When building a new data product or beginning a new analysis, determining where to start can be challenging. The Data Lab acts as a guide, helping teams harness data and technology to reach their impact goals while avoiding common pitfalls. The Data Lab provides support:

• Identifying data sources;
• Recommending or vetting technical partners;
• Advising on data policy and open-source licensing; and
• Recommending novel data science methods.

Doing data analysis or product development requires computational infrastructure. The Data Lab helps teams set up the right infrastructure, building on industry and organizational best practices to improve coherence among products and have lower costs.

The Data Lab helps our partners turn data into action. To this end, The Data Lab offers three data sciences services:

• Data Visualization Design: In collaboration with WRI’s Communications team, The Data Lab designs and builds creative data visualizations to tell data stories that support communication, advocacy and decision making.
• Data Tool Development: The Data Lab builds data analysis software and applications that support research and program implementation.
• Statistics, Machine Learning and AI Consulting: Data science moves fast. The Data Lab helps teams around the world to understand, develop and deploy new quantitative methods to advance their work.

When teams at WRI plan new product development, the Data Lab helps them conduct user research, develop designs and build prototypes.

Over the years, WRI has built a catalog of robust data products that improve decision-making, enable radical transparency and drive impact. The Data Lab’s in-house team of product managers and engineers ensures that our largest products increase their impact while improving sustainability. 

We are looking for partners who are interested in the potential for AI and ML to address the world’s most pressing issues. If you would like to contribute to this growing body of work please contact Evan Tachovsky at evan.tachovsky@wri.org.