Winston Churchill once remarked “…it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried…” This echoes a common objection and enduring challenge to democratising data science across organisations: how can those accountable (expert data leaders) safely make others responsible (non-expert data citizens), to drive the benefits of wider participation without multiplying chaos?

While this objection was once effective at reinforcing data science as an “elite sport”, the value of overcoming it is now beyond doubt, and most organisations have it on the agenda, often with board-level visibility.

The challenge is taking our faith as data people and converting it to tangible stories about value, which will galvanise coalitions of business stakeholders to devote the time and energy necessary to achieve success. After all, embedding democracy requires much more than printing ballot papers, so why would we expect “buying a tool” is any more than 10% of the work required to democratise data science?

In this event, moderated by Dataiku your peers will discuss:

• How they have articulated the promise of citizen data science
• What pitfalls they have already seen
• What practical strategies can you employ to move forward?

Speaker

Shaun McGirr, AI Evangelist, Dataiku

Shaun is a data leader with experience across official statistics, academia, consulting, and data science in a large automotive services company. He recently achieved minor stardom in a documentary Data Science Pioneers, coining the phrase “things that happen 35% of the time, happen ALL the time” to explain why quite likely outcomes are often dismissed out of hand.

Shaun believes the toughest part of doing data well is finding the right questions and ensuring the answers will actually push a lever to change the world, a theme developed further in his podcast Half Stack Data Science. At Dataiku, he helps customers and colleagues identify and articulate the value of putting data science in the hands of everyone.