Data for Development: The Road Ahead

This report is the result of the Data, Artificial Intelligence and Society workshop that took place in Montevideo, Uruguay in March 2020 and was co-hosted by ILDA and IDRC. The workshop brought together a diverse group of experts to discuss the current state of the data-for-development field. A number of participants who were unable to travel joined by videoconference. This report presents a synthesis of the main points articulated in the group discussions of the workshop sessions. Where possible, the report provides a set of questions, issues, and cases which the group agreed would be important to raise or highlight in the future. The workshop also employed a scenario-building methodology to engage the participants in a discussion of how the field may evolve. The report offers reflections on the way forward in terms of research questions and actions that like-minded research or activist organizations could tackle to engage with the emerging new landscape of data for development. Finally, the group used a visual design methodology to capture the main points of the debate6 as well as to facilitate the scenario building exercise.