Intended audience: DataKind Volunteers and Social Impact Professionals
Introduction to the Playbook
The Playbook is a living knowledge base that enables the reader to design and implement a Data Science and AI for Good project following DataKind’s approach. The Playbook codifies the lessons we’ve learned from our failures and successes for use on future projects, making it easier for DataKinders around the globe to do the best work possible through sharing knowledge and resources.
About DataKind
DataKind tackles the world’s toughest challenges with data science and AI to improve the capabilities, reach, and scale of social impact organizations. Check out our website to learn more about our story, our approach, and our values.
About the Playbook
The Playbook was developed by DataKind staff, in partnership with volunteers, to be a central source of the best practices and resources we’ve developed over a decade of Data Science and AI for Good projects. If you’re curious, you can read a full writeup of the Playbook development process. We continuously review and update the playbook based on our latest work and feedback from users, so let us know what you think!
Playbook Guiding Principles
The primary audience for the Playbook is DataKind volunteers to guide them in their work, but it’s also useful for data professionals supporting social sector actors more broadly. The Playbook is maintained around these three guiding principles:
- A living document: We are constantly learning; the Playbook is designed to be continuously updated as our processes and recommendations evolve.
- A set of standards: We document project standards to ensure that all of our work is high quality technically, and with equity, justice, and co-liberation top of mind across our global network.
- An answer to the question “how do I do this?”: The Playbook exists to answer the questions of HOW to do various components of a project. Recognizing that all projects are different and processes need to be flexible, the articles include a variety of options for the “how,” so that the method can be adjusted to the cultural context and specific needs of the project.
FAQs
How do I get started?
- Explore the Playbook! Click around the various sections to get an idea of the overall structure and the types of articles it contains.
- Use the Playbook as you’re moving forward with new projects - review each article relevant to the project stage that you are in throughout the project process.
- Bookmark the Playbook to come back to whenever you have a question so that you can review the relevant resources at each point in the process.
- Create a GitHub account so you can check out our project repository and add your ideas, experiences, and best practices to Playbook articles via pull requests.
I encountered an unfamiliar term, what does it mean?
If you encounter an unfamiliar term, refer to our terminology page for more information.
How do I provide feedback or ask questions?
- Reach out to community@datakind.org with any feedback, ideas, or questions, and someone will get back to you. You can also use our Office Hours to schedule a meeting with someone at DataKind. If you’d like to contribute directly on github, you can find the repository here.
Contributer(s): Rachel Wells
Contact us
If you would like to learn more about us, partner with us, or get in touch, visit our website or email community@datakind.org.
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