DAVOS, Switzerland—The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and The Rockefeller Foundationhave partnered to introduce data.org, a platform for partnerships the company said will continue to build the field of data science for social impact.
“This is the next chapter of a $50-million commitment Mastercard and the Rockefeller Foundation made last year to launch a transformational model for philanthropy,” Mastercard said.
Mastercard said data.org has launched a new $10 million impact challenge to crowdsource scalable and sustainable data science solutions for non-profit, civic and government organizations.
According to the organizations, with the data.org domain name, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth are building on the success of the original DATA.org—launched in 2002 by a group of that included rock star and philanthropist Bono–to alleviate debt, AIDS and trade inequalities in Africa. In what ultimately became the ONE Campaign, that effort focused on driving evidence-based approaches to development, Mastercard said.
‘Transformational Change’
“Our commitment to building the field of data science is rooted in the belief that data-driven insights can deliver transformational change that improves the lives of vulnerable people and helps solve the world’s most pressing challenges,” said Michael Froman, vice chairman of Mastercard. “We must make sure that even as people have unprecedented access to technology, we don’t allow a new digital divide to emerge.”
The company added in its statement, “Data.org seeks to build the capacity of non-profit organizations with training resources, access to data sets and open-sourced tools that help these organizations harness the power of data insights and analytics to enhance their efforts. This will be done in a way that brings more people and organizations together to effect positive social change, all while adhering to principles of responsible data use.”
Its current partners include DataKind, Benefits Data Trust, Community Solutions and Tableau Foundation.