen the ability of institutions — including but not limited to governments — and people to work more openly, collaboratively, effectively, and legitimately to make better decisions and solve public problems. We believe that increased availability and use of data, new ways to leverage the capacity, intelligence, and expertise of people in the problem-solving process, combined with new advances in technology and science, can transform governance. We approach each challenge and opportunity in an interdisciplinary, collaborative way, irrespective of the problem, sector, geography, and level of government. For more information, visit thegovlab.org.

About Data2X

Data2X is a technical and advocacy platform dedicated to improving the quality, availability, and use of gender data in order to make a practical difference in the lives of women and girls worldwide. Working in partnership with multilateral agencies, governments, civil society, academics, and the private sector, Data2X mobilizes action for and strengthens production and use of gender data.

About the New York University Tandon School of Engineering

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly). A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention and entrepreneurship and dedicated to furthering technology in service to society. In addition to its main location in Brooklyn, NYU Tandon collaborates with other schools within NYU, one of the country’s foremost private research universities, and is closely connected to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. It operates Future Labs focused on start-up businesses in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and an award-winning online graduate program. For more information, visit engineering.nyu.edu.