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| Hawaiʻi Data Collaborative | |
|---|---|
| Name | Hawaiʻi Data Collaborative |
| Formation | 2016 |
| Type | Nonprofit consortium |
| Headquarters | Honolulu, Hawaiʻi |
| Region served | State of Hawaiʻi |
Hawaiʻi Data Collaborative
The Hawaiʻi Data Collaborative is a Honolulu-based nonprofit consortium formed to centralize, standardize, and disseminate public-interest datasets for policymakers, researchers, and community organizations across Oʻahu and the wider Hawaiian Islands. It works at the intersection of civic technology, public policy, and community development, engaging stakeholders from state and county agencies, academic institutions, philanthropic foundations, and nonprofit service providers to improve decision-making on issues such as housing, transportation, health, and environmental resilience.
The Collaborative was founded in 2016 amid conversations involving stakeholders from the State of Hawaiʻi Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, City and County of Honolulu, Hawaiʻi State Legislature, and local universities including the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Kapiʻolani Community College; early backers included philanthropic actors such as the Kamehameha Schools, the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation, and national funders like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Its formation followed regional data initiatives modeled on efforts by the Sunlight Foundation, Open Data Institute, and municipal data collaboratives in cities like New York City and San Francisco, and it aligned with statewide planning documents such as the Hawaiʻi State Plan and county comprehensive plans. Over its history the Collaborative has responded to events including the 2018 Hawaiʻi false missile alert, the 2019-2020 measles outbreak in Hawaiʻi (island), and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, partnering with public health entities such as the Hawaiʻi State Department of Health and disaster-management organizations like the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide timely datasets and analyses.
The Collaborative's mission emphasizes data accessibility, transparency, and evidence-based policy by curating open datasets, producing dashboards, and publishing reproducible analyses to support agencies such as the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation, the Hawaiʻi Public Housing Authority, and the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Activities include hosting hackathons inspired by competitions organized by Code for America and the Knight Foundation, training programs modeled after curricula from the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, and convenings drawing participants from entities like the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice, and the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association.
Governance is structured as a multi-stakeholder board that includes representatives from higher education such as University of Hawaiʻi System, county governments including Maui County and Hawaiʻi County, Hawaiʻi, nonprofit leaders from organizations like Legal Aid Society of Hawaiʻi, and funders like McInerny Foundation and Aloha United Way. Funding sources have included state grants from agencies such as the Hawaii State Data Center, project contracts with the