DataDemocracy

You can read here about the program Data Democracy. We are funded by Aarhus Public Libraries and the the Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces. The program will be running until the end of 2019 and is physically located in Aarhus.

We are investigating and prototyping ideas about ‘data literacy’ and ‘data activism’ and how the public library could play an active role in empowering citizens. How can we motivate individuals to take on the challenge of understanding and utilizing the benefits and risks of the data economy, IoT and AI?

Citizens need to be informed and able to think critically about the transformations these new technologies and the data explosion (‘big data’) imposes on all of us; this is what we refer to as ‘data literacy’.

We need to make sure, that information, discussion and in the end possibly legislation is based on democratic values. This means that all citizens should have access to knowledge and hands on skills used to analyze and utilize these transformations to their own needs.

The program sets out to propose ways that the public library and its staff can support this, by being a public institution close to many citizen’s everyday life and which holds a high credibility.

Explore the site and discover the new world of Big Data, data driven citizen participation and building cities from real world data.