Skip to main contentVidya Spandana wants to start a data revolution. She spoke at TechFest NW today about her mission to democratize data and shift the power of information from the tech-literate elite to all people, even suggesting doing away with confusing code.
"Our mission is to put the power of discovery in the hands of the people," Spandana said, "and to lower the barrier for data discovery."
As a strategic advisor to the city of Portland, Spandana has worked to move private sector tech solutions into city government agencies. Today, Spandana had one clear message for TechFest: "as technologists we have the power to shift the power," she said.
Spandana began her talk with the example of Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei who, in the wake of government censorship after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, enlisted 90 million people to determine independently an accurate count of missing and dead children, even enlisting hackers to undermine the Chinese government's firewall.
What inspires Spandana about Ai's story is how he was able to gather and disseminate information in a highly censored dictatorial country. "Imagine what we could do here with a government that is built of democratic principles" she said.
The tech world, Spandana said, is in the beginning of a "revolution of data democratization." The drivers of the revolution are platforms that allow for open access to data and information (like Popily, a data science startup which she engineered).
Spandana said her goal for these types of platforms is to put the power of discovery in the hands of the people and to lower the barrier for data discovery, allowing people to tell their own stories instead of having to rely on a highly educated tech-literate elite.
She encouraged the TechFest audience to do away with code and "build with, not for,"—a concept that received a wave of nods and a few polite claps. Spandana concluded, "Hopefully we can all band together and support each other to build platforms that give power to the people."
WWeek 2015