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Taken from Digital Journal (Mar 12, 2015)
Peter Gabriel Founded Organization Collaborating With The World Economic Forum To Promote Data-Driven Impact
by The Toolbox
The Toolbox, founded by Peter Gabriel, represents the people’s interest and needs while promoting and facilitating the use of big data in addressing the challenges of sustainable development worldwide.
Mar. 11, 2015 / PRZen / NEW YORK -- -By 2020, an estimated 50 billion devices will be wirelessly connected to the Internet.
-As it stands now the data being collected by smartphone use has the ability to empower local communities facing challenges such as gender disparities, disease, poverty, natural disasters climate change, and other global issues by safely and transparently reporting this information to governments and civic organizations.
-For these solutions to be realized, deploying tools designed for retrieving real-time data in underserved local communities is crucial.
-Given the opportunity, transparent and trustworthy data-ecosystems had the means and resources to prevent such travesties as the Ebola crisis in West Africa in 2014, but lacked significant infrastructure and mediation to monitor the inclusions of all parties use of the data gained in the process.
“ No-one had any real idea of the impact that the Internet and the mobile phone would have on our lives. It is almost certainly going to be exactly the same with the data revolution. These many coming uses of data have real potential to secure more equality and justice in the world.”
-Peter Gabriel
Musician, Activist, Founder of The Toolbox
The Toolbox is connecting the needs of the people to the organizations and data-driven resources with the power to help solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.
On March 4, 2015, The Toolbox was featured at the World Economic Forum Workshop during Mobile World Congress In Barcelona, Spain. Founded by Peter Gabriel, who also founded, The Elders, and WITNESS, The Toolbox is working to provide tools for global participation in solving some of the world’s biggest challenges, as well as grow its community of Apptivists -- developers and entrepreneurs building technology for social impact.
The Toolbox currently hosts 645 tools aiding social change across a broad range of topics. Some examples of powerful tools accessible on the site includes American Red Cross: Shelter, which provides a when and where of shelters open during disaster relief efforts. Another tool called LISTA replaces costly in-person financial education workshops with an intuitive tech-based educational experience currently being utilized in Colombia and Brazil, and poised to reach approximately 15,000 people in poverty. And the Mobile Justice app can be downloaded to help report civil rights violations.
As part of The World Economic Forum’s commitment to finding new approaches and tools for empowering people in emerging markets with data, The Toolbox will collaborate with organizations to identify and help deploy the most needed tools in local communities, as well as act as a mediator between developers and end-users.
“In addition to connecting the creators of social impact apps with people in local communities who can benefit from them, our goal is to promote human-centered design in the creation of new tools that can provide valuable data and benefit everyday people. The citizens being served need to be a part of the tool making process every step of the way.”
-Melissa Jun Rowley
Journalist, Executive Director The Toolbox
The World Economic Forum Workshop, being held at Mobile World Congress, titled- The Data Revolution: Catalyzing Local Engagement and Impact,’ covered several key factors such as, shaping the dynamics of the data revolution, and the importance of shared data ethics. All points of note covered throughout the workshop are a reflection of an ongoing collaboration between The World Economic Forum, The Toolbox, Internews, ONE and others.
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MEDIA CONTACTS
Alisha Golden / alishagolden3@gmail.com / + 1 917 416 2120
Melissa Jun Rowley / melissa@thetoolbox.org / +1 310 948 5473
Notes to editors
1. Interviews available on request with Peter Gabriel, Founder of The Toolbox (English language), Melissa Jun Rowley, Executive Director available.
2. The full report will be published at noon 13. March 2015 EDT on http://www.thetoolbox.org/
Source: The Toolbox
Press release distributed by PRZen
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