LINKS WE LIKE #44 “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any” – Alice Walker In today’s digital age, data is everywhere. From social media posts and online transactions to government records and scientific research, data is generated and collected at an unprecedented rate. But beyond its sheer volume, data has the … Read More
LWL #43 A Whole New Ballgame: AI and Big Data in Sports
LINKS WE LIKE #43 Around the world, sports teams are always on the lookout for ways to improve their game and gain a competitive edge. Traditionally, coaches and players have relied on intuition, personal experience, and gut feelings to make decisions. However, with the increasing applications of big data and artificial intelligence (AI), sports teams are now able to gain … Read More
LWL #42 From the Killing of Mahsa Amini to a Social Media Revolution: An Account of the Protests in Iran
LINKS WE LIKE #42 “Woman, Life, and Freedom” Chant of Ongoing Protests in Iran On September 13, 2022, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested by Iran’s morality police for “improperly” wearing her hijab. Three days later, after being held captive in Vozara detention center to be “educated”, she went into a coma with a level-three concussion and later died in police … Read More
LWL #41 Populism vs. Progress: The Fight for the Future of Brazil
LINKS WE LIKE #41 “You’ll never change anything in this country through voting. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” – Jair Bolsonaro On October 2nd, 2022, Brazilians headed to the polls to vote for a host of candidates running for multiple roles at both the national and regional levels. The most closely watched race was that for Brazil’s next president, pitting former president … Read More
“Links We Like: A Compilation of 40 Editions” is Available Now!
Links We Like has reached its 40th edition! To celebrate this milestone, we have complied all 40 editions into a downloadable PDF publication. We are proud of the hard work that has gone into creating this valuable resource, which is now possible to view in an accessible and visually appealing new way. We began Links We Like in 2015, as a … Read More
LWL #40 Engineering the Future? AI Laboratories Around the World
LINKS WE LIKE #40 It seems that we are witnessing significant progress in the development of AI systems and technologies almost daily. Behind the scenes, there are many dedicated organizations, laboratories, and research centers that are working arduously towards finding solutions to pressing issues. There are the well-known big tech giants, whose labs include Microsoft AI Lab, Google AI, OpenAI, … Read More
LWL #39 The Data Police: How AI and Big Data are Reshaping Crime Prevention
LINKS WE LIKE #39 Imagine being able to detect crime hotspots in your city, use facial recognition software to match camera footage from a robbery with a database of images, or even predict the likelihood of a crime (including time and location) before it occurs. While this might sound like science fiction (Minority Report, which came out 20 years ago, … Read More
LWL #38 Algorithmic Justice: The Next Civil Rights Frontier?
LINKS WE LIKE #38 “The first duty of society is justice” – Wendell Phillips When you think of “civil rights”, many things probably come to mind. Generations-long struggles for racial or gender equality and equal protection for other disenfranchised communities are most commonly associated with the phrase. What you do not think of, most likely, are algorithms. In fact, unless … Read More
LWL #37 The Future of Health? How Big Data and AI are Reshaping Modern Medicine
LINKS WE LIKE #37 Health care is one sector for which the massive amount of data produced daily holds great promise. Data from electronic health records, medical devices and health-related apps (and other sources) has grown so large that they exceed human capabilities for analysis. This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) comes into play. Through various modeling techniques, AI can … Read More
LWL #36 Crisis Data: New Technology and Humanitarian Emergencies
LINKS WE LIKE #36 Accurate data is pivotal to identifying and responding to the needs of those impacted by a variety of shocks, including violent conflicts, environmental disasters, epidemics, and other life-threatening emergencies. By gathering and processing personal, public, and geographic data, aid organizations, humanitarian workers and other relevant actors are able to not only deploy more targeted responses to … Read More
LWL#35 The Future of Financial Inclusion: How New Technologies are Reshaping FinTech
LINKS WE LIKE #35 Financial inclusion, or access to formal financial services, (such as bank accounts, credit, and loans) is one of the most valuable tools for breaking cycles of poverty. Unfortunately, an estimated 1.7 billion people worldwide remain “unbanked”, or lacking access to these services; half of which live in just 7 middle-income countries: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, … Read More
LWL #34 The Creative Arts and AI: The Ultimate Collaboration (or Competition?)
