Goals and Audience
This playbook is envisioned as a go-to resource for anyone interested in enabling data talent through interdisciplinary curriculum and experiential opportunities focused on solving complex development challenges. If you are a practitioner working in social impact, a funder looking to support promising solutions, an academic involved in curriculum development, or simply an advocate of purposeful use of data and technology, then this playbook is meant for you. The partners involved in the conception of this playbook recognise that unlocking data while investing in human capital is of utmost importance to develop evidence-based policy recommendations, innovative tools that can be tailored to specific local contexts, and solutions to support real-time decision making.
How to Use this Playbook?
This playbook offers ideas, best practices, resources, and contextual learnings associated with establishing a holistic platform that can nurture purpose-driven data practitioners. It has been designed to serve a diverse range of stakeholders to train the next generation of data scientists, analysts, and practitioners aspiring to work in social impact. The work presented as part of this playbook is all in the context of India and does not prescribe a “one size fits all” approach; instead, the insights and reflections presented should be adapted and recalibrated as per the trends and maturity of the data landscape in a particular region. We do believe that the insights shared here will be beneficial to others working in similar low-and middle-income contexts.
To make the most of this playbook, it is recommended to start with a quick overview of the overall outline to familiarise yourself with the key topics covered in each section.
Structure of the Playbook
This playbook presents the journey of the India Data Capacity Accelerator (IDCA) programme that was established under Capacity Accelerator Network (CAN), a global initiative led by data.org. The first two sections focus on establishing the operational context of the programme, highlighting the thematic focus and the critical opportunity to position data as a social good in an age of exponential digital transformation that has augmented our capacity to comprehend and address developmental challenges at scale. This is followed by sections on training programmes, a fellowship model, and journeys of some fellows and learners engaged in the programme. In these sections, the emphasis is placed on curation of knowledge resources, curriculum topics, data use-cases and lessons learned as part of implementing the various components of the programme.
A separate section is dedicated to demonstrating examples of diverse projects pursued by IDCA Fellows. The fellowship and learner journeys showcased in this playbook exemplify the initiative’s objective to foster well-rounded and inclusive emerging leaders, ensuring that candidates from diverse backgrounds are supported in charting out sustainable career pathways in data for social impact. The final two sections are anchored on monitoring and evaluation, and the sustainability of the individual programmes, socialising certain pivotal learnings that have helped in fine-tuning the implementation of the model, and looking forward to synergies that can lead to continual impact of similar initiatives in the future.
Table of Acronyms
ABDM | Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission |
AI | Artificial Intelligence |
AIIMS | All India Institute of Medical Sciences |
APPCAIR | Anuradha and Prashanth Palakurthi Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research |
ARTPARK | Artificial Intelligence & Robotics Technology Park |
AWS | Amazon Web Services |
BITS | Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences |
CAN | Capacity Accelerator Network |
CDL | Civic Data Labs |
CDP | Continuous Development Plan |
CHORDS | Climate and Health Outcomes Research Data Systems |
CHVI | Climate Health Vulnerability Index |
CMGGA | Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associate |
DDMA | District Disaster Management Authorities |
DEI | Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion |
DID | Direct Inward Dialing |
DMA | Data Maturity Assessment |
DSCH | Data Science for Climate and Health |
DSI | Data for Social Impact |
FG-AI4NDM | Focus Group on AI for Natural Disaster Management |
GEE | Google Earth Engine |
GIS | Geographic Information System |
HEI | Higher Education Institution |
ICMR | Indian Council for Medical Research |
IDCA | India Data Capacity Accelerator |
IDEA | Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility |
IDS-DRR | Intelligent Data Solution for Disaster Risk Reduction |
IIC | International Innovation Corps |
IIIT-D | Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology – Delhi |
J-PAL | Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab |
J-PAL SA | J-PAL South Asia |
LC | Learning Coordinator |
LMS | Learning Management System |
MEAL | Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning |
NFHS | National Family Health Survey |
NGO | Non-Governmental Organisation |
NIC | National Informatics Centre |
NIH CCHI | National Institutes of Health’s Climate Change and Health Initiative |
NLP | Natural Language Processing |
NRSC | National Remote Sensing Centre |
OTSI | Object Technology Solutions Inc. |
PCA | Principal Component Analysis |
PDC | Programme Design Committee |
PEDP | Professional Executive Development Programme |
PDDP | Purpose-driven Data Practitioner |
PII | Personally Identifiable Information |
PM | Particulate Matter |
RCT | Randomized Controlled Trial |
SDMA | State Disaster Management Authorities |
SIO | Social Impact Organisations |
SMS | Short Message Service |
STEM | Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics |
TA | Teaching Assistant |
TiH | Technology Innovation Hub |
TPS | Throughput Per Second |
TSIC | The Social Investment Consultancy |
UN | United Nations |
UNECE | United Nations Economic Commission for Europe |
WASH | Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene |
WHO | World Health Organization |
WILP | Work Integrated Learning Programme |