309 – Data Interoperability and Distributed Ownership

Lily and David discuss upcoming workshops in Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, where IDEMS will introduce new AI tools for research methods support. They explore how AI is helping create locally adapted, French-language statistics textbooks, alongside Waypoint, a new tool designed to guide users through responsible data analysis. They also reflect on how these developments have emerged from years of collaboration with research partners in West Africa and the importance of gathering feedback from the communities they aim to support.

James and David reflect on James's first six months mentoring IDEMS' research methods support team in West Africa. They discuss the challenges and rewards of supporting a team remotely, drawing on James's experiences as a statistician and the wider expertise available within IDEMS. They also explore how mentorship can help strengthen local research capacity and support the team's long-term development and independence.

James and David discuss the challenges and opportunities of working with climate data in South Sudan, ahead of meetings with the country's meteorological service. They explore the availability of historical climate records, their potential to support climate services for farmers, and opportunities for collaboration with local universities to build expertise and make better use of climate data.

Following their discussion on data interoperability and distributed ownership, George and David explore Anthropic's new version control system and how it relates to IDEMS' own technological innovations. They discuss how advances in AI-driven software development are challenging established approaches to version control, and why Anthropic's work provides encouraging validation of ideas that IDEMS has been developing. They also explain how IDEMS aims to build on similar principles to support collaboration across systems with genuinely distributed ownership.

George and David explore the challenges of achieving data interoperability while maintaining distributed ownership, a problem that runs through many areas of IDEMS' work. Using Palantir's approach to integrating data systems within the UK's NHS as an example, they discuss the strengths and limitations of centralised data models and why IDEMS is pursuing an alternative approach that enables different stakeholders to retain ownership and control of their data, knowledge and technology.

Santiago and David introduce the IDEMS Games, a new initiative to make engaging logic puzzles freely available to everyone. Building on Simon Tatham's open-source puzzle collection, they discuss how IDEMS is adapting his code to create more attractive and enjoyable games, without advertising or paywalls. They also explore the potential of these games to support learning and intellectual stimulation across different ages, and the longer-term ambition of developing sustainable business models around freely accessible public goods.

Lily and David revisit IDEMS' Excel to Shiny tool, which enables people to create interactive data dashboards using spreadsheets rather than writing code. With recent advances in AI making it easier than ever to build dashboards, they explore whether this approach is still relevant. They discuss why specialist knowledge remains essential for meaningful data analysis, and how combining AI with the principles behind Excel to Shiny could make powerful analytical tools more accessible to people with different forms of expertise.

Michele and David explore how comparing IDEMS with Palantir can help explain IDEMS' technological vision. They discuss how both organisations seek to solve complex problems of data interoperability, but with fundamentally different approaches to ownership and control. They also reflect on how recent advances in AI are making IDEMS' vision of connected technologies with distributed ownership increasingly achievable, opening up new possibilities for technology that serves communities rather than concentrating power.

Santiago and David discuss why IDEMS was established as a Community Interest Company (CIC), rather than a charity or a conventional for-profit business. They explain how the combination of being a CIC, limited by guarantee and not-for-profit allows IDEMS to pursue commercial opportunities while protecting its social mission. They also explore the wider potential of this legal structure for social enterprises, and why greater recognition and support could help organisations pursue ambitious innovation without compromising their purpose.

Santiago and David discuss the Early Family Math app, a collaboration with Chris Wright that aims to help parents and caregivers introduce mathematical thinking into everyday interactions with young children. They reflect on the development of the app and explore its potential to support not only early mathematics learning, but also positive parent-child interactions through shared activities and play. They also discuss opportunities for future research to evaluate the app's potential impact and explore how the approach could be developed further.