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Small business clients looking to make data-driven business decisions within their operations don’t always know how to tap into their data, but JPMorgan Chase has created a solution to deliver these insights. “Eighty-two percent of small businesses tell us that they want to use data, and they’re likely to use data in their business decision-making […]
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Whitney McDonald
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AI and generative AI applications continue to dominate conversations within the financial services industry, but implementing generative AI is near impossible if bank data isn’t standardized and accessible. What makes good data? “Good data is usable data,” Brendan Grove, chief technology officer at fintech Prizeout, told Bank Automation News, noting that it starts with creating […]
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Whitney McDonald
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Financial institutions are looking to AI to help organize and tap into their structured and unstructured data. Data is “really the operational lifeblood of how FIs operate in modern time,” Abrar Huq, co-founder and chief revenue officer of AI-driven digital documentation tool Arteria AI, tells Bank Automation News on this episode of “The Buzz” podcast. […]
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Whitney McDonald
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Key points:
We continue to read headlines about how artificial intelligence (AI) can substantially increase labor productivity across the global economy, creating both time and informational efficiencies. Yet there seems to be an argument about where and how this can revolutionize the world of education. As districts become increasingly more data driven, we need to accept that AI is here to stay and leverage information management solutions to drive student outcomes.
Tracking and managing data plays a critical role in the success of our students, so now more than ever, there is a fundamental need for districts to implement a modern solution partner to do that heavy lifting. Manually building spreadsheets, pulling out pivot tables, and building formulas and dashboards from scratch can waste our valuable time and resources. What might take days, or even weeks, for an administrator to input can be done in seconds by the right software. Intelligent educational software instantly recognizes patterns in data, even when they are not immediately apparent. This can be crucial for identifying trends, correlations, or factors influencing student performance that might be overlooked by manual analysis.
Ultimately, data management software allows us to shift our focus to having the right conversations, providing personalized learning experiences, delivering targeted support, and making impactful decisions to promote student success.
Here are three ways a modern data solution can improve student outcomes in your district:
Create collaboration among stakeholders
A solution that centralizes, consolidates, and synthesizes data can drive conversation among school counselors, psychologists, administrators, intervention specialists, classroom teachers, and anyone else invested in students’ success. It allows the team to support the whole child by seeing students’ data through a variety of different lenses, ultimately enabling classroom teachers to make informed decisions and improve the overall learning experience for their students—and this can be initially accomplished through the use of just a few key dashboards.
As our district sees the effects of these initial dashboards come to life, we know that our students are more likely to succeed if families are engaged in their learning. A dashboard that tells the story of the whole child allows teachers to share data-driven insights with students and families, providing a clear picture of academic progress. Seeing a report card once a semester isn’t enough for families to understand how their kids are doing, and a modern data solution allows families to see trends over time in academics, mental health, attendance, and more. This provides families with clear, easy-to-understand visualizations of their child’s performance and challenges, enabling collaborative efforts to support student learning both inside and outside the classroom.
Identify patterns for at-risk students to provide real-time support
No student can be evaluated for at-risk behavior by test scores alone. By tracking attendance, behavioral patterns, mental health, grades, and other key markers, educators can pinpoint students who may be struggling and intervene before issues escalate.
The software provides data in real-time—which is crucial for identifying students at risk of academic challenges or dropping out. Data analysis software also creates algorithms and allows for the identification of patterns and trends in student performance. This proactive approach of using consistent dashboards each week allows us to quickly see which students are in the at-risk category, and drive immediate conversations about those specific students.
Create individualized support and pathways
A modern data solution can create personalized student experiences by tailoring educational content, support, and interactions to meet individual needs and preferences. The software can do a deep dive into each student’s history and instantaneously outline what’s needed to reach personal goals in academics, career readiness, and social-emotional skill building. We can clearly see enabling students to define and track their progress toward goals and plans in our roadmap, as we continue to empower students to take an active role in managing their own future.
We can also explore using a modern data solution to help students easily connect with community partners, courses, or other resources. This includes students accessing opportunities like: job shadowing, career mentorship, informational interviews, internships, and practicums. As schools are finding value by weaving in a variety of student-centered experiences with real-life and relevant learning activities into their curriculum, students can use the software to log hours and keep them on track.
Data management platforms have the potential to revolutionize education in many ways, transforming the traditional model of teaching and learning. By leveraging algorithms and analytics, a modern data solution can analyze data in real-time, providing educators with immediate insights to make informed, timely decisions that positively impact student success. Ultimately, it frees educators to get back to doing what they do best—challenging and supporting every student, every step of the way.
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Keith Pomeroy, Upper Arlington Schools
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I now have a moisture sensor in my garden bed that tells me how dry my soil is, which is an awesome way to know I need to turn on my remote sprinklers while on vacation. An air quality monitor inside my workspace tells me temperature and humidity (important to monitor for some of my acoustic guitars), and another monitor really made me open the window when cooking indoors. All of these things are trivially combined by the system and displayed alongside my other metrics on the Ambient Weather dashboard. It’s the easiest thing to set up ever.
Ambient Weather recently added a better digital display that you can buy aftermarket. As I said, the one that comes with the unit is a bit retro-chic, requiring you to use physical buttons to input logins and passwords, and with only a few selectable layouts. The new Weather Window, as the brand calls it, is much larger and more modern-feeling, and it does include touchscreen controls and variable layouts, but it’s still not as fantastic as it could be.
Photograph: Parker Hall
I wish there was a way to show the weekly weather forecast on the main screen, instead of having to tap the display to see that, among other UI niggles. I do like that the Weather Window comes with a frame-like edge, which makes placing it where you might place a family photo, or hanging it on the wall, particularly easy.
Most of us don’t need such minutiae in our lives, and that’s fine. For the person who wakes up and plans their whole day based on the temperature and precipitation, or who constantly checks weather radar and talks about it, the Ambient Weather system is the closest we will come to reaching nirvana on Earth.
That might not be you, but it is almost certainly someone you know. I love being away from home and knowing how wet the soil in my garden is, that my house temp and humidity are correct. I like seeing when the sun and moon are going to rise and set at a glance, and knowing how many inches of rain, at a spot above my head, we have gotten in rainy north Portland. Every time my dad and I get together, if we’re not talking about Formula One or the local soccer team’s current woes, we’re talking about what our stations are telling us.
If learning the micro-trends of your yard and chatting, meaningfully, about the weather to friends, relatives, and strangers is your kind of thing, then an Ambient Weather system, really any of them, is probably a fun thing for you to check out. You might even find it useful.
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Parker Hall
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Kaiser Permanente is notifying 13.4 million patients their data may have been sent to Google, X and other third-party vendors.
The Sacramento Bee
A data breach may have exposed data on millions of Kaiser Permanente patients, the California-based health care chain reported.
Kaiser is notifying 13.4 million current and former patients about the breach, it said in a statement to McClatchy News. The health care chain is based in Oakland, California.
Online software may have inadvertently sent data to third-party vendors such as Google, Microsoft Bing and X, formerly known as Twitter, the company said.
The data was related to IP addresses, names and information on when patients signed onto accounts or how they navigated through Kaiser websites, the statement said.
“No usernames, passwords, Social Security numbers, financial account information or credit card numbers were included in the transmission to these third parties,” Kaiser said.
The company has removed the software involved in the breach from its sites and continues to investigate the issue, the statement said.
Kaiser is not aware of any misuse of the data but is notifying patients “out of an abundance of caution,” the company said.
Kaiser Permanente has 40 hospitals and 618 medical facilities in California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Oregon, Virginia and Washington, according to its site.
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Don Sweeney
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RIDGELAND, Miss./PRNewswire/ — SchoolStatus, a leader in K-12 data-driven solutions that empower student success, announced the launch of SchoolStatus Boost, a collaborative platform for guiding and documenting equitable professional growth programs for educators, via goal-setting, coaching, and observations, to support schools in improving educators’ career growth and student success.
SchoolStatus Boost is the latest addition to the new SchoolStatus K-12 success platform , a user-friendly, fully integrated platform that includes SchoolStatus Connect for personalized communications and SchoolStatus Attend for attendance management. Together they empower families, administrators, and educators with data-driven insights for positive growth and student outcomes.
With SchoolStatus Boost, K-12 school districts can promote educator growth through customized, collaborative development platform using:
● Intuitive tools to record observation notes and provide timely, actionable feedback while saving ½ a day per week in paperwork
● Centralized observation notes and rubric data customized for the district’s needs
● Educator-driven goal-setting and documenting evidence portfolios that enable them to feel supported by their administrators
● District and school level data-views to allow leaders to identify trends and opportunities for additional development
“The most important people in a student’s educational journey are their educators. Our team wants to ensure that we are supporting educators so that they feel appreciated by their employer and are able to grow in their career,” said Russ Davis, SchoolStatus Founder and CEO. “It is critical that we invest in our educators through an educator-centric career growth platform, such as SchoolStatus Boost. We will always applaud the work of educators and continue to create ways to support them.”
“Educators today are juggling many priorities within a limited amount of time. They’re working hard to provide the best instruction they can for all students, to connect with families, and to grow in their instructional practices. The influence teachers have on students’ educational journeys can’t be overstated—so any opportunity we have to save them time directly impacts classroom instruction. SchoolStatus Boost helps us support educators’ growth based on transparent collaboration and goal tracking that also meets state requirements. And that ultimately results in better outcomes for students and our school community. Our mission statement emphasizes a commitment to lifelong learning. Our partnership with SchoolStatus Boost greatly supports that mission,” said Patrick Burns, Principal, Robert A. Van Wyck M.S. 217Q.
For more information on SchoolStatus Boost, SchoolStatus Connect, and SchoolStatus Attend, visit www.schoolstatus.com.
About SchoolStatus
SchoolStatus provides a comprehensive suite of communication and attendance solutions that enhance educator-to-family connectedness and support student success. Instant insight into student information and district attendance trends gives educators and administrators full visibility into all levels of the education ecosystem. Data-informed, multi-touch communications include calling, texting, video, and print materials centered around proactive intervention that improves student outcomes and family engagement. With millions of successful school-home interactions, SchoolStatus is improving student achievement by facilitating meaningful engagement between educators, districts, and families across the U.S. For more information, visit schoolstatus.com.
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ESchool News Staff
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In the generative AI boom, data is the new oil. So why shouldn’t you be able to sell your own?
From big tech firms to startups, AI makers are licensing e-books, images, videos, audio and more from data brokers, all in the pursuit of training up more capable (and more legally defensible) AI-powered products. Shutterstock has deals with Meta, Google, Amazon and Apple to supply millions of images for model training, while OpenAI has signed agreements with several news organizations to train its models on news archives.
In many cases, the individual creators and owners of that data haven’t seen a dime of the cash changing hands. A startup called Vana wants to change that.
Anna Kazlauskas and Art Abal, who met in a class at the MIT Media Lab focused on building tech for emerging markets, co-founded Vana in 2021. Prior to Vana, Kazlauskas studied computer science and economics at MIT, eventually leaving to launch a fintech automation startup, Iambiq, out of Y Combinator. Abal, a corporate lawyer by training and education, was an associate at The Cadmus Group, a Boston-based consulting firm, before heading up impact sourcing at data annotation company Appen.
With Vana, Kazlauskas and Abal set out to build a platform that lets users “pool” their data — including chats, speech recordings and photos — into data sets that can then be used for generative AI model training. They also want to create more personalized experiences — for instance, daily motivational voicemail based on your wellness goals, or an art-generating app that understands your style preferences — by fine-tuning public models on that data.
“Vana’s infrastructure in effect creates a user-owned data treasury,” Kazlauskas told TechCrunch. “It does this by allowing users to aggregate their personal data in a non-custodial way … Vana allows users to own AI models and use their data across AI applications.”
Here’s how Vana pitches its platform and API to developers:
The Vana API connects a user’s cross-platform personal data … to allow you to personalize your application. Your app gains instant access to a user’s personalized AI model or underlying data, simplifying onboarding and eliminating compute cost concerns … We think users should be able to bring their personal data from walled gardens, like Instagram, Facebook and Google, to your application, so you can create amazing personalized experience from the very first time a user interacts with your consumer AI application.
Creating an account with Vana is fairly simple. After confirming your email, you can attach data to a digital avatar (like selfies, a description of yourself and voice recordings) and explore apps built using Vana’s platform and data sets. The app selection ranges from ChatGPT-style chatbots and interactive storybooks to a Hinge profile generator.
Image Credits: Vana
Now why, you might ask — in this age of increased data privacy awareness and ransomware attacks — would someone ever volunteer their personal info to an anonymous startup, much less a venture-backed one? (Vana has raised $20 million to date from Paradigm, Polychain Capital and other backers.) Can any profit-driven company really be trusted not to abuse or mishandle any monetizable data it gets its hands on?
Image Credits: Vana
In response to that question, Kazlauskas stressed that the whole point of Vana is for users to “reclaim control over their data,” noting that Vana users have the option to self-host their data rather than store it on Vana’s servers and control how their data’s shared with apps and developers. She also argued that, because Vana makes money by charging users a monthly subscription (starting at $3.99) and levying a “data transaction” fee on devs (e.g. for transferring data sets for AI model training), the company is disincentivized to exploit users and the troves of personal data they bring with them.
“We want to create models owned and governed users who all contribute their data,” Kazlauskas said, “and allow users to bring their data and models with them to any application.”
Now, while Vana isn’t selling users’ data to companies for generative AI model training (or so it claims), it wants to allow users to do this themselves if they choose — starting with their Reddit posts.
This month, Vana launched what it’s calling the Reddit Data DAO (Digital Autonomous Organization), a program that pools multiple users’ Reddit data (including their karma and post history) and lets them to decide together how that combined data is used. After joining with a Reddit account, submitting a request to Reddit for their data and uploading that data to the DAO, users gain the right to vote alongside other members of the DAO on decisions like licensing the combined data to generative AI companies for a shared profit.
It’s an answer of sorts to Reddit’s recent moves to commercialize data on its platform.
Reddit previously didn’t gate access to posts and communities for generative AI training purposes. But it reversed course late last year, ahead of its IPO. Since the policy change, Reddit has raked in over $203 million in licensing fees from companies including Google.
“The broad idea [with the DAO is] to free user data from the major platforms that seek to hoard and monetize it,” Kazlauskas said. “This is a first and is part of our push to help people pool their data into user-owned data sets for training AI models.”
Unsurprisingly, Reddit — which isn’t working with Vana in any official capacity — isn’t pleased about the DAO.
Reddit banned Vana’s subreddit dedicated to discussion about the DAO. And a Reddit spokesperson accused Vana of “exploiting” its data export system, which is designed to comply with data privacy regulations like the GDPR and California Consumer Privacy Act.
“Our data arrangements allow us to put guardrails on such entities, even on public information,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Reddit does not share non-public, personal data with commercial enterprises, and when Redditors request an export of their data from us, they receive non-public personal data back from us in accordance with applicable laws. Direct partnerships between Reddit and vetted organizations, with clear terms and accountability, matters, and these partnerships and agreements prevent misuse and abuse of people’s data.”
But does Reddit have any real reason to be concerned?
Kazlauskas envisions the DAO growing to the point where it impacts the amount Reddit can charge customers for its data. That’s a long ways off, assuming it ever happens; the DAO has just over 141,000 members, a tiny fraction of Reddit’s 73-million-strong user base. And some of those members could be bots or duplicate accounts.
Then there’s the matter of how to fairly distribute payments that the DAO might receive from data buyers.
Currently, the DAO awards “tokens” — cryptocurrency — to users corresponding to their Reddit karma. But karma might not be the best measure of quality contributions to the data set — particularly in smaller Reddit communities with fewer opportunities to earn it.
Kazlauskas floats the idea that members of the DAO could choose to share their cross-platform and demographic data, making the DAO potentially more valuable and incentivizing sign-ups. But that would also require users to place even more trust in Vana to treat their sensitive data responsibly.
Personally, I don’t see Vana’s DAO reaching critical mass. The roadblocks standing in the way are far too many. I do think, however, that it won’t be the last grassroots attempt to assert control over the data increasingly being used to train generative AI models.
Startups like Spawning are working on ways to allow creators to impose rules guiding how their data is used for training while vendors like Getty Images, Shutterstock and Adobe continue to experiment with compensation schemes. But no one’s cracked the code yet. Can it even be cracked? Given the cutthroat nature of the generative AI industry, it’s certainly a tall order. But perhaps someone will find a way — or policymakers will force one.
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Kyle Wiggers
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JPMorgan Chase’s chief data and analytics officer sits within its operating committee to keep up with ongoing AI investment and implementation bankwide. Appointed in June 2023, Chief Data and Analytics Officer Teresa Heitsenrether serves on the $3.7 trillion bank’s operating committee and reports directly to Chief Executive Jamie Dimon and Chief Operating Officer Daniel […]
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Whitney McDonald
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While everyone’s favorite acronym—AI—seems to be the hottest topic as #CoSN2024 kicks off here in Miami, Ashley May, M.S., M.Ed., CETL, Director, Educational Technology Spring Branch ISD (TX), reminds us what is truly the most urgent and present concern for all edtech leaders. Security—whether online or in-person— is always issue number one.
eSchool News was able to interview Ashley about various aspects of ensuring student safety online, where she emphasizes the importance of collaboration between technology services and academic teams when it comes to data privacy, culture building, parental involvement, and the evolving landscape of educational technology. Have a listen:
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Congress may be closer than ever to passing a comprehensive data privacy framework after key House and Senate committee leaders released a new proposal on Sunday.
The bipartisan proposal, titled the American Privacy Rights Act, or APRA, would limit the types of consumer data companies can collect, retain, and use to what they need to operate their services. Users would also be allowed to opt-out of targeted advertising and have the ability to view, correct, delete, and download their data from online services. The proposal would also create a national registry of data brokers, and force those companies to allow users to opt out of having their data sold.
“This landmark legislation gives Americans the right to control where their information goes and who can sell it,” Cathy McMorris Rodgers, House Energy and Commerce Committee chair, said in a statement on Sunday. “It reins in Big Tech by prohibiting them from tracking, predicting, and manipulating people’s behaviors for profit without their knowledge and consent. Americans overwhelmingly want these rights, and they are looking to us, their elected representatives, to act.”
Congress has tried to put together a comprehensive federal law protecting user data for decades. Lawmakers have remained divided, though, on whether that legislation should prevent states from issuing tougher rules, and whether to allow a “private right of action” that would enable people to sue companies in response to privacy violations.
In an interview with the Spokesman Review on Sunday, McMorris Rodgers claimed that the draft’s language is stronger than any active laws, seemingly as an attempt to assuage the concerns of Democrats who have long fought attempts to preempt preexisting state-level protections. APRA does allow states to pass their own privacy laws related to civil rights and consumer protections, among other exceptions.
In the previous session of Congress, the leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committees brokered a deal with Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, on a bill that would preempt state laws with the exception of the California Consumer Privacy Act and the Biometric Information Privacy Act of Illinois. That measure, titled the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, also created a weaker private right of action than most Democrats were willing to support. Cantwell refused to support the measure, instead circulating her own draft legislation. The ADPPA hasn’t been reintroduced, but APRA was designed as a compromise.
“I think we have threaded a very important needle here,” Cantwell told the Spokesman Review. “We are preserving those standards that California and Illinois and Washington have.”
APRA includes language from California’s landmark privacy law allowing people to sue companies when they are harmed by a data breach. It also provides the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general, and private citizens the authority to sue companies when they violate the law.
The categories of data that would be impacted by the APRA include certain categories of “information that identifies or is linked or reasonably linkable to an individual or device,” according to a Senate Commerce Committee summary of the legislation. Small businesses—those with $40 million or less in annual revenue and limited data collection—would be exempt under APRA, with enforcement focused on businesses with $250 million or more in yearly revenue. Governments and “entities working on behalf of governments” are excluded under the bill, as are the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and, apart from certain cybersecurity provisions, “fraud-fighting” nonprofits.
US representative Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called the draft “very strong” in a Sunday statement, but said he wanted to “strengthen” it with tighter child safety provisions.
Still, it remains unclear whether APRA will receive the necessary support for approval. On Sunday, committee aids said that conversations on other lawmakers signing onto the legislation are ongoing. The current proposal is a “discussion draft;” while there’s no official date for introducing a bill, Cantwell and McMorris Rodgers will likely shop around the text to colleagues for feedback over the coming weeks, and plan to send it to committees this month.
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Makena Kelly
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Electrical engineer Gilbert Herrera was appointed research director of the US National Security Agency in late 2021, just as an AI revolution was brewing inside the US tech industry.
The NSA, sometimes jokingly said to stand for No Such Agency, has long hired top math and computer science talent. Its technical leaders have been early and avid users of advanced computing and AI. And yet when Herrera spoke with me by phone about the implications of the latest AI boom from NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, it seemed that, like many others, the agency has been stunned by the recent success of the large language models behind ChatGPT and other hit AI products. The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Gilbert HerreraCourtesy of National Security Agency
How big of a surprise was the ChatGPT moment to the NSA?
Oh, I thought your first question was going to be “what did the NSA learn from the Ark of the Covenant?” That’s been a recurring one since about 1939. I’d love to tell you, but I can’t.
What I think everybody learned from the ChatGPT moment is that if you throw enough data and enough computing resources at AI, these emergent properties appear.
The NSA really views artificial intelligence as at the frontier of a long history of using automation to perform our missions with computing. AI has long been viewed as ways that we could operate smarter and faster and at scale. And so we’ve been involved in research leading to this moment for well over 20 years.
Large language models have been around long before generative pretrained (GPT) models. But this “ChatGPT moment”—once you could ask it to write a joke, or once you can engage in a conversation—that really differentiates it from other work that we and others have done.
The NSA and its counterparts among US allies have occasionally developed important technologies before anyone else but kept it a secret, like public key cryptography in the 1970s. Did the same thing perhaps happen with large language models?
At the NSA we couldn’t have created these big transformer models, because we could not use the data. We cannot use US citizen’s data. Another thing is the budget. I listened to a podcast where someone shared a Microsoft earnings call, and they said they were spending $10 billion a quarter on platform costs. [The total US intelligence budget in 2023 was $100 billion.]
It really has to be people that have enough money for capital investment that is tens of billions and [who] have access to the kind of data that can produce these emergent properties. And so it really is the hyperscalers [largest cloud companies] and potentially governments that don’t care about personal privacy, don’t have to follow personal privacy laws, and don’t have an issue with stealing data. And I’ll leave it to your imagination as to who that may be.
Doesn’t that put the NSA—and the United States—at a disadvantage in intelligence gathering and processing?
II’ll push back a little bit: It doesn’t put us at a big disadvantage. We kind of need to work around it, and I’ll come to that.
It’s not a huge disadvantage for our responsibility, which is dealing with nation-state targets. If you look at other applications, it may make it more difficult for some of our colleagues that deal with domestic intelligence. But the intelligence community is going to need to find a path to using commercial language models and respecting privacy and personal liberties. [The NSA is prohibited from collecting domestic intelligence, although multiple whistleblowers have warned that it does scoop up US data.]
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Will Knight
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The Social Institute, whose mission is to empower millions of students to navigate their social world — including social media and technology — in positive, healthy, and high-character ways, released its 2024 Student Insights Report: How Social Media, Tech, and Current Events Impact Student Well-Being. This report reflects insights shared by more than 29,000 students in TSI’s Annual Student Survey and more than one million responses from its K-12 collaborative learning platform, #WinAtSocial — making it the largest data set of its kind, spanning grades 3 – 12 in schools across the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico.
Each year, The Social Institute asks students nationwide to share insights into trending apps, positive ways to navigate common but complex social situations, everyday challenges faced online and off, and what adults should know about well-being, social media, and technology. Educators can use the insights to gain a deeper understanding of their students, helping them to improve school culture and community well-being.
Among this year’s key findings:
“These insights are invaluable for educators, because the better you understand students, the more effectively you can empower them to navigate their social world — including social media and technology — to fuel their health, happiness, and future success,” said Laura Tierney, Founder and CEO of The Social Institute. “As a team of digital natives and educators, we have seen first-hand how this ever-changing, complex world of technology impacts students.”
Other key student findings include:
The survey also asked students how they would respond to certain situations on social media, such as dealing with explicit content and navigating mean behavior in group chats. To learn more and view the full 2024 Report, including more insights, visit https://app.hubspot.com/documents/7235441/view/723211956?accessId=cf7165.
YouScience®, the leading technology provider dedicated to solving the skills gap crisis for students and employers, and Black Girls Do STEM, a 501c3 nonprofit organization empowering Black girls to achieve equitable Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) representation, today announced the release of the 2024 Black Students and STEM Report. This new report reveals that Black students across the nation possess the aptitudes for in-demand STEM careers, but lack interest in pursuing them. This indicates that a significant career exposure gap exists, likely due to underrepresentation in STEM careers.
The career exposure gap is measured by the difference between a student’s aptitudes and interests, and identifies which careers a student hasn’t been exposed to and which ones might be a good fit. Most notably, the 2024 Black Students and STEM Report found:
The 2024 Black Students and STEM Report combines data from YouScience and Black Girls Do STEM to highlight Black student career exposure gaps for in-demand STEM careers and the importance of programs that address the gaps. The report analyzed anonymized data from 328,000 Black U.S. middle and high school students who took YouScience’s Aptitude and Career Discovery tool from 2019 to 2023. This is the only scientifically-backed tool to apply computerized performance measures of aptitudes, interests, and AI-powered algorithms to activities that help identify best-fit career matches of all students, regardless of race or gender.
Historically, there has been limited Black representation in STEM-related fields. As of 2021, 9% of the STEM workforce was Black, which was an increase from 7% in 2011. While this growth is positive, new solutions are needed to help Black students explore STEM-related education and careers earlier.
“As a Black woman in STEM, I have seen first-hand the lack of representation for women, especially Black women, in these in-demand career fields. However, I have long felt that the solution to this lies within redefining education for Black students through access to identity affirming informal learning environments; so they understand the full scope of their aptitudes, and also the full scope of what careers are possible.” said Cynthia Chapple, Founder and CEO of Black Girls Do STEM. “Working with YouScience has confirmed that notion by truly showcasing the possibilities for our students based on their unique, individual aptitudes.”
While both Black male and female students have aptitude for STEM careers, the report found that significant exposure gaps exist for female students in particular:
“For decades, Black students have encountered inequities that have impacted their pathways in education and then career. It’s imperative to recognize that Black students possess the aptitude for all STEM careers, but the glaring exposure gap remains a formidable challenge due to resource deficiencies and lack of representation. By bridging the exposure gaps and doing so earlier in education, society can help Black students understand all of the opportunities available to them and connect them with education and career pathways and programs that can foster even more skills and understanding,” said Edson Barton, Founder and CEO of YouScience. “One of the most notable programs helping to bridge the gap for students is Black Girls Do STEM. This organization and Cynthia Chapple are working diligently to provide female students with the opportunity to learn, create and build confidence in their abilities to pursue STEM careers.”
To access the complete findings from the 2024 Black Students and STEM Report as well as recommendations from YouScience and Black Girls Do STEM on how to address the career exposure gaps in STEM, click here.
Connected Nation (CN) has partnered with Utah Education Network (UEN) to release the fifth iteration of the Utah School Technology Inventory, a statewide report that compiles critical data about technology usage and gaps in UEN schools. The national nonprofit has collaborated with UEN for nearly a decade to track how technology is used in Utah’s school districts and charter schools, and the access teachers and students have to digital materials, devices and platforms. The inventory once again had a 100% participation rate.
“Starting in 2015 through 2023, UEN’s partnership with Connected Nation has conducted these inventories in the fall every other year,” said UEN Senior Project Manager Cory Stokes. “Completing these inventories helps leaders at the state, district and school levels make better decisions based on data to improve, enhance and support technology in education.”
UEN chose the nonprofit to develop the data collection portal and lead the inventory effort. They collected more than 82,600 data points, representing 1,034 schools across Utah. The final report provides a comprehensive summary of the Utah school system and an overview page for every school district and charter school in the state.
“School districts use these reports to determine how they are currently using technology funds to support their students and teachers,” said Stokes. “The data provides and accounts for how technology is supporting and helping to meet the needs of students and teachers in public education.”
The inventory found that, statewide, 7 out of 10 schools (70%) report that they deploy mobile learning devices such as laptop or tablet computers to students on a 1:1 basis.
Other key findings include:
“UEN’s focus has always been to provide equitable network services and resources to all students in Utah, regardless of where they live, how they participate in school and how they most effectively learn,” said Stokes. “This was all made possible through the School Technology Inventory report.”
Read the 2023 Utah School Technology Inventory Report.
About the Utah Education Network: UEN is part of the Utah Education and Telehealth Network (UETN), which connects all Utah school districts, schools, and higher education institutions to a robust network and quality educational resources. UEN is one of the nation’s premier education networks.
About Connected Nation: The national nonprofit’s mission is to improve lives by providing innovative solutions that expand access, adoption and use of high-speed internet and its related technology to all people. They work with consumers, local community leaders, states, technology providers and foundations to develop and implement technology expansion programs with core competencies centered on a mission to improve digital inclusion for people and places previously underserved or overlooked. For more information, please visit connectednation.org.
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Kevin Hogan
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Reddit said ahead of its IPO next week that licensing user posts to Google and others for AI projects could bring in $203 million of revenue over the next few years. The community-driven platform was forced to disclose Friday that US regulators already have questions about that new line of business.
In a regulatory filing, Reddit said that it received a letter from the US Federal Trade Commision on Thursday asking about “our sale, licensing, or sharing of user-generated content with third parties to train AI models.”
The FTC, the US government’s primary antitrust regulator, has the power to sanction companies found to engage in unfair or deceptive trade practices. The idea of licensing user-generated content for AI projects has drawn questions from lawmakers and rights groups about privacy risks, fairness, and copyright.
Reddit isn’t alone in trying to make a buck off licensing data, including that generated by users, for AI. Programming Q&A site Stack Overflow has signed a deal with Google, the Associated Press has signed one with OpenAI, and Tumblr owner Automattic has said it is working “with select AI companies” but will allow users to opt out of having their data passed along. None of the licensors immediately responded to requests for comment. Reddit also isn’t the only company receiving an FTC letter about data licensing, Axios reported on Friday, citing an unnamed former agency official.
It’s unclear whether the letter to Reddit is directly related to review into any other companies.
Reddit said in Friday’s disclosure that it does not believe that it engaged in any unfair or deceptive practices but warned that dealing with any government inquiry can be costly and time-consuming. “The letter indicated that the FTC staff was interested in meeting with us to learn more about our plans and that the FTC intended to request information and documents from us as its inquiry continues,” the filing says. Reddit said the FTC letter described the scrutiny as related to “a non-public inquiry.”
Reddit, whose 17 billion posts and comments are seen by AI experts as valuable for training chatbots in the art of conversation, announced a deal last month to license the content to Google. Reddit and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The FTC declined to comment. (Advance Magazine Publishers, parent of WIRED’s publisher Condé Nast, owns a stake in Reddit.)
AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini are seen as a competitive threat to Reddit, publishers, and other ad-supported, content-driven businesses. In the past year the prospect of licensing data to AI developers emerged as a potential upside of generative AI for some companies.
But the use of data harvested online to train AI models has raised a number of questions winding through boardrooms, courtrooms, and Congress. For Reddit and others whose data is generated by users, those questions include who truly owns the content and whether it’s fair to license it out without giving the creator a cut. Security researchers have found that AI models can leak personal data included in the material used to create them. And some critics have suggested the deals could make powerful companies even more dominant.
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Paresh Dave
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Last week, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), in partnership with SAS, launched the Missouri Data Visualization Tool (MO DVT), a web-based application that offers easy-to-use reports and analysis on academic performance, including achievement and growth data aggregated by subject, year, and grade. MO DVT was created in response to stakeholder questions about interpreting and using Missouri Growth Model data.
I was able to get into the weeds with Missouri Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven & Dr. John White, VP of SAS Education Visualization and Analytics Solutions (EVAAS) to discuss the genesis and strategic goals of the MO DVT, the integration with Missouri’s broader educational strategies, and how quality data is improving decision-making in Missouri schools.
According to both Margie and John, the tool allows educators to access longitudinal data on student performance, track progress over time, and identify areas for improvement. It provides insights at both individual student and group levels, enabling teachers to tailor instruction to meet diverse student needs. Additionally, it supports decision-making at the policy level by analyzing academic impacts, such as the effectiveness of a four-day school week.
By actually using the wealth of available data, the emphasis is now on translating it into meaningful insights to drive improvements in teaching and learning. The goal is to foster a culture of continuous improvement and empower educators with the tools needed to support student success.
Some highlights of the conversation:
Below is a machine-generated transcript of the recording:
Transcript
00:00:04 Speaker 1
OK, great. Thanks so much for joining me today. I really appreciate your time. I know you’re busy. Lots of news. Let’s jump right into it. Doctor, maybe you can start by just talking about the program where it began. How long has it been in process to where we’ve gotten to the point now that it’s an active tool for your users?
00:00:23 Speaker 2
So in the state of Missouri, we have a history of of using growth data to inform our accountability decisions. But what we’re doing now is moving to a step further to to not just let it inform accountability policy decision making at the state level, but really making the data actionable for our teachers in the classroom.
00:00:45 Speaker 2
And that’s really where it’s at. We know that’s that’s what helps improve and performance for our students is when we can actually take data and make it an A usable, actionable place for our teachers.
00:00:59 Speaker 1
Yeah. And John, I know you’ve been working in this field for a long time. It used to be, at least when it came to our readers and listeners over the years that sometimes data would be seen as a dirty word, a little bit of a boogeyman, especially when you would get down to the teacher level, many of whom consider themselves.
00:01:19 Speaker 1
Artists, not necessarily scientists when it comes to their kids and how to teach their kids. I think a lot of that has changed, but I think there’s still some remnants of it. Maybe you could talk a little bit about how you see.
00:01:32 Speaker 1
The these tools and I think would support when when Doctor mentioned that it is for the teachers, not necessarily for the the Superintendent or the principal, right.
00:01:42 Speaker 3
Yeah, that’s right. So what this tool really allows is for people to see longitudinal data over time at the student level, track the progress of students through all the way starting from 3rd grade all the way through whatever grade they may be sitting in in that year with what, what teacher that.
00:02:02 Speaker 3
Maybe teaching them at that time?
00:02:05 Speaker 3
So allowing a teacher to have access to how much growth a student made in previous years and in the most recent year can be really helpful in trying to understand what may be best for an individual student. Now the data not only is available at the student by student level, but also aggregated.
00:02:24 Speaker 3
At the group level, maybe for schools and for Elias, so schools and Elias can reflect on trends in growth data to see if they implemented different strategies in previous years. What may have worked best to help make the most growth possible with the different groups of students.
00:02:42
Yeah.
00:02:43 Speaker 1
So and I I mentioned the cut of the data is a dirty word and sometimes seen as a boogeyman and one of the big reasons for that over the years has been the the worry about student privacy, right. And data privacy and the use of that. Maybe you could talk about how this solution is able to kind of distinguish between you’re talking about getting that at the granular level with a particular.
00:03:05 Speaker 1
Student. I’ll assume that there is protections in there in terms of that data when it comes to not only test scores, but maybe ISP’s or behavioral sort of data.
00:03:17
Yes.
00:03:17 Speaker 3
That’s absolutely right. So what the system is, is there is a public site access, but that available that data is only available in the aggregate level at the school in LA kind of aggregated level. But you have to have login credentials for any individual access to get into the system and see individual student level.
00:03:38 Speaker 3
You can.
00:03:39 Speaker 3
Then you know it would be dependent upon the school in which a an educator is at, for what individual students that they are able to access and see data for. So we certainly follow all the security standards and requirements as well as legislation like FERPA to make sure that only the.
00:03:59 Speaker 3
Appropriate individual educators have access to the appropriate student level.
00:04:05 Speaker 2
Yeah. And I’ll just, I’ll just piggyback on that. I think that’s probably the very first thing we.
00:04:09 Speaker 2
Need to assure.
00:04:10 Speaker 2
Everyone of is that this is always protected data to the highest level that we can ensure that our our parents are counting on that. We certainly make sure that all those protocols are in place.
00:04:22 Speaker 1
Yeah. Can you paint me?
00:04:24 Speaker 1
A little bit of kind of a.
00:04:25 Speaker 1
Day in the life.
00:04:26 Speaker 1
When it comes to the use of this, especially when you’re talking about maybe a teacher, I mean just kind of walk through the day is this, is this still intended to be used on a daily basis or on something maybe at the end of the quarter when they’re compiling grades? Can you give me some real world examples of of how you intend it to be?
00:04:46 Speaker 2
Well, I’ll, I’ll speak from the day in the life of of us at a policy level and then try to bring it down to the, to the teacher level. So again these the the particular model that we are currently using is is still dependent upon that end of the year State assessment data that we get that.
00:05:04 Speaker 2
Has historically been important, but sometimes falling a little flat, and here’s what I.
00:05:09 Speaker 2
Mean by that, if we.
00:05:10 Speaker 2
Focus solely on the proficient score. Like if we just look at where a child scores on the proficient level, then that becomes the target for teachers or for parents or for the students even. And what we’ve learned over I think over since the implementation, particularly of NCLB.
00:05:30 Speaker 2
Over a decade ago is, if you focus just on proficiency, you can lose sight of kids on both ends of of that spectrum there. So those kids that are really scoring.
00:05:40 Speaker 2
Well, sometimes can be that they’re going to score proficient no matter what this is. This is a value added model that says for all kids, even those highest performing, how do we make sure that we are driving improvement at every level. So all those kids get get paid very close attention to and all teachers pay attention to every kid.
00:06:01 Speaker 2
Don’t get me wrong, they certainly do. But I’m talking about from the.
00:06:04 Speaker 2
State level when?
00:06:05 Speaker 2
We used to hear a term that.
00:06:10 Speaker 2
Sometimes teachers or school districts would refer to as our bubble kids, like kids who are just about to get over one level into proficiency, and what the growth model does, it says, hey, let’s pay attention to every single child on that roster and let’s see how far whether they’re well below proficiency. And we’re going to move them towards that or whether they’re.
00:06:30 Speaker 2
Well above proficiency, and we’re going to continue to make sure that we’re pushing those highest.
00:06:36 Speaker 2
Achievers, even higher. So for us at the state level, that’s how I like to look at that data and say we are paying attention to every single child. Now how does the teacher take that data then? There, I’m going to let John speak to that a little bit more too. But as a teacher, you want to know who am I most effective with in the classroom? I really moving performance.
00:06:56 Speaker 2
For all kids? Or am I able to step back and say, gosh, I wonder what was?
00:07:00 Speaker 2
Happening with with this group of students that I that I as a teacher, didn’t have as much value. Add to that learning opportunity for those kids because we want to be successful with with all students. And then you add a few more tools to that toolbox. But I I wouldn’t say that that the initial results are a day-to-day operational piece because.
00:07:21 Speaker 2
We are still we we depend on that state state assessment that we get annually to to talk about what’s happening gives us great power at the.
00:07:33 Speaker 2
State Board of Education level or others when we can say which schools really are serving various populations of students and still showing tremendous growth and that’s that. Then you can say what are they doing because we have a like population over here who we’d like to see those kinds of results to. Can we connect those two?
00:07:53 Speaker 2
Schools can we connect those two districts to say, what’s happening at all in the spirit of of improvement and serving our kids better?
00:08:04 Speaker 3
Yeah. So, so I’ll just add a.
00:08:05 Speaker 3
Couple of thoughts here.
00:08:09 Speaker 3
As an educator goes into the system at the individual student level, they would be able to see all of the prior student testing history of that student. So as the Commissioner said, each and every year with new state assessment data, that data would be up loaded into the system and so there would be new assessments.
00:08:26 Speaker 3
Available annually in that system, but to your earlier point point Kevin about security and access throughout the year, students may move from one building to another, and so the system has to be updated to make sure that as students move around the state and move into different buildings, that the permissions and security are updated so that.
00:08:47 Speaker 3
And educator can gain access to the student level data for students sitting in their classroom at that moment. So that’s something that.
00:08:55 Speaker 3
Because get updated throughout the year now within the system, as the Commissioner was saying, so an individual educator can see all of the testing history and math and reading and and all the various subjects on the state assessment system, they can look at how much growth is being made by that student in years past.
00:09:15 Speaker 3
They can also look forward.
00:09:18 Speaker 3
More proactively to get a likelihood of success on a future assessment, so they may be seeing a student in their classroom and we may be saying something like based on all the prior testing data of that individual student and the average experience that you may see, this student has a 70%.
00:09:38 Speaker 3
Chance of being proficient, let’s say, on.
00:09:41 Speaker 3
On their next grade level assessment, they haven’t taken. So as they are administering kind of interim assessments throughout the year to gauge where that student is, they can reflect back on that projection probability to see if that student seems to be on track throughout the year.
00:09:58 Speaker 3
Also, when you aggregate this data up a level, you can see the amount of growth that students were making. Let’s say that were in the lowest achievement group or the highest achievement group. You can disaggregate the student level data into different types of student groups such as.
00:10:15 Speaker 3
Your higher poverty student groups versus lower poverty or English learners versus non-english learners, just to see if.
00:10:24 Speaker 3
An individual group or a certain subject in grade you are making more growth with certain types of students. For example, one group of teachers within fifth grade math might be doing really well with their highest achieving students, but not as well with their lowest achieving students. Or maybe vice versa, so they can reflect on those practices and see.
00:10:44 Speaker 3
You know what can we do a little bit differently with our lowest achieving students to make sure that they’re able to make as much growth and progress as we’re making with some of the other students. And then there’s a lot of comparative features too, that allow a school to see the amount of growth that another school may be making. That’s of a similar.
00:11:05 Speaker 3
On a student group, so they may have similar groups of students within their building or a similar makeup of students within their building their achievement level so they can find another school and locate them to maybe again just share best practices or try to understand a little better of what they may be doing differently that’s having more or less success.
00:11:25 Speaker 3
With their students.
00:11:27 Speaker 1
Yeah, that seems that the idea of sharing best practices is something that is is really strong and when you have the numbers to back it up, it just it makes it that much more powerful. I know that there’s been other at the state level, you know, initiatives such as the, the, the four day school week that has has gone back and forth. Can you talk a little bit about how this sort of data?
00:11:47 Speaker 1
Was able to kind of reinforce some of those ideas.
00:11:53 Speaker 2
Well, I’m going to start off with just talking about what we were trying to garner from the study itself and then I’ll let John speak to how they were able to to do that for us. And so for us in the state of Missouri, again, we have had the option of a four day school week for quite some time now for probably just over a decade that legislation.
00:12:13 Speaker 2
Changed back in a time when it was, it was really to try to address fuel, fuel charges and you know, busting issues and that sort of thing it was. Can we save money?
00:12:26 Speaker 2
And well, that really didn’t come to great fruition. We found out that it wasn’t really a great cost saving metric for it. So a lot of districts did not go to the four day school week. What what we’re seeing now is that a number of our districts are finding it to be what they see as an effective teacher recruitment and retention.
00:12:46 Speaker 2
Strategy. So we had a large number of our districts sort of what what I call the domino effect you you have one district start here and then the neighboring districts start to to follow suit because they’re trying to pull from the same pool pool of teachers.
00:13:02 Speaker 2
And so the statute does give the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education the authority to really look at what is the academic impact of that four day school week.
00:13:11 Speaker 2
And should they?
00:13:11 Speaker 2
Keep that option in place, so that was.
00:13:14 Speaker 2
Our very, very.
00:13:15 Speaker 2
First question is to look at again, going back to the sort of value add concept, does it add value to go to a four day or does the five day?
00:13:23 Speaker 2
And how do?
00:13:24 Speaker 2
We measure that. So that’s when we called upon Sass to say, could we look at the growth data to help inform that academic?
00:13:31 Speaker 2
Side I’ll let John speak to that, but just as a data person, you’ll you’ll know and understand that that only became the the first layer of the onion peel. Once we started talking about academics, then people want to know, well, did it impact attendance? Does it really successfully recruit and doesn’t help retain your teachers?
00:13:48 Speaker 2
What are the?
00:13:49 Speaker 2
How do the families feel about it? What is the social implication? Who’s feeding the kids?
00:13:53 Speaker 2
And there’s a million questions that follow. So I like to be very specific that our request to Sass was to really help us to understand academic impact. And John, I’ll toss it to you now to talk about how that study was done.
00:14:09 Speaker 3
Yeah. So all of our work with the state of Missouri has been around using longitudinal student level data.
00:14:15 Speaker 3
And so we have a lot of information over time at the student level for all of the students in the state on these statewide assessments. And So what that allowed us to do with this particular research question is follow the achievement levels of school districts over time then to.
00:14:35 Speaker 3
Identify where that school district may have made a change to a four day.
00:14:39 Speaker 3
Full week and to see if using their own prior data as kind of a control. Did they have some type of significant impact when they moved to a four day school week on their achievement information and we were able to look at that for all the school districts given they moved at maybe a different point in time to that.
00:14:59 Speaker 3
Four day school week, not only did we look at just kind of generally how high achieving.
00:15:05 Speaker 3
Were they, and how much did that change when they moved to a?
00:15:08 Speaker 3
Four day school.
00:15:08 Speaker 3
Week.
00:15:10 Speaker 3
But we also looked at their growth data, so growth data being a little bit different. You know how much growth are they making with students given all of the prior achievement levels of their students? And did the amount of growth that those school districts did that?
00:15:25 Speaker 3
Amount changed from the point prior to after them moving to that four day school week, and the answer was there was there was really no significant up or down movement in both the achievement or growth data when school districts moved over to that four day school week.
00:15:43 Speaker 3
So we have we didn’t.
00:15:45 Speaker 3
Find anything in terms of a a significant change in those academic indicators.
00:15:50 Speaker 3
As the Commissioner was mentioning.
00:15:52 Speaker 1
Interesting. Well, so now that UM, this tool is launched and is in use, what’s next I.
00:16:00 Speaker 1
Mean what are are there?
00:16:01 Speaker 1
Hopes and goals that maybe some.
00:16:05 Speaker 1
Not some surprises, but some. Some new ideas on which you guys can use this data to further improve the student experience.
00:16:16 Speaker 2
Well for me.
00:16:17 Speaker 2
For me again at the state level, I’m just really happy to hear the feedback from the school districts who are understanding and using the tool for so long.
00:16:25 Speaker 2
They’ve been giving them a score and a score without information is a score, right? Like it doesn’t really. And we understand that and recognize that it doesn’t help inform the next steps.
00:16:39 Speaker 2
Or the school district or the teacher. We think this putting this tool in the hands of our school districts allows them again to to move beyond. Just looking at a report card and saying, OK, how do I, how do I transform some of the work that needs to take place here? And again that.
00:16:59 Speaker 2
Can’t always happen on one year. You want to look at multiple trend data. You want to look at what’s happening in your school, in your environment.
00:17:05 Speaker 2
And and what the data are telling you, but that’s that’s how I see it is is again that it was coming from the the school districts who were really asking us for assistance. How do I get better? How do I how do I move the needle here. And so how you do that is by making sure we’re reaching every single child in the best way that we can.
00:17:26 Speaker 2
Right. So to me, that’s exciting. I’m. I’m excited to see what we’ll be able to do.
00:17:31 Speaker 2
And and and garner from more information we I’ll just wrap up with this statement. You’ve heard it a million times. If you’re in the data world, but it is just true when you’re data rich and information poor, that’s a challenge, right? We have a ton of data. So what are we doing with it and how do we use that information?
00:17:51 Speaker 2
For the betterment of our kids.
00:17:54 Speaker 1
Yeah. And John, any last thoughts?
00:17:56 Speaker 3
Yeah, we’re. I’m just really excited. I’m we’re. We’re really proud to be working with the state of Missouri on making this information more accessible and being able to put it into the hands of educators. I think that, you know, when they can actually see this information, they can find it very they they will find it very intuitive.
00:18:15 Speaker 3
They will be able to.
00:18:16 Speaker 3
Look at the data at the individual student level.
00:18:19 Speaker 3
You will.
00:18:20 Speaker 3
Start to help them seek and why measuring growth is so useful and valuable.
00:18:25 Speaker 3
And just we’re really excited to just help promote the usage of this and see where it goes.
00:18:30 Speaker 1
Well, congratulations on your work and know it’s going to have a huge impact for the the students in the state of Missouri and hopefully sharing these insights will help inspire some of our readers and listeners to maybe put a little pressure on their own state governments to get their their data house in order. So thanks again for your time. I really appreciate it.
00:18:49 Speaker 2
Thank you.
00:18:50 Speaker 3
Thank you so much.
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Kevin Hogan
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Disclosure: The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to the author and do not represent the views and opinions of crypto.news’ editorial.
Blockchain is famous for showing everything in the open—every transaction, clear as day. It’s like a glass house where everything is visible, and that’s been its big selling point. But there’s a catch: this see-through world is too revealing. It’s like we’ve walked into a room with glass walls, forgetting that others can look in if we can look out. This crystal-clear world reminds us of the old days of the internet (web1), where all information flowed freely. Sadly, it also started to resemble the world in which web1 became web2, and data began to be gathered, analyzed, and monetized. A world where our online moves were—and still are—tracked without us knowing.
The beauty of blockchain lies in its honesty and integrity, but it also bears the shadow of over-transparency. Like in web2, where tech giants constantly monitor online activities and gather data, blockchain’s openness allows anyone curious to observe our digital actions—with financial data visible out in the open (considered sensitive and encrypted data in web2). The very attribute that underpins blockchain’s reliability—its transparency—also introduces a level of exposure that might be more than what some users bargained for.
Blockchain was envisioned as a revolutionary space, granting us authority over digital presence. But as technology advances, there is a middle ground that promises a blockchain experience that respects user autonomy, offering a transparent yet controlled digital environment.
This new level of transparency in blockchain is innovative, but it also comes with some risks. The open ledger becomes a double-edged sword. Users, particularly those new to the blockchain world, are exposed to risks they hadn’t anticipated. The visibility of their transactions can lead to targeted phishing attacks, where malicious actors exploit transaction data to craft convincing scams.
This vulnerability extends beyond individual privacy concerns, touching the fabric of the decentralized ethos that web3 champions. The promise of a decentralized future was built on the pillars of user empowerment and security, but this level of exposure could inadvertently lead to a centralization of power in the hands of those who know how to exploit on-chain transparency.
The ethos of decentralization is rooted in the empowerment of the individual, a shift away from the centralized control that characterized web2. However, the current state of blockchain transparency could unintentionally replicate the very dynamics it sought to dismantle. In a world where every transaction is an open book, the power dynamics shift towards those who can access, analyze, and leverage this information.
This scenario could lead to a new digital divide, where the savvy few exercise disproportionate influence over the many. It challenges the core principles of decentralization, potentially leading to a web3 that mirrors its predecessor’s centralized, controlled landscape.
In the face of these challenges, advocating for on-chain data ownership emerges as a crucial solution, a beacon of hope in preserving the decentralized ethos of web3. Blockchain data ownership shifts the narrative from passive transparency to active control.
This approach hands users the reins of their digital presence, empowering them to choose what remains visible and what stays private. By giving control back to the users, on-chain data ownership addresses the surveillance issue head-on, ensuring that blockchain remains a tool for empowerment rather than a passive ledger of public information.
Empowering users to control their data and transaction visibility is the key to balancing the blockchain’s necessary transparency and user autonomy. This control can be implemented through various means, such as privacy-enhancing protocols or selective disclosure mechanisms that allow users to share necessary transaction information while keeping other details private. Such capabilities ensure that the blockchain can serve its purpose as a transparent and trustable ledger without compromising the autonomy and discretion of its users.
Vitalik Buterin brings an exciting twist to the tale regarding on-chain transparency. In his writings, Buterin suggests that privacy and regulation go hand in hand in the blockchain world. He challenges the old belief that everything on the blockchain has to be out in the open to keep things above board. There is a path that connects the two worlds. As Buterin states:
“In many cases, privacy and regulatory compliance are perceived as incompatible; this does not necessarily have to be the case if the privacy-enhancing protocol enables its users to prove certain properties regarding the origin of the funds.”
Think of them as digital cloaks that let you show only what you need on the blockchain, like proving where your funds came from without revealing your entire life story. It’s like having a magic wallet that shows your ID when needed but keeps your cash hidden. These tools let us keep our data private while ensuring everything’s legit and above board. It’s a game-changer because we can be part of the blockchain world without feeling like living in a fishbowl.
We are at a turning point for blockchain. Blockchain’s been tremendous at showing everything, but maybe it’s shown a bit too much. Web3 starts to resemble web1 when the internet had just begun turning web2, and every click started to be monitored, noted, and analyzed. Do we want to stay in web3, where information is decentralized and users own their data, or do we want to enter web4, which will once again profit from data appropriation? The answer is clear: we need to empower users by data ownership in web3.
It’s time to grab that remote and start deciding what to show and what to keep under wraps. Users aren’t passengers on the blockchain train; they drive it. Blockchain can be a place where everyone enjoys the view without worrying about who’s peeking in.
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JPMorgan is exploring the use of synthetic data to streamline its anti-money laundering and software engineering processes. Synthetic data refers to datasets that have been stripped of personal identifying information; developers can run simulations and test models on these datasets while avoiding biases and protecting original data, Deepak Paramanand, head of synthetic data product […]
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Vaidik Trivedi
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Riley Wolfbauer
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Vaidik Trivedi
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