Team: Alex Selkirk, Grace Meng, Mimi Yin and Geoff Desa.
How we got started...
The Common Data Project is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and was started in 2007 by Alex Selkirk.
Over the past 10 years, while designing and working with data collection systems, first at Epinions and then Microsoft, Alex saw both how valuable data collection was to the companies he worked for as well as the intrinsic limitations of how it was being done. Privacy policies were pitted against data collection in a tug of war that hamstrung data collection efforts while failing to truly empower individuals to become the keepers of their own privacy.
In the meantime, he became interested in how data collection techniques being developed by the tech industry could be repurposed for collecting data for public use.
The Common Data Project was started to explore alternative models for privacy and data collection that would result in a large public data store accessible to researchers, policymakers, individuals and businesses.
In December of 2007, Alex incorporated the organization and donated the seed money to start the Common Data Project. Grace, Mimi and Geoff joined the team in early 2008.
The Common Data Project would like to thank Van Ness Feldman and in particular Ashley Garber for donating their time and expertise to help us through the IRS 501(c)(3) application process.
Alex Selkirk EMAIL
Founder. After several years of designing and managing the development of reporting systems I left Microsoft to start the Common Data Project. My intention is for CDP to improve the quality of data available for institutional decision-making by enabling data-rich services that cannot be offered today due to privacy and technical limitations. I also run a consultancy for designing large-scale data collection and business intelligence systems. In 1999 I graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Political Science.
Grace Meng EMAIL
Education and Communications (Contractor). As a lawyer, writer, and card-carrying member of my local public library, access to information has always been important to me. After several years of practicing immigration law, I'm excited to shift my focus a bit from fighting the system to building a new system for information and knowledge. I'm especially interested in how shared access to accurate information could change our public discourse on controversial issues and help us advance social justice in new and imaginative ways. I graduated with a J.D. from Yale Law School in 2003 and a B.A. in English Literature from Yale College in 1999. I recently became a certified privacy professional.
Mimi Yin EMAIL
Board Member. Since 2003, I have been Product Designer on the Chandler Project, an open source personal information manager and sharing service designed for an emerging breed of knowledge workers. For several years I have been leading our own brand of Open Design, an approach that attempts to combine the best of open source development processes and user-centered design. I come to CDP with an interest in the product strategy and information design challenges of developing scenarios around the exchange of personal information for data-driven services. I graduated with a B.A. in Music from Yale University in 1999.
Geoff Desa EMAIL
Board Member. I am excited to be part of a technology social venture at the crossroads of information technology privacy and public-private governance. With past experience in engineering, entrepreneurship and strategic management, and research focused on technology social enterprise, I look forward to advising a venture that understands both the potential and challenges of harnessing technology to serve public interest. I am an Assistant Professor of Business at San Francisco State University, and completed my Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management, with a minor in Public Affairs from the University of Washington, Seattle in 2008. I received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech (1999) and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford (2001).