Empowering Those Who Don't Speak Data
Rahul Bhargava
Data is too often used “about” people, rather than “with” people. Are you looking for novel ways to engage and empower populations that don’t “speak” the language of data? This workshop session will introduce the Data Culture Project—our suite of hands-on, arts-based activities that bring people together around data with a goal of empowerment. We’ll do two of our participatory hands-on activities in this workshop: building data sculptures and brainstorming questions to ask a dataset. These activities can be run individually within a project scope to involve various low-data-literacy stakeholders, or can be strung together to do things such as design and paint community-driven data murals. You will walk away with concrete approaches to engaging constituents at various points within your data lifecycle, and inspirational examples of how to empower those that don’t otherwise “speak” data. Only through collaborative outreach, engagement, and capacity-building can we truly “leave no-one behind” in the data revolution.