Data for Black Lives (D4BL) is an American
non-profit organization
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
with the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of black people.
Headquartered in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
,
, Data for Black Lives was founded by
Yeshimabeit Milner and
Lucas Mason-Brown.
Milner attended
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
; having encountered discrimination towards the black community, she organized a group of scientists to combat the mistreatment of black people within data algorithms.
History
D4BL began in November 2017 as statistical research project, and expanded into working with a team of people on data analysis. The formation of D4BL was initiated by Yeshimabeit Milner, who witnessed racial discrimination, watching her peers suffer from
police brutality
Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...
. Milner discovered through research that black children were getting suspended at a much higher rate than white children.
After graduating from
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, Milner incorporated her passion for
data science
Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge and insights from noisy, structured and unstructured data, and apply knowledge from data across a br ...
into social activism.
D4BL has regional organization chapters, including a group in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
. Additionally there is a community of other organizations working towards the same goals, including Data and Society,
Algorithmic Justice League, and the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR).
Between 2019 and 2021, D4BL was awarded a grant by the
MacArthur Foundation for broad operating support.
See also
*
Algorithmic Justice League
*
Black in AI
Black in AI, formally called the Black in AI Workshop, is a technology research organization and affinity group, founded by computer scientists Timnit Gebru and Rediet Abebe in 2017. It started as a conference workshop, later pivoting into an ...
References
Non-profit organizations based in Massachusetts
Data activism
Data and information organizations
Think tanks established in 2017
Social justice organizations
Politics and technology
Ethics of science and technology
Diversity in computing
Information ethics
2017 establishments in the United States
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