LINKS WE LIKE #34 Repetitive, structured, and monotonous are adjectives often associated with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Normally these tools are not linked with being creative, let alone with the creation of art. However, in recent years this perception has changed and, increasingly, artists are breaking barriers and using AI and teaching ML models to create art … Read More
LWL #33 Agriculture and AI: From the Root of Civilization to its Promising Future
We now find ourselves on the verge of the next “agricultural revolution”, with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and agriculture coming together. In this edition of Links We Like, we explore the effects that this linkage will create.
LWL #32 Facebook, the Promise and the Peril
LINKS WE LIKE #32 When speaking about the purpose of his company, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been quoted as saying, “By giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent.” This leads to a very important question, is Facebook itself living up to this standard? According to a recent whistleblower, the answer is no. Considering Facebook’s … Read More
LWL #31 Online Harassment and AI Content Moderation: Countering Threats to Freedom of Expression
LINKS WE LIKE #31 The emergence and popularity of new social networks has opened space for a multitude of virtual interactions between people from diverse backgrounds. Consequently, the internet allows anyone to become a “communicator”, with access to a wide audience to share their views. With the virtual environment becoming one of the most important centers of public debate, innovative … Read More
LWL #30 AI and ML for People with Disabilities: Innovations and Challenges
LINKS WE LIKE #30 One of the biggest opportunities that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies have opened up is the chance to design solutions that can positively impact the lives of people with disabilities. According to the World Health Organization, about 15% of the global population (1.2 Billion people) has some type of disability. In the fight towards inclusivity, … Read More
LWL #29 Blockchain and its Application to Collective Challenges
LINKS WE LIKE #29 Although it has most commonly been associated with cryptocurrency, since its release in 2008 with the white paper “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”, the blockchain system has been always praised for its potential to transform various sectors. Namely, blockchain can be used to address environmental challenges, enable e-voting, expand digital mobile ticketing, facilitate health care … Read More
LWL #28 Can Data and AI be Used as a Weapon to Fight Corruption?
LINKS WE LIKE #28 Corruption is a major challenge for governments, companies, and societies all around the world. It is an expensive criminal and cultural practice. According to the UN, an estimated one trillion dollars are paid in bribes annually, while another 2.6 trillion are lost in corrupt activities globally. However, the cost of corruption is not merely economic; it damages … Read More
LWL #27 The Role of Big Data and AI in Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E)
LINKS WE LIKE #27 One of the biggest promises of the “data age” is the creation of tools that will allow us to keep track and evaluate the performance of different projects and policies more efficiently. The main appeal of using Big data and AI for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) lies within the opportunity of having access to high-quality, timely, and accessible … Read More
LWL #26 Open Source Licenses and Accessibility for AI Models
LINKS WE LIKE #26 The rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) models has been accompanied by growing efforts to make these technologies accessible and available to non-experts through what is referred to as open-source licenses. As a result of this “democratization of AI” more models and training data are becoming public, a process that has given rise to its new possibilities … Read More
LWL #25 Discrimination in Data and Artificial Intelligence
LINKS WE LIKE #25 In commemoration of the international Zero Discrimination Day, and following the call to action from the president of the United Nations General Assembly Volkan Bozkir to “call out discrimination when we see it and advocate for a more just world”, this edition of LWL looks at issues of discrimination in artificial intelligence (AI) and data. As … Read More
LWL #24 Fighting Misinformation with Big Data and Artificial Intelligence
LINKS WE LIKE #24 We are currently living in the age of information and data. Whether it be through news outlets or social media, everyday we are bombarded with hundreds of images and headlines that come in the shape of articles, personal stories, memes or videos. In this busy landscape, “fake news” and misinformation have become an increasing tendency, almost … Read More
LWL #23 Harnessing Big Data for Mobility and Migration
LINKS WE LIKE #23 In 2019, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that the number of migrants worldwide had reached 272 million, a figure that has tripled since 1970. Though most of these migrants fled their countries searching for better job opportunities, about 26 million people have been driven away from their homes by armed conflict, violence and climate … Read More
LWL #22 Gender, Violence and Data
LINKS WE LIKE #22 In Latin America and the Caribbean, women have been commemorating the Elimination of Violence against Women Day ever since 1981, after the assassination of the three Dominican sisters Patricia, Minerva, Maria Teresa Mirabal. Yet, it only became officially recognized and adopted by all UN countries in 1999. Today, on the 21st anniversary of its commemoration –which … Read More
