- Thank you for joining us.
I'm Brad Smith, president of Microsoft
and I am here today with Jennifer Yokoyama.
Jen is Microsoft's vice president and deputy general counsel
for our intellectual property practice.
Well, a year ago, under Jen's leadership,
we launched an Open Data Campaign.
It's a campaign that is focused on closing the data divide
between those companies and countries
that have effective access to the data
that they need to innovate
and those that do not.
When we looked at this a year ago,
one conclusion was very stark,
it's that this divide risks leaving some people behind
without the ability to put data to work
to really generate economic wealth
and opportunity more broadly.
As a result, our campaign was launched with three pillars.
The first was to create a principled approach
for Microsoft's contributions
and our commitments to trusted data collaboration.
Our five principles, principles we've since put to work,
have been all about ensuring the data is open
and empowering,
that it's private and secure,
that data is usable by the people who need it.
Our second pillar is about creating a broad range
of new partnerships.
And that's been so important, as you'll hear, to our work.
We committed to launching 20 partnerships
to really enhance data collaboration
by the year 2022.
And finally, we focused on creating new tools,
developing new capabilities
to make data sharing easier.
One year on, we've made a lot of progress,
but there's a lot more to be done.
In fact, according to our recent Gartner survey,
organizations that share data externally with their partners
generate three times
more economic opportunity and benefit
than the counterparts that do not.
I think that frames so squarely
how we need to think about the opportunity
to open up more data in the future.
In fact, as Gardner found,
data sharing currently is stalled.
It's stalled by stakeholder resistance,
by fear,
by data management and governance policies and problems,
and really the lack of tools and technology
and even real and perceived regulatory restraints.
In other words, open data
is a huge part of the future,
but there are big roadblocks
we're going to need to overcome.
So today, one year on,
as we reach our anniversary for our campaign,
we wanted to take this opportunity to have a conversation.
To talk about what we've learned, what we're working on
and most importantly,
what we all can do together.
So let's dive in.
Jen, as always, it's great to be with you.
It's even greater to be in the same room
together at the moment. - Absolutely.
- Well, it's a big day for us.
I know we're publishing 10 lessons
from our data collaboration over the past year,
10 things we've learned.
What do you see as the highlights we're sharing?
- So, it's been great.
The Open Data Campaign is really about
making data as open as possible.
And we've seen so many wonderful things in the last year.
But what's really exciting to me is what we've learned.
So the first one is don't let open
stand in the way of more open.
- Now, what does that mean?
- Yeah. So that means
you can have open data
that you want to make publicly accessible.
Like we did with our broadband usage data,
or our Bing Maps aerial data.
And that's fantastic
and that is absolutely going to help, value and research
in all the ways that we want it to.
But there are times where data won't be able
to be publicly accessible
because of privacy regulations or competitive reasons.
And you can still get value out of that data
through trusted sharing scenarios.
And so you don't want open to stop you
from making things more open just because they can't be
completely publicly open.
- That is a real insight.
And I know, from your work,
you keep finding this again and again.
This is, I guess, like many things,
all progress is incremental.
It's true for open data as well.
- Absolutely.
So another lesson we learned was that
open data doesn't require new data.
And a really good example of that was
Microsoft contributed its corporate
environmental indicator data
to the OS Climate Initiative,
which was led by the Linux Foundation.
And what that did was it took this type of
environmental data from corporations,
put it on an open source platform
where investors can use it
to look at corporate based climate risk and opportunities
when they're looking at what they want to invest in.
And so, this wasn't data that Microsoft had
not already opened.
This was already data that Microsoft had
opened to the public.
But we were now able to put it on a new platform
to spread the economic opportunity
and the value that comes from that same data
into a new platform.
And so that's what I mean when I'm saying,
open data doesn't actually mean you need new data.
There are new ways to use data.
- I know that in some ways,
those are sort of the paths to progress
and yet, we've also hit a lot of obstacles.
There's so many challenges in opening up data.
And one of the things I really like about the work
that you've been leading for the past year,
is a real focus on challenges like
governance mechanisms,
legal agreements,
other things that slow data collaboration.
And yet, you've also, what I really like most of all,
you've been finding solutions.
Can you share a little bit about that part of the progress?
- Yeah, absolutely.
So tools and processes have often been
the barriers that made people try to say no.
It's too hard, I don't want to share data.
And the bottom line is we've got to make it easier.
And that's one of the things we've really been focused on.
And one of the projects we've been working on
is in connection with the Gov Lab out of NYU,
we did this open data policy lab
where we took data stewards and people who were
in the data innovation space,
put them together to talk about
the hurdles,
tools and thoughts about how they could overcome them
to actually help make people understand
how they can make data more shareable,
more usable and more valuable collectively.
And through that program,
they were able to talk to experts and each other,
and it was such a great success that the
open data policy labs actually going to even be more open
next year, so it's going to be a bigger initiative
to actually take the learnings and get more
out of it to try to make sharing data easier.
