Data + Digital

The Data + Digital portfolio brings together digital service professionals and data experts from government, civil society, industry, academia, and all communities to inform our research, collaborate on solutions, and generally build a broader sense of community in the industry.

Our Vision

Building capacity, credibility and community — and getting work done.

Projects in the Data + Digital portfolio aim to build capacity for the individuals and teams working on data and government service delivery, support the relationships and responsiveness between governments and the people they serve, and scale efforts across governments.

The Digital Service Collaborative is building a body of research around government digital services, creating tangible resources for practitioners, cultivating the community of digital service leaders in governments to share and scale efforts, and exploring policy considerations including ethics and privacy. We are also supporting efforts in the public and private sectors to responsibly share and use data to address some of society’s most challenging issues and to support civic engagement with public institutions.

Our Impact

Technology alone is never the answer.

We’ve heard that individuals leveraging data and technology want to be better connected with one another and have more communications and transparency around what works and what doesn’t. We’ve heard that concrete tools like checklists and playbooks are essential for building capacity, credibility and community — and to getting work done. The data + digital team is leveraging all of these insights in ongoing efforts to help policy-makers and civil servants use data and technology to increase their impact, maximize their efficiency, and strengthen ties to the communities they serve.

The Data + Digital portfolio builds on the Beeck Center’s previous experience providing support and guidance to policy-makers and civil servants across a variety of formats. This includes flagship reports such as Modernizing Congress: Bringing Democracy into the 21st Century, identifying data standards and systemwide digital infrastructure changes needed on Capitol Hill, Setting the Stage for Transformation: Frontline Reflections on Technology in American Government and the Chief Data Officer in Government Playbook, offering a roadmap to strengthen the use of data for social good across government institutions.

Our Approach

Bringing all voices into the conversation.

We bring together digital service professionals and data experts from government, civil society, industry, academia, and all communities to inform our research, collaborate on solutions, and generally build a broader sense of community around this work.

Through large-scale convenings, smaller working groups, on-campus seminars, themed salons and partnerships with other organizations working on data + digital, we aim to bring all voices into the conversations around this work.

Georgetown University has a rich community working on issues facing tech and society and through the Beeck Center’s Data + Digital work, we partner with other campus programs and institutes to bring the practitioner’s voice to policy conversations and contribute applied experience to theoretical conversations.

Associated Projects

Scale

Responsible Data Practices

many government agencies are also experiencing the pains of governing how that data is shared, resulting in practices that are unsustainable, ineffective, and not forward-thinking. There is a fundamental need to evolve these practices into a governance approach that balances the need to protect people’s data with the need to uncover opportunities to better serve communities through data.

View Project

Incubation

State Chief Data Officers Network

Data is a strategic asset and states have great potential to unlock it for public good. While several states have established Chief Data Officers (CDOs) to advance the use and management of data, many still lack the senior technical leadership to leverage the data they already have to better target services, and use ongoing data collection to test different strategies and scale what works. The State Chief Data Officer Network will provide expert support for state efforts to utilize data to deliver better outcomes.

View Project

Scale

Digital Census Project

The Census provides our nation’s foundational dataset, the basis upon which so much other data is based. It is used in research, algorithms, journalism, business, and infrastructure planning among other things. In many ways it creates the reality upon which our institutions, our lives, and our futures are built. It is the people’s data: a shared public asset that is becoming increasingly important in a data-driven world.

View Project

Incubation

Delivering Better Outcomes through User-Centered Policy Making

The future of improved service delivery requires a strategy that includes user-centered policy making and creates space for experimentation and piloting.

View Project