Data Alliance: The Connective
The Connective Data Alliance creates a forum for regional data leaders to collaborate and be engaged by executive leaders early on in the design of smart regions projects to increase awareness and the ability to inform and influence projects. The Alliance also establishes the governance framework to standardize data, improve access to metadata and also provides a common legal guidance and executive approval for what data can be collected, shared and used across the region and with the public. The Alliance allows Connective members to have one data foundation to build off and work instead of having to navigate these challenges on a community by community basis.
Problem
The use of data in the public sector changes rapidly as both the amount of data and the technologies creating and using data expand. Public sector data teams are often under-resourced both with staff and access to data and tools to achieve the full potential of data to inform decision making. Data leaders are also often not engaged early or regularly enough as part of the strategy teams influencing program design and decision and are instead brought in as specialists to solve data problems after they have been identified. All of this creates an opportunity to improve the skills, support and impact government data teams can have.
Approach
The Connective works with its state, regional and local government partners, as well as private partners and research institutions to identify regional projects like transportation, street lighting and recycling. The Data Alliance is able to convene and review the projects to develop a data strategy and a plan to collaborate regionally on the data needed and required approvals. The data strategies are approved by executive leadership at the start, eliminating confusion, problems and delays later on. The Alliance is then able to identify resources and capabilities required to execute and collaborate with partners like ASU and private companies to acquire training, tools and staff needed to get the projects done.
Supporting Artifacts
The Amazon Working Backwards process produces three artifacts - a Press Release, a list of Frequently Asked Questions, and a Visual depiction of the user experience. You can find the Alliance artifacts here:
Next Steps
The Connective is reviewing the next steps for developing the Data Alliance with its membership.
About the ASU CIC
The ASU Smart Cities Cloud Innovation Center (CIC) is a strategic relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and is supported by AWS on ASU’s Innovation campus - SkySong. The mission of the CIC is to drive Innovation Challenges that materially benefit the greater Phoenix metro area and beyond. The CIC will do this by solving pressing community and regional challenges, using shareable and repeatable technology solutions from ideation through prototype, as a service for the greater human good.
The CIC also provides real-world problem-solving experiences to students by immersing them in the application of proven innovation methods in combination with the latest technologies to solve important challenges in the public sector.
The challenges being addressed cover a wide variety of topics including homelessness, water conservation, vandalism, pedestrian safety, digital service delivery and many others. The CIC leverages the deep subject matter expertise of government, education and non-profit organizations to clearly understand the customers affected by public sector challenges and develops solutions that meet the customer needs.
For more information on the ASU CIC, to read about projects or to submit a challenge, please visit https://smartchallenges.asu.edu.
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