One of the challenges in developing AI applications is obtaining the vast amount of data that's required. Making matters worse, regulations and privacy issues pose obstacles to firms' sharing their data. A possible solution is for firms to form a "data trust." Willis Towers Watson recently piloted a data trust together with several of its clients. This article shared what they learned about how to create such a trust.

One of the greatest barriers to adopting and scaling AI applications is the scarcity of varied, high-quality raw data. To overcome it, firms need to share their data. But the many regulatory restrictions and ethical issues surrounding data privacy pose a major obstacle to doing this. A novel solution that my firm is piloting that could solve this problem is a data trust: an independent organization that serves as a fiduciary for the data providers and governs their data's proper use. Research shows that companies are becoming increasingly aware of the value of sharing data and are exploring ways to do so with other players in their industry or across industries.

Campaigns and elections have always been about data--underneath the empathetic promises to fix your problems and fight for your family, it's a business of metrics. If a campaign is lucky, it will find its way through a wilderness of polling, voter attributes, demographics, turnout, impressions, gerrymandering, and ad buys to connect with voters in a way that moves or even inspires them. Obama, MAGA, AOC--all have had some of that special sauce. Still, campaigns that collect and use the numbers best win. That's been true for some time, of course.

This is a continuation of Carlos Rivero's interview with Ask the CIO: SLED Edition on June 25. Last week during my interview with Carlos Rivero, the Commonwealth of Virginia's first chief data officer (CDO), I opined that the growing establishment of state CDO positions across the country reminded me somewhat of the creation of the state chief information officer position back in the mid-1990s. It's gradually becoming commonplace as half the states now have a CDO. In addition, the position's placement within the state organizational hierarchy also continues to evolve with about half reporting to the state CIO while the other half are located within the states' "administration secretariat." Rivero's initial task as CDO likewise reminded me of the role that I and other state CIOs faced during the Y2K drill some two decades ago.

Dr. David Bray is the Inaugural Director of the new global GeoTech Center & Commission of the Atlantic Council, a nonprofit for international political, business, and intellectual leaders founded in 1961. Headquartered in Washington, DC, the Council offers programs related to international security and global economic prosperity. In previous leadership roles, Bray led the technology aspects of the Centers for Disease Control's bioterrorism preparedness program in response to 9/11, the outbreak response to the West Nile virus, SARS, monkey pox and other emergencies. He also spent time on the ground in Afghanistan in 2009 as a senior advisor to both military and humanitarian assistance efforts, serving as the non-partisan Executive Director for a bipartisan National Commission on R&D, and providing leadership as a non-partisan federal agency Senior Executive focused on digital modernization. He also is a Young Global Leader for 2017-2021 of the World Economic Forum. Bray is a member of multiple Boards of Directors and has worked with the U.S. Special Operations Command on counter-misinformation efforts. He was invited to give the 2019 UN Charter Keynote on the future of AI & IoT governance. His academic background includes a PhD from Emory University; he also has held affiliations with MIT, Harvard, and the University of Oxford. He recently took a few moments to speak to AI Trends Editor John P. Desmond about current events, including the geopolitics of the COVID-19 pandemic. AI Trends: Thank you David for talking to AI Trends today.

Mozilla, the nonprofit behind the free and open-source Firefox web browser, is partnering with Montreal-based artificial intelligence startup Element AI to push for ethical use of AI. To that effect, the two companies are exploring the idea of data trusts, a proposed data collection approach that aims to provide individuals with greater control over their personal information. The aim, the companies said, is to offer an alternative model to the current broken consent-based system of data collection such as the EU GDPR regulations. It's easy to see why. As artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) continues to infiltrate different aspects of our day-to-day lives, the technology is now doing more than ever -- for both good and bad.

Mozilla, the nonprofit behind the free and open-source Firefox web browser, is partnering with Montreal-based artificial intelligence startup Element AI to push for ethical use of AI. To that effect, the two companies are exploring the idea of data trusts, a proposed data collection approach that aims to provide individuals with greater control over their personal information. The aim, the companies said, is to offer an alternative model to our current broken consent-based system of data collection such as the EU GDPR laws. It's easy to see why. As artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) continues to infiltrate different aspects of our day-to-day lives, the technology is now doing more than ever -- for both good and bad.