The document summarizes a webinar about leveraging public data for social impact through data commons. It introduces Google's data commons framework, which allows publishing and joining public data sets. Examples of how Feeding America and the San Antonio Food Bank use data to address food insecurity are provided. The panelists discuss shifting from lagging to leading indicators and talking about nutrition insecurity instead of just food insecurity. Attendees are given resources and ways to stay engaged.

1. November 8, 2023 / 11:00 AM Eastern Time
Virtual Briefing
Leveraging Public Data
for Social Impact
Webinar on
Data Commons

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This session will be recorded
How to Participate

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5. Today’s Agenda
10 min Welcome and Introductions
25 min
Google’s Data Commons:
Overview and Early Lessons
30 min
Data Insights and Food
Insecurity in the U.S.
25 min Q&A

6. Eric Cooper
San Antonio Food Bank
President & CEO
Emily Ma
Google
Head of Special Projects in
Sustainability, Real Estate
and Workplace Services
Mark Mollenkopf
Feeding America
Vice President, Digital
Platform Technology
Marnie Webb
TechSoup
Chief Community Impact Officer
/ CEO Caravan Studios

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What is Google’s Data Commons?

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Data holds stories.

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Google’s Data Commons allows
anyone with an internet connection
to access, use, and contribute to
public data.

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A framework for data
publishing
This framework includes a set of
schemas, based on Schema.org, and
a set of APIs.
Use of these schemas and APIs allow
data to be joined across multiple
instances of Data Commons.
A suite of tools
These tools allow people to access
and publish data from the site.
They also allow people to set up their
own instance of Data Commons.
Google Public Data
Commons
A large public Data Commons that
aggregates normalized data from
over 200 sources.
This data can be queried via AI
allowing for faster exploration of the
available data sets.
Google’s Data Commons has three elements
1 3
2

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Key to Data Commons is the idea that
data sets can be easily joined across
multiple instances, with a minimum
of additional data wrangling.

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1
Allows for exploration and navigation of over 90,000
distinct variables.
Statistical Variables
Explorer
3
Examine the ways variables can vary across
geographic regions.
Map Explorer
2
Visualize a variety of data about a specific location.
Place Explorer
4
Examine the way variables can vary over time.
Timeline Explorer

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Data Commons and Food Insecurity

23. Emily Ma
Google
Head of Special Projects in Sustainability,
Real Estate and Workplace Services

24. Mark Mollenkopf
Feeding America
Vice President, Digital Platform Technology

25. Eric Cooper
San Antonio Food Bank
President & CEO

26. Public Data for
Social Impact
The Feeding America Network:
200+ Food Banks, 60k Partner Agencies, & National Office

28. Big Data for Big Good!
We have a Bold Aspiration for our Network and
our country -
By 2030:
Cut the Food Insecurity rate to 5%
Reduce Race and Place-based Disparities by half
across the country

29. “Old School” > circa 2017-2018
➔ Create Concept
➔ Find ACS Data
American Community Survey
➔ Normalize and stitch together
Public ACS data
ARCgis Shapes
Internal Private data

30. Where Hunger Lives
Franklin County Ohio
(Columbus OH)
Every dot represents a
household served in a food
pantry.

34. All hunger is local
A tactical and compassionate approach
➔ Food for Today
➔ Food for Tomorrow
➔ Food for a Lifetime

36. How can we shift from
talking about
Food Insecurity
to Nutrition Insecurity?

37. Connecting Public Data
to Private Data

43. How do we shift from
Lagging Indicators
to Leading Indicators?

44. Thank You!
Q & A

45. Q & A

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Resources

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Google’s Public Data Commons
https://www.datacommons.org
TechSoup Data Commons
https://datacommons.techsoup.org/
Feeding America Data Commons
https://datacommons.feedingamerica.org
Find these examples

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Emily Ma | Google | Head of Special Projects in Sustainability, Real Estate, and Workplace Services
https://www.google.org/
Mark Mollenkopf | Feeding America |Vice President, Digital Platform Technology
https://www.feedingamerica.org/
Eric Cooper| San Antonio Food Bank |President & CEO
https://safoodbank.org/
Marnie Webb | TechSoup | Chief Community Impact Officer & CEO, Caravan Studios
https://www.techsoup.org
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marniewebb/
More about the panelists

49. Thank You!
Email datacommons@techsoup.org
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/techsoup/
https://datacommon.techsoup.org
https://tsgn.org/

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Connect Us to Others Who Care About Public Data
Support the Expansion of this Work
Share Relevant Projects You are Aware of in Your Region
Ways to Stay Engaged