As manager of the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) for the past two years, I have met incredible people working to make humanitarian data easier, faster and more useful in their context. I have also noticed that the conversation around data, with a focus on code and infrastructure, can often get abstract very quickly.

To help make our work more accessible, HDX teamed up with the filmmaker, Michael Chung, to show how people are connecting data to positive outcomes and why it matters in the humanitarian sector. Michael travelled to Kenya and Colombia, the two pilot locations for HDX, to get a first hand look at the community engagement process for collecting data. He also interviewed data champions and policy makers in those locations and in New York and Washington D.C.

The following short film is the result of 40+ interviews – far too many than could be included in a 5 minute film. Thank you to everyone who was involved. We hope you like it.

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