Tech is about solving problems, not just problems that impact the bottom lines of multinational corporations, but problems that affect people in their homes, hospital and neighbourhoods.

Many tech scientists, engineers and programmers are asking how they can make the world a better place with their skills and knowledge. How can they do good?

That question has led to the creation of such agencies as DataKind, Data for Good, and GODAN (Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition). All are exploring how to use open data to do such things as improve health outcomes, make neighbourhoods safer, enhance agriculture and advantage the disadvantaged.

This spirit has inspired the theme - Tech for Good - for the first True North conference, hosted by Communitech in Kitchener Waterloo May 29-31. Hundreds of entrepreneurs, researchers, data science savants and idea merchants will gather to exchange experience and examine their future paths.

Canada's Open Data Exchange (ODX) is among the conference sponsors, hosting in particular the presentation by Suzanne Gildert, CEO of Sanctuary AI, whose mission is to create human-like robots. Gildert will examine the moral, ethical and economic questions of these new entities. Through presentations and workshops, participants will scrutinize how AI and open data can create global abundance, how creative people work, how tech can be used for the public good and what elements are needed in a Tech for Good manifesto.

These gathering of tech goodness is an expression of the growing social intentions of the tech ecosystem.

If data is power, then the ""do good"" movement wants to use that power for the good of all.
Agencies such as DataKind partner data scientists with social scientists to use algorithms and data knowledge in transformative ways. The humanitarian work of DataKind volunteer team members at six chapters worldwide ranges from simple advice to weekend-long data dives. Samples include a collaboration with Microsoft to reduce traffic-related deaths in New York City, and a partnership with Global Witness to comb through open corporate reporting datasets to find U.K. companies that may have been parking money offshore to avoid British taxes.

Data for Good is a Canadian data mining collective, inspired by DataKind, that offers weekend DataThons to supply the kind of data that health and social agencies need to effectively serve the community. The five-year-old organization, with five chapters in Canada ranging from Regina to Toronto, has partnered with such agencies as the Terry Fox Foundation, Unicef Canada, Greenpeace, and the electoral engagement group, Samara Canada, and sees its mission as ""data in service of humanity.""

GODAN (Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition) also hopes to serve humanity, by making open data truly open to all, not just to those who have the budget to analyze it. Part of its mandate is to encourage partners to collaborate and share knowledge about agriculture, nutrition and open data activities, and to adopt common standards about food safety and food product types.

And there are many other agencies and opportunities to focus on the social values of tech.

The London-based Open Data Institute (ODI) has advocated for open data as a public good since 2012, and has opened ODI ""nodes"" on five continents, in cities ranging from Accra to Brasilia to Toronto. In 2013, it launched its Open Data Challenge Series that offered up to £50,000 for solutions to social issues using open data. Projects have included releasing real-time open data election results for the first free election in Burkina Faso in 30 years, and delivering data literacy programs to hundreds of citizens - half of them women - in Tanzania. The Toronto chapter is currently an active analyst of the much-heralded Sidewalk Labs ""smart city"" renovation of the east Toronto waterfront.

The Open Data Services Co-operative, based in East Sussex, Great Britain, supports NGOs and non-profits seeking to use open data. Recent examples include support for non-profits seeking data to support fundraising and support for the Open Repair Alliance, a collaboration seeking to reduce tech obsolescence.

The Data-Pop Alliance links thinkers from Harvard, MIT and the Overseas Development Institute through its seven global data spaces to show citizen groups and non-profits how to use data in a people-centred way.

The Open Data Science | Innovation Centre of Cambridge, Mass. organizes conferences worldwide on open data issues, such as the Data for Good conference last November in Santa Clara, Calif.

The Data for Good Exchange is an annual Bloomberg-sponsored one-day gathering in New York on how data science can be mobilized for social justice issues.

Some ""open data for good"" agencies tackle specific global issues:

    • The California-based Human Rights Data Analysis Group uses open data to track human trafficking and human rights abuses, such as compiling statistics on the number of dead in the Syrian civil war for the UN High Commission for Human Rights.
    • Data for Black Lives, launched with an inaugural conference in Cambridge, Mass. in November 2017, attracts activists and analysts to use open data to empower communities of colour by showing them that data can be used to change the point of reference for urban planning, policing or finance.


Then, there's something as specific as Visabot, the open-data-driven AI system that vows to ""Help Immigrants Make America Great Again,"" according to its website, by helping them navigate the politically contentious U.S. visa system. Visabot both analyzes successful applications to produce ""bulletproof"" drafts and completes tedious forms, all with the aim of expediting applications.

From the expansive, to the specific, open data is being mobilized to create transparency, empower individuals and communities, and level the playing fields for people in many nations.

This people-centred approach to open data innovation will just be part of the conversation of True North. Book your tickets.