LWL #21 Elections, Democracy and Big Data
LINKS WE LIKE #21 With the upcoming presidential election in the U.S., media outlets such as ABC News and The Economist, and even scholars like Alan L. Abramowitz, have searched for creative and insightful ways to use big data and data analysis as a way of better understanding the electorate and forecasting the results. In particular, different organizations are seeking … Read More
LWL #20 Big Data for Climate Change Resilience
LINKS WE LIKE #20 Climate change and the looming threats to humankind it forecasts have headlined major news sources for a couple of weeks now. As the greatest menace to human kind, its effects are not only imminent, but ever more present with the recurrence of natural disasters, alarms of rising sea levels and faltering ecosystems. Though much is yet … Read More
LWL #19 The Dispute Over 5G
LINKS WE LIKE #19 China and the United States are the biggest adversaries on the dispute over who will control one of the main technological advances in recent history: 5G, or fifth generation cellular network technology. 5G promises to connect everything. As Will Knight from the MIT Technology Review points out, these technologies “will replace cable connections and open the … Read More
LWL #18 Algorithmic Bias and the Gender Gap
LINKS WE LIKE #18 A recent article by Wang et al studies gender trends in computer science authorship, revealing that, “if current trends continue, parity between the number of male and female authors will not be reached in this century”. Although examining the proportion of female authorship over time only captures one of the many facets of representation in academia, … Read More
LWL #17 Green Tech: The Sustainability Conundrum
LINKS WE LIKE #17 As a data-driven organization, we dwell in the techno-scientific world, leveraging research, capacity building and community engagement around topics such as machine learning and AI to drive a people-centered Big Data revolution. Although sustainable development is one of the main drivers of our work, we know how large the environmental footprint of technology can be. Technology … Read More
LWL #16 AI For Social Good
LINKS WE LIKE #16 Google’s “AI for Social Good” initiative launched on October 2018, aiming to drive the adoption of “Artificial Intelligence (AI) for public good”. Beyond the buzzword, how can we define this emerging field? In this week’s Links We Like we take a closer look at projects and research that use AI for sustainable development and social good … Read More
LWL #15 Algorithmic Justice, Risk Assessments, and Fairness
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly compilation of the links we like and want to share with you on innovation, data literacy, open data, and more!
LWL #14 Gender (in)Equality Through Data and Technology
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly compilation of the links we like and want to share with you on innovation, data literacy, open data, and more!
LWL #13 Algorithms, Accountability and Transparency
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly compilation of the links we like and want to share with you on innovation, data literacy, open data, and more!
LWL #12
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly compilation of the links we like and want to share with you on innovation, data literacy, open data, and more!
LWL #11
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly compilation of the links we like and want to share with you on the World Humanitarian Summit, the data revolution, ethics, data governance, and more!
LWL #10
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly compilation of the links we like and want to share with you on global development, privacy, open data, inequality, and more!
LWL#9
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly compilation of the links we like and want to share with you on Blockchain, smart cities, EU data protection, privacy, censorship, and more!
LWL #8
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly compilation of the links we like and want to share with you on smart cities, fragility, ebola, and more!
LWL #7
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly compilation of the links we like and want to share with you on data ethics, ebola, privacy, inclusion, and more!
LWL #6
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly compilation of the links we like and want to share with you on migration, cell phone data, climate refugees and more!
LWL #5
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly compilation of the links we like and want to share with you on data visualizations, inclusion, Zika Virus, access, and more!
LWL #4
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly round-up of the links we like and want to share with you on Free Basics, Open Sourced data, Algorithms, Op Africa and more!
LWL #3
#Linkswelike Check out our weekly compilation of the links we like and want to share with you on Privacy Shield, migration, digital ethics, and more
LWL #2
LINKS WE LIKE #2 Here’s a quick weekly compilation of a few links we like and want to share with you: Could consumers sell access to their own encrypted data? It looks that way. “MIT’s New Blockchain Project Enigma Wants to Let You Share Your Data on Your Own Terms,” by Steven Melendez for FastCompany. Our Academic Director, Alex “Sandy” Pentland is … Read More
LWL #1
LINKS WE LIKE #1 Here’s a quick compilation of a few links we like and want to share with you: Compelling article by Charles Kenny of The Atlantic: “2015: The Best Year in History for the Average Human Being”. Violence dominated the headlines this year. But by many measures, humanity is in better shape than it’s ever been. Jeffrey Sachs writes … Read More