Edge Session 1: Exploring Data Sovereignty + the Data Governance Crossroads in Asia

about the Edge Sessions:

how it works:
Starting September 29th, we will learn from those practitioners navigating the plurality of systems in some of the most complicated and less documented contexts.- the implications for informing systems trajectories- from policy to practice. During the two sessions comprising Edge Week 1 we will explore Alternative Development and Open Development Initiatives from across Southeast Asia, from data sovereignty and governance, to the emergent structures that grassroots actors and people centered movements have been driving despite, and in some cases because as a result of COVID19. Following the core iCOP, we will hold two more sessions the week of October 12, bringing the total number of Edge sessions to four.

about Edge Session 1:
As societies become increasingly digital how do we ensure that they are socially just and inclusive too? What implications do emergent tech and rapid development hold upon less or newly connected communities at large? What role does data sovereignty and data governance play?

In this first session of our Innovation Community of Practice Edge Week 1 we will learn from Pyrou Chung, Director of the Open Development Initiative (ODI), a project of the East West Management Institute (EWMI). She brings deep partitioning experience that anchors the above provocations most essential for this meaningful conversation. In this session Pyrou will share how the ODI is piloting and pushing to expand research and development into data sovereignty approaches, especially in terms of research, tools and infrastructure.

About Pyrou Chung
Pyrou directs the East West Management Institute’s programs on natural resource, land and data initiatives in Southeast Asia under the Open Development Initiative. As an ecologist and sustainable development expert, her work has been focused on the nexus between environmental governance, conservation and human rights, with an emphasis on implementing integrated biodiversity, natural resource management and land rights initiatives with indigenous, forest dependent or rural communities. More recently this work has intersected with the open data movement to utilise GIS data and information in an open data platform, Open Development Mekong, which promotes evidence-based decision making, digital gender inclusion and Indigenous Data Sovereignty. The platform is a one of a kind open data portal in Southeast Asia focused upon the Lower Mekong Countries — Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. ODI co-chairs the Open Data for Development AsiaHub along with Sinar Project.