Digital Public Infrastructure

This is the latest section that has occupied my thinking of late. Comments are appreciated.

In the course of researching and writing my manuscript titled:  

The digital transformation of the non-profit sector: An inevitable and vital revolution to scale impact and solve the world\’s greatest challenges. 

A number of new areas of intrigue have bubbled up. One of the first books that made me think about the way technology can be used to advance social good is George Gilder\’s book \’Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy.\’ This book outlined the current way in which our personal data is obtained, stored and used. Obtainment, storage and use generally falls amongst the purview of large tech companies or the government.  

Another new area that has come to my attention since then is the concept of Web 3.0 technology, or layer 3\’s. Web 3.0 or Layer 3\’s is built on the notion of a decentralized internet that is universally owned and universally accessible. From this concept, idea of a \’digital public infrastructure\’ or \’public interest technology\’ has emerged. This concept is centered on the thought that infrastructure has a public element, which we\’ve known all along. But the digital infrastructure (internet, apps, payment systems, etc.) that we all rely so much on should be viewed through a \’public\’ lens. The public lens views the democratization of data and subsequent development, storage and access of our data and our digital systems in a way that first benefits the public and creates positive social impact.  

The manuscript goes into more detail on these but in general, the working concept and one worth exploring further is the concept that we should own our data, our digital footprint should be unmoored from corporate and government interests and data should be skewed toward creating meaningful public benefit. Corporate interests, while not necessarily inherently evil and certainly providing useful services to those with the means, in the end seek to use our data to anticipate future needs and wants. Government interests tend to capture and aggregate our data for decision making. What decision is made depends on the branch or adminstrative function of government that captures the data. The current state of digital infrastructure especially within the government sphere is one of stagnation and missed opportunity. This is mostly due to antiquated privacy laws, outdated technology, cumbersome administrative rules and reluctance to share data with other entities and sectors. 

Moving toward digital public infrastructure, onto a Web 3.0 platform or into a layer 3 world represents the freedom and movement away from a reliance on central servers guiding the internet. Central servers owned and operated by corporate interests with a single bottom line: to maximize shareholder value. While already developed, the utility and functionality of layer 3 protocols is admittedly somewhat cumbersome. But in this manuscript, my argument is not one of whether or not we can use this new technology, I\’m simply exploring the potentiality of this new technology and how it can be used to \’best advance the social good.\’

(Source: How Funders Can Help Fill Critical Gaps in Technology for Social Good. Standford Social Innovation Review. Katy Knight and Laura Maher. April 25, 2022.)

There currently exists a social graph of each individual around the world who is on the web. This is your ‘digital profile.’ Guess who owns your digital profile? Yes, the corporations that own the sites you visit. Guess what they do with your profile? Yes, they sell it to advertisers. There are other things they do with your profile but that’s not the point of this book. 

The point of this book is to advocate for a technological transformation that favors and fosters positive social impact. Currently society is digitized to favor corporate interests. Admittedly, this is a natural evolution of the digital infrastructure within a capitalist system, such as ours. Digital infrastructure built on transparent ownership, equitable access, high utility and meaningful analysis is called \’public interest technology.\’  (Source: How Funders Can Help Fill Critical Gaps in Technology for Social Good. Standford Social Innovation Review. Katy Knight and Laura Maher. April 25, 2022.)

We should own our profile. Once this ownership model emerges, enabled by decentralization in combination with digital public infrastructure, we can then allow our profile to be monitored and utilized for positive social impact. We would have control over our profile. The data here must be rich. How much so? Well you can see for yourself and download the data some systems have one you. One person did just that and discovered that a particular search engine had 5.5 GB which is roughly 3M word documents worth of information. (Source: Are you ready? Here is all the data Facebook and Google have on you. Dylan Curran. The Guardian.) The point here is not the fact that they are capturing this data, it’s the amount of data already being captured and furthermore it is what they are doing with the data. When we come to a point of public or individual ownership of this data, we can manifest good outcomes from the utilization and manipulation of this data. People become empowered to lead the development and utilization of data and technology to channel this information to create social impact. Most large corporations already know what you buy and when. They know how to get you to make a purchase.  

Perhaps an example would make this easier to follow? A very simple one would revolve around data captured about an individual by a school, hospital and a non-profit. Let\’s say there is a high school aged individual who has been experiencing recent bouts of depression. Assuming the individual received services of some kind, the individual\’s health care provider and school may have data on this individual. Normally these data sets are separate and do not communicate with one another. Furthermore, say the individual\’s family was receiving some service from a non-profit agency. If this agency captured any data on that individual and/or their family, it\’s highly unlikely or impossible that this data was shared or utilized in any meaningful way other than for funder accountability.  

What if the collection and software systems that enabled the collection of this data were built with a public purpose in mind? Instead of the health care provider\’s electronic medical record system existing solely for medical decision making and verification by a payer that a service was provided, what if these systems were built to communicate with the individual\’s school? What if these systems also were built in such a way that a non-profit could easily plug into the data pool to ascertain the health of the individual? What if we mandated that any digital infrastructure built or financed with tax payer funds is required to enable this level of communication? Once cross-sector data sharing takes place, the ability to make informed decisions advances.  

Addendum:

For the purposes of channeling funds into worthy causes, why don’t we shift the intent of these large data sets to help people make donations, large or small? Why don’t we start using this data to help people make an informed decision (other than going to Guidestar and hopping around on a few websites with similar pleas) about when is the right time to make a donation? Furthermore, why don\’t we open up this data so creators and affected parties can be empowered to create positive social change?