MERL Tech DC 2019

The ability for organizations to gather data points is increasingly important and detailed data is opening vast opportunities for Monitoring, Evaluating, Research and Learning in the development space. However, with these new data sets comes new ethical and security concerns. Consider that outside of the European Union, there is currently little to no standardized process in place regarding which entity - the donor or the recipient organization - is tasked with ensuring ethical data integrity and security. Clearly, data security is paramount for building trust, integrity, and scalability; however, when time, resources, and safety are stretched thin, organizations are often left struggling to figure out how to gather data ethically and secure those data responsibly.

Throughout this session Michael Roytman (Chief Data Scientist at Kenna Security) and Mollie Woods (ChildFund International Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor) will discuss the challenging and often intimidating “chicken and egg” scenario of which comes first: data collection or data security. Samuel V. Scarpino will facilitate this debate through the lens of the chief data scientist at the impact technology startup, Dharma Platform. Do the ethical and data security obligations fall on the donor or recipient organization? How can organizations remain nimble in the face of ever shifting security concerns and with ever increasing data volumes? Big data can improve MERL in the development space, but, these benefits shouldn't come at the cost of ethical and security violations.