- That's great.
- And we actually talked to Stefaan Verhulst,
who's the co-founder of the Gov Lab,
about the open data policy lab.
And here's what he had to say.
- We at the Gov Lab,
launched the open data policy lab
with the intent to support
data stewards in the public and private sector
to accelerate the reuse of data
to benefit society at large.
We need to re-imagine data stewardship for 21st century,
because in essence, we need to really
start professionalizing the way we reuse data.
Data reuse of data is becoming essential
to bridge the current divide
between the data holders on the one hand,
and those that need access to data
to inform public decisions that can improve people's lives.
- Now, that is terrific.
It really highlights what we're learning and frankly,
what we at Microsoft are learning by working
with other people like NYU.
Let me just then ask you about one last thing,
something that you and I have been working on,
talking about together, is actually one of the things that I
think we're really passionate about,
which is how to take the power of data
and turn it into an asset that really goes to work,
not just for the New Yorks and Londons,
but perhaps even more for the lower income countries
of the world.
And these are obviously places where in some instances,
there may not be the same level of capacity
of data analytical training in place.
And yet, I know we see the potential as being so high.
What do you think we can try to accomplish
and say, the next year or two
as we really use open data to address this?
- Yeah. What we've seen is that
if you take data and you use it in the right way
and you share it and you are able to
get the insights out of it,
that's where the value comes from.
That's where you find the economic opportunity.
So you need to be able to marry the technologies
and the skills, the data skills, with these countries.
And so one of the things we're doing
and going to focus on next year and the following year,
is really to work in places where we can make a difference
and bringing these skills and this economic opportunity
through data to these lower income countries
by partnering with organizations like the IDB.
- Thanks, Jen.
And as you know,
Microsoft really has a long standing relationship
with the Inter-American Development Bank, the IDB.
It covers a broad range of areas.
We've worked together on digital government,
rural connectivity and remote education,
as well as issues like responsible use of AI
and digital skilling and most recently,
women's entrepreneurship.
In 2020, we expanded our partnership
in the area of transparency
through Microsoft's new anti-corruption technology
and solutions, or ACTS, initiative.
This, in my view, is critical
because it helps empower
the work of Latin American governments
to fight corruption using technology,
using data and analytics
and really importantly,
leveraging open data.
So we're delighted to be joined today by the IDB president,
Mauricio Claver-Carone.
Mauricio has provided remarks,
he'll be sharing them with all of us,
really describing how the IDB
is helping governments enhance transparency
and identify corruption risks
using the power of open data.
Mauricio.
- Thanks so much, Brad, and thanks to Microsoft
for making the Inter-American development bank part
of the Open Data Campaign.
Today, I'd like to speak to you about Mapalnversiones.
A digital platform financed by the IDBs Transparency Fund
with support from Microsoft.
The goal of Mapalnversiones is to expand transparency
and make risk integrity known to all.
Open data as a core principle of the platform.
By combining open data with digital technology
that aggregates and analyzes enormous complex datasets,
Mapalnversiones unleashes the potential of technology
and transparency each prevent and control
the misuse of public resources
while increasing the participation of civil society.
With Mapalnversiones,
governments, citizens, companies and the media
are empowered by data in different ways.
Citizens, for example,
use the platform's user-friendly interface
to control and monitor in real-time
where and how public resources are being spent.
They can interact with the platform through comments,
upload photos and videos, request access to information
and file complaints in case of wrongdoing.
In partnership with Microsoft ACTS,
we're now developing and early warning, red flags pilot
that will provide governments with notifications
of potential fraud and corruption
in the use of COVID-19 economic stimulus funds.
Our goal is to accelerate analysis of the open data
about government spending on Mapalnversiones.
With the incorporation of relationship mapping,
pattern recognition and data visualization tools
from Microsoft,
so that irregular transactions and practices
and emergency critical procurement can be revealed.
We're working on the next version of Mapalnversiones
to cast a light into the shadows
where corruption risks live.
And even to help prevent corruption before it even happens.
We're driven in this effort by the demand
of our member countries.
The crisis that has hit the world,
including Latin America and the Caribbean,
has created the momentum for long overdue reforms.
The transparency, integrity and anti-corruption agenda
is a critical area of work.
And we're honored to be part of these efforts
with your great support at Microsoft.
Thank you so much.
- Well, one of the reasons I'm so excited
about what you just heard from Mauricio
is that when you step back and think about it,
corruption is really a problem that is as old
as civilization itself.
But using the power of data
and combining it with technology,
the leadership of the IDB,
I think in the decade ahead,
we have a real opportunity to take a bite
out of corruption around the world.
And that's really, to me,
something that speaks to where our entire
open data campaign is heading in the year ahead.
I just want to say, thank you for joining us.
I hope you'll join this campaign.
I think we have the power, all of us,
to put data to work, to open it up
and contribute to a better world.
Thank you.