Working in a domain that has such high stakes around decisions that are made, given the impact on children directly, on service providers working with children or indeed on data and models, it is essential that all of our activities are directed by ‘good governance’.  

As the Data for Children Collaborative transitions from our initial start up phase, we gathered our partners, colleagues and stakeholders for an overview of what we have achieved and our plans for the future..

We are looking for an experienced, enthusiastic, and systematic Senior Project Manager to join our dynamic team at the Data for Children Collaborative. The deadline for applications is 27th January 2023.

When offered the opportunity to work on an expert group report on Building Trust in the Digital Era, commissioned by the Scottish Government, our team leapt at the chance. Ethics is such a central part to our thinking at the Data for Children Collaborative that the idea that we could support work aimed at influencing change in this area really chimed with our broader goal of being ethical activists. 

At the Data for Children Collaborative, we love challenges. We are continually building challenge-led projects aimed at improving outcomes for children globally. We do this because we believe that they enable collaborative innovation, novel solutions, and real impact.

As an organisation that prides itself in collaboration, just how collaborative are we, and how can that be defined? Dictionary entry by our Director, Alex Hutchison.

Guest blog by Claire Barale, a PhD student at the Centre for Technomoral Futures, about Natural Language Processing (NLP): what is it and what are its limitations?

In efforts to set out a roadmap for a fairer digital Scotland, the Scottish Government publishes ‘Building Trust in the Digital Era: Achieving Scotland’s Aspirations as an Ethical Digital Nation Digital Ethics Expert Group Report’. The key narrative of this publication is building trust with the people of Scotland through engaging them in digital decisions that affect their lives.

On 25th October 2022, UNICEF released a report: “The coldest year of the rest of their lives: Protecting children from the escalating impacts of heatwaves”.

We’re delighted to release our Annual Report for 2022. It’s been a busy year for the Collaborative. With 7 project underway, 10 completed and 32 project partners, it has been a year of growth for us as a data collaborative and learning how to bring data to life with the human side of the story.

We are thrilled to announce that The Data for Children Collaborative with UNICEF has won DataIQ 2022 Data for Society Award for its innovative approach to leveraging data to tackle some of the world's most pressing issues, with a focus on children.

How does relational ethics help to navigate ethical challenges for data-driven innovation?

Guest blog by Viviana Cañón Tamayo, Frontier Data- programme specialist at UNICEF HQ, on her definition of frontier data.

As with any high-impact project, stakeholder engagement is crucial to its success. At the Collaborative, we have a simple philosophy – let’s create speed boats, not cruise ships’.

In recent years there has been a growing appetite for putting ethics at the core of emerging technologies. Why is this so important?

A conversation between Alessandra Fassio, our previous Advocacy and Relations Manager and Iwona Soppa, who is stepping into this role.

We sure don’t see many robots in the classrooms yet, so what do we actually mean by the term machine learning?

In line with Mental Health Awareness Week, we’re delighted to share some of the outputs and findings from our project focused on adolescent mental health.

Our Director was talking about her job to a Primary 5 class this week (aged 9 and 10 year olds) during their careers week and it got her to thinking – do we all have a consistent understanding of what we mean by “data”?

For Earth Day 2022, we need to act (boldly), innovate (broadly), and implement (equitably). As children are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change, it is fundamental for them to be recognised as agents capable of determining their own futures.