December 3, 2024
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👋🏾 Reader,

Wishing you and yours a happy holidays. As the DataedX team settles into our Winter Rest period (now until Jan 6-ish), I wanted to share the mounds of good trouble we've gotten into this year. It has been a year full of learning, teaching and leadership development. We’re steadfastly focused on integrating equity throughout DataOps and AIOps. We believe in making data and AI concepts snackable from the classroom to the boardroom. This means that our society can be both data-literate and people-centered! And we’re making it do what it do in our corner of the interwebs. I’m amazed and grateful for the leaps and bounds DataedX has accomplished this past year.

Here’s a couple of DataedX’s achievements that spreads our “building responsible data practices” message.

• Advising and consulting partnerships crisscross the US with data equity-centered projects based in California, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington DC.
• Our nearly 15K connections across LinkedIn, Instagram and Medium helps data-conscious, people-first technologists know they aren’t alone in wanting to move slower and building more responsible tech.
• Our first LinkedIn Learning course, Practical Database Design: Implementing Responsible Data Solution with SQL Querying, was released June 25, 2024. It now has over 2,200 learners in the course.
• We’ve hosted the 3rd Annual Black Women in Data Summit on September 14-15, 2024. Over the two-days, nearly 100 BWDs and friends received the mid/senior career and leadership development sessions that’ll help them move to the next level. And we’re already gearing up for our 4th installment of the Summit to be held September 12-14, 2025 in Atlanta.
• ​Data Conscience is part of undergraduate and graduate syllabi in California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, New York, North Carolina and who knows where else. Over 1,100 books have been sold internationally.
• Another book, Mitigating Bias in Machine Learning, was published by McGraw-Hill in October. Dr. Carlotta A. Berry and I co-edited this textbook as a practical guide that shows, step by step, how to use machine learning to carry out actionable decisions that minimize discrimination based on numerous human factors, including ethnicity and gender. The 25 chapter authors examine many kinds of bias that plague our society today and provide mitigation strategies that are ready to deploy across a wide range of technologies, applications, and industries.
• DataedX continues to invest in Black-owned and operated businesses. The vast majority of our vendors, contractors and speakers were Black business owners. I’m proud that we can fiscally support them by procuring their services. They have made every DataedX-coordinated event top-tier!
• On a personal note, the keynote speeches, workshop facilitations and coaching activities done this year has allowed me to directly address their top-of-mind pain points and reduce their data overwhelm while helping them craft strategic and impactful next steps.​

I'm even more encouraged that moving slower and building more responsible tech will continue to gain momentum. While data and AI will continue to be trending topics, more attention will be paid to how and when DataOps as well as AIOps occur. That's our open invitation to insert notions of responsible interventions or raise awareness to curtail the adoption of harm-inducing algorithms. Onward and upward for 2025!

Stay Rebel Techie,

Dr. Brandeis

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