The Data Philanthropy Vision Goes Local While the UN was thinking about these trends on the global scale, they applied acutely in cities. With the launch of the iPhone, and Apple’s app store, new mobile smartphone technologies were permeating urban space in ways never before seen, paving the way for urban platforms, such as Airbnb (launched in 2008) and Uber (launched in 2009). These apps and other mobile technologies produced massive troves of information about the city, but a vastly disproportionate share of it was in private hands. The city was eager for Global Pulse’s concept of data philanthropy. Advocates and thought-leaders had taken note of Kirkpatrick’s vision for building a public data commons with private big data, and in July of 2014, Global Pulse partnered with the non-profit think tank Data and Society to convene experts from the private sector, academia, civil society, law, and philanthropy for a “Responsible Data Forum on the topic of private sector data sharing” at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City.28
Figure 2.
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Screenshot from Data & Society’s “Responsible Data Forum on Private Sector Data Sharing”29event website.
28
“Responsible Data Forum on Private Sector Data Sharing,” Data & Society, accessed April 7, 2022, https:// datasociety.net/announcements/2014/08/25/responsible-data-forum-on-private-sector-data-sharing/.
29
“Responsible Data Forum on Private Sector Data Sharing.”
Towards Urban Data Commons? On the Origins and Significance of Platform Data Sharing Mandates
