I had the pleasure of speaking with Matt Prewitt of RadicalxChange last week. His work centers around new models of data governance through data coalitions. In a recent piece for Noēma titled A View Of The Future Of Our Data, Matt wrote:

"Most fundamentally, data coalitions are restoring to ordinary citizens the power over our lives, our communities and our world that we had ceded to Big Tech. Coalitions have become the main forums through which we express our views on the most important public question of modern times: How do we make technology work for us?"

Data coalitions would would allow for collective bargaining and democratic choices regarding which data is shared and how.

If you're interested learning more about this concept and/or reading more about Matt's work at RadicalxChange, check out the links below.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about data coalitions. Could this be how we govern our data in the future?

Happy Data Privacy Day! Want to learn more about protecting your privacy? Check out the great resources put together by our Community Manager Sarah.

A farewell to nuclear arms

Today marks an important milestone in the effort to eradicate nuclear weapons from the global stage. The treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons comes into force today. It “outlaws the creation, ownership, and deployment of nuclear weapons by signatory states and places obligations on them to assist other victims of nuclear weapons use and testing.”

51 countries have signed the treaty so far. Unfortunately, the signees do not include NATO, Russia, and other nuclear-capable countries. Hopefully, with rising international and societal pressure, more countries will sign on.

Hats off to Beatrice Fihn and the team at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). They are responsible for bringing the treaty to life. ICAN was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for their work in this space.

Links below if you’re interested in learning more about this historic day.

I highly recommend listening to the Global Dispatches Podcast interview with Beatrice Fihn. It gives a comprehensive overview of how this day came to be, and what the ongoing efforts to fully eradicate nuclear weapons looks like.

Interesting take

Make sure you're registered! (Also the design work on this site is impressive.)