To begin describing the Ted Talk delivered by Vida Williams in 2017, I would like to acknowledge her ethos. Vida C. Williams is a female African American data scientist, who is the founder and CEO of Axis Partners Inc.; Axis Partners is a data sciences firm that works with businesses to analyze their data inputs, outputs, and the important correlations between them. I am always thrilled to see women of color in male dominated industries such as information technology; but I was blown away researching Vida Williams’ accolades, as she is an industry leader.
Throughout Vida Williams “Citizens data” Ted Talk, she seeks to help listeners understand their data footprint. Data is being collected on every part of life from the time that humans are born and receive a social security number. Williams seeks to get the audience to truly understand that systems are collecting data about everything we do, from what classes we are taking in school to what we ate for breakfast.
Although most of Williams’ Ted Talk focuses on conveying the weight of our data, she is setting up her point that citizens need to understand they their data influences decisions. Simply supporting a business individually, can lead to decisions that one may not ethically support. The call to action in Williams discussion is to better understand our data and intentionally engage in the data world.
Olivia Coy Daniel 