Data for the People!

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The guest for this episode of Data for the People! is Natalie Evans Harris, Chief Data Officer for the State of Maryland and a Data Foundation Senior Fellow. Harris discusses how Maryland is building a statewide data infrastructure that enables agencies to work together, strengthens data governance, improves data literacy, and prepares the state for responsible artificial intelligence.
Read a blog summary of the episode. 
During the interview, Harris also offers two contributions for the Data Foundation’s #MyDataStory initiative, which highlights how government data helps Americans solve problems, make decisions, and strengthen communities. What’s your data story? Share it in writing or over video. 
In the spirit of the Data Foundation's People's Data 100 initiative, which identifies federal datasets providing the greatest value to Americans, Harris mentions one of her favorite public datasets: The Social Vulnerability Index, which is maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and ranks communities by their vulnerability to external shocks, such as a natural disaster, disease outbreak or economic disruption. Learn more about the People's Data 100 initiative. 

Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition
The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus
Follow the Data Foundation on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/datafoundation

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At the 2026 Data Summit, Leanne Spaulding, Resilience and Data Lead at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center, moderated a conversation on how better data can support resilience, environmental risk management, and growth. She was joined by Emily Dhingra, Senior Project Manager for Climate Resilience and Adaptation at AECOM; Kathie Dello, Assistant Secretary for Resilience at the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality; and Paula Pagniez, former Executive Director of Climate Risk and Resilience at Howden.
Their conversation has been edited and produced as an episode of Data for the People!, a podcast from the Data Foundation.  
Want to watch other panel sessions or presentations from the 2026 Data Summit? Video recordings are available on the Data Summit event page.
govDATAx is the Data Foundation's flagship conference bringing together government leaders, data practitioners, policymakers, technologists, and researchers to advance the use of data for more effective, transparent, and accountable government.

This year's govDATAx will be on Sept. 15 at George Washington University. 

Register now.
Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition
The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus
Follow the Data Foundation on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/datafoundation

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This episode of Data for the People! shares highlights from the Data Foundation’s 2026 Data Summit, focusing on philanthropy’s role in supporting a stronger shared data ecosystem.

Data Foundation President and CEO Nick Hart moderates a conversation with Daniella Lowenberg of the Data Funders Collaborative and Rachel Snyderman of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

Lowenberg describes the Collaborative’s priorities, including modernizing state and local data infrastructure, improving effective data use (privacy, self-sovereignty, and quality), and data readiness for AI and evaluation.

Snyderman explains the Peterson Foundation’s focus on long-term fiscal sustainability and how bipartisan attention to improper payments, fraud, waste, and abuse can be reframed as a data issue that also improves benefit access.

The panel discusses where philanthropy can test ideas and convene cross-sector partners, while noting limits in replacing federal system investments or making federal policy, and highlights opportunities to accelerate progress through responsible use of new technology and clearer communication to policymakers.

If you enjoyed this conversation from our 2026 Data Summit, then you won’t want to miss our next big event: govDATAx, on September 15th at George Washington University. 
govDATAx brings together government leaders, data practitioners, policymakers, technologists, and researchers to advance the use of data for more effective, transparent, and accountable government. 
Learn more and register. 
Interested in learning more about Evi, the Evidence Act Hub AI assistant co-developed by the Data Foundation and Data Foundation Senior Fellow Ted Kaouk? A beta version is now available to test.  

govDATAx is the Data Foundation's flagship conference bringing together government leaders, data practitioners, policymakers, technologists, and researchers to advance the use of data for more effective, transparent, and accountable government.

This year's govDATAx will be on Sept. 15 at George Washington University. 

Register now.
Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition
The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus
Follow the Data Foundation on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/datafoundation

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In the latest episode of Data for the People!, Data Foundation Senior Fellow Taka Ariga discusses the prospect of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance government efforts to prevent fraud and other types of improper payments in public benefit programs.
Ariga was the first Chief Data Scientist at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) where he also directed GAO’s Innovation Lab. He later served as the Chief Data Officer (CDO) and Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. He is now a Senior Fellow with the Data Foundation and the founder of Sol Imagination, an AI advisory company.
Amanda Cash, the Senior Director of the Data Foundation’s Center for Data Policy, joins the episode as a co-host.
Learn more about the Data Foundation/Deloitte report discussed on the episode, Navigating Transition and Change: 2025 Survey of Federal Chief Data Officers. 

Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition
The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus
Follow the Data Foundation on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/datafoundation

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This episode of Data for the People! explores a problem with climate and environmental data that burdens public agencies and the private sector: Currently, federal and state regulators have a host of different reporting requirements for climate and environmental data, such as data on greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, the data get reported in multiple ways to multiple regulatory entities, which hampers the public's ability to use the data while making it hard to monitor trends and evaluate the effectiveness of policies and programs. Private organizations also pay a price in terms of time and money to report similar information in different ways to comply with a patchwork of state and federal regulations. 
A recent paper by XBRL.US proposes that the public and private sectors adopt a structured standardized data format to simplify reporting and improve government's ability to measure trends across jurisdictions and data sets. 
The episode features three guests: 
Liv Watson, a Senior Fellow with the Data Foundation's Climate Data Collaborative and a co-founder of the Digital Global Single Market Data Alliance
Catherine Atkin, a co-chair of the Law x Climate project at Stanford Codex as well as a Senior Fellow with the Data Foundation's Climate Data Collaborative and a co-founder of the Digital Global Single Market Data Alliance
Michelle Savage, Vice President of Communications for XBRL.US
They discuss XBRL.US’s proposal to adopt structured, standardized, machine-readable reporting via a semantic data model to improve interoperability, support investors and policymakers, enhance AI use through better context, and reduce a growing patchwork of regulations.
We're dropping this episode during the week of DC Climate Week (April 20-24, 2026) when we are co-hosting a full-day event on April 21 about climate and environmental data. Learn more about the event's programming and speakers here.
The Data Foundation's Climate Data Collaborative makes climate and environmental data work better for decision-makers across sectors. Our vision is a federated and interoperable data ecosystem where decision-makers have the data needed to drive markets, mitigation, conservation, finance and compliance—one where public agencies provide foundational data and private actors are motivated to contribute. Learn more about the Climate Data Collaborative at www.ClimateDataCollaborative.org. 
Want to be part of a national community that promotes policies that enable government data to be high-quality, accessible, and usable? Join our Data Coalition: https://datafoundation.org/pages/join-the-data-coalition
The Data Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank. All contributions may be tax deductible. We appreciate all charitable contributions towards fulfilling our mission to make democratic society better for everyone by championing the use of open data and evidence-informed public policy. Donate: https://datafoundation.org/supportus
Follow the Data Foundation on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/datafoundation