Session
Organizer 1: Cynthia Lo, GitHub
Organizer 2: Jack Gregory, World Intellectual Property Organization
Organizer 3: Tarunima Prabhakar, Tattle Civic Technologies
Organizer 4: Mala Kumar, GitHub
Speaker 1: Jack Gregory, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization
Speaker 2: Tarunima Prabhakar, Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Cynthia Lo, Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 4: Mala Kumar, Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Tarunima Prabhakar, Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group
Mala Kumar, Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Cynthia Lo, Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Round Table - Circle - 90 Min
1) What are the current indicators of technology maturity, technology ecosystems, and digital literacy in a country? How can private sector technology platform metrics create a more robust and nuanced picture of these areas? And what are their potential limitations?
2) What are the data needs and challenges that international development, public policy and economics researchers have that are currently unmet?
3) How can corporations ensure data privacy and consent when publishing data for research?
Connection with previous Messages: This proposed session will build on IGF 2021’s theme of “Economic and social inclusion and human rights”, specifically the call for international organisations to develop definitions and tools to help countries measure digital transformation and its societal impacts in an objective, effective and efficient manner by creating a platform for participation.
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Targets: The session aims to support research, inform policy-making and provide tools for private sector, civil society and intergovernmental institutions to explore ways to use standardized metrics on data that can inform a country state’s digital readiness, the right to internet access, right to development and digital rights.
Description:
This panel session will be co-hosted and have participants from GitHub, Inc., Tattle, Inc, and the World Intellectual Property Organization. It will focus on how private sector technology platform metrics, such as standardized GitHub metrics, can strengthen research and benchmarking in international development, public policy and economics, particularly around the topics of technology maturity, innovation ecosystems, and digital literacy at the country level. Discussion will also include emerging movements on data measures that are complement to traditional measures of economic activity. As a component of evidence-based policy creation, such metrics can help governments, multinational organizations, and private companies make better-informed decisions on issues such as which low- and middle-income countries can support new technology projects and products, or which countries would benefit from new technology-oriented capacity building initiatives. This panel will highlight how data sharing, privacy and protection is integral for a shared, sustainable and common future.
To this aim and to meet a growing demand, GitHub and Tattle have embarked on a qualitative research project to contextualize the creation of such standardized GitHub metrics for all countries in which there are GitHub users and how qualitative research is a form of data governance.Third party GitHub data has previously been used in international development and policy related indexes, such as the ‘Digital Knowledge Economy Index’ from Ojanperä et al (2018) and the ‘Network Readiness Index’ by the Portulans Institute.The current GitHub and Tattle research project will be the first of its kind. Moreover, it represents a promising frontier in contextualizing digital ecosystems globally, as more than 83 million software developers in nearly every country in the world use GitHub.
The panel will cover the research project methodology and how it informed the creation of the standardized metrics, expressed the needs of the target disciplines, and defined the potential use as well as privacy and safety protocols of standardized metrics. As well as case studies on how the metrics can be used in practice.
This session will identify practices that other stakeholders can emulate. GitHub aims to highlight a collaborative model of engagement for private sector technology companies in international development, public policy and economics to capture a more robust picture of technological activity in every country, regardless of income status based on the qualitative research done.
Proposed agenda:
- 40 minutes: moderated panel discussion
- 40 minutes: open Q&A from the audience
- 10 minutes: concluding remarks from each speaker
IGF is an optimal forum to discuss this new engagement model to leverage platform metrics from companies and organizations in the disciplines of international development, economics and policy. The aim of this session is to create a stronger understanding of best practices for internet platforms drawing from the research project, with a goal of expanding the network that participates or benefits from the metrics, potentially through the creation of an informal working group or mailing list. Lastly, we plan to create an online forum to build upon the discussion of this event and publish the key findings.
Hybrid Format: Facilitation between onsite and online speakers and attendees will be managed through the moderator, who will field questions from both in-person and online participants. The session is intended as a hybrid in-person and online event with an interactive element. There is a potential for audio and visual materials to be presented through Zoom. Lastly, we will capture the Q&A discussion questions on an online forum to help facilitate online engagement.
Usage of IGF Official Tool.