The Center for Continuing Education (CCE) at Birzeit University in Palestine is a regional partner for the pilot edition of the Global Data Barometer that will be coordinating 8 countries—Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, and the United Arab Emirates. The Center engages in action research, capacity building and knowledge creation and dissemination on responsible data and AI for economic and social development. The CCE is home to the entrepreneurial hub that offers programs for entrepreneurs in data skills and ethics.
Abed Khooli is the Senior Technical Consultant for the capacity building program at the CCE, and he shared their desire to have more community uptake of data projects and media coverage of their data initiatives. The Center considers data as a strategic asset and continues to work on data projects. While the Center has a data governance project starting in October, they are looking forward to seeing the results of the GDB, work and sharing relevant knowledge and best practices with the global community.
Q: The Center for Continuing Education has a number of exciting projects. Can you share more about the ‘Data analysis strategies for the success of startups’?
The Center is a community outreach arm of the University and it carries out various community and professional development programs. There is a business/entrepreneurship hub (B-Hub), a unit of learning innovation and data projects. The “data analysis strategies” is one of the multi-disciplinary training programs for entrepreneurs to empower them with data skills and data ethics.
Q: What are some of the success stories from your initiatives such as this one?
The Center has a full pipeline where entrepreneurs from various backgrounds and disciplines gain capacity in data analytics (data science), develop their project ideas and transfer them into minimum viable products and get business mentoring with possible links to seed funding. Some projects are turning into startups and others are mobilizing dialogue on data collaboration and policy formulation.
Q: In one of your articles you share that data innovation and entrepreneurship are lagging behind, what do you believe needs to be done by countries and data organizations to improve this?
We need to work on both the supply and demand sides, and this involves the whole ecosystem and all stakeholders. In addition to policy formulation, a critical mass of data skilled professionals and adequate quality datasets are needed. Infrastructure should be available and affordable and digital transformation should be on the national agenda with clear leadership and work plans including educational programs and entrepreneurship support systems.
The Center has a full pipeline where entrepreneurs from various backgrounds and disciplines gain capacity in data analytics (data science), develop their project ideas and transfer them into minimum viable products and get business mentoring with possible links to seed funding. Some projects are turning into startups and others are mobilizing dialogue on data collaboration and policy formulation.
Learning from the experiences of Birzeit University
Q: What are some of the challenges you have encountered as a data and research organisation in Palestine?
There are three main challenges: lack of infrastructure (computers, storage, networks and data), policies (legal and regulatory framework) and talent (fewer people have the technical capacity in data analytics and communication). You can also add low awareness which leads to low community uptake of programs as a result of poor or no media coverage.
Q: Have you encountered some challenges or pushback in pushing for open data? Can you share more about these challenges?
Yes. Those who realize ‘data is power’ tend to hoard data for obvious reasons. Others do not appreciate the data potential and think that reports (aggregated stats) are good enough. Another issue is technical capacity—those who own data and are willing to release it lack technical capacity to extract, clean, anonymize, transform and publish open data. One other impediment is lack of relevant legislation (access to information and data protection). We drafted an open data policy as a frame of reference for entities taking the initiative to publish open data.
Q: How is the data environment in Palestine? What are some of your initiatives in data capacity building or advocacy?
Palestine, with no control over economic inputs, outputs, borders and frequencies, is at an early stage of an empowered data ecosystem. The Center continues to engage in action research, capacity building and knowledge creation and dissemination on responsible data and AI for economic and social development. It runs training programs, arranges webinars and is involved in advocacy and policy dialog on data and governance issues.
In addition to earlier work on ODB, the Center (CCE) is the MENA OD4D node. All work on data projects including research reports, datasets and capacity building material are shared as Creative Commons. GDB is expanding ODB work and is inline with what the Center is trying to achieve in terms of data availability, responsible governance, building capacity and leaving lasting impact.
On working with the Global Data Barometer
Q: Where does the work you do intersect with the work of the GDB?
In addition to earlier work on ODB, the CCE is the MENA OD4D node. All work on data projects including research reports, datasets and capacity building material are shared as Creative Commons. GDB is expanding ODB work and is inline with what the Center is trying to achieve in terms of data availability, responsible governance, building capacity and leaving lasting impact.
Q: What components of the expert survey are you mostly looking forward to?
Both core components and thematic modules are of interest. Governance is of special importance as it affects all other aspects and health is picking extra attention as a measure of resilience after Covid-19, so will be looking at these in particular.
Photo by: Center for Continuing Education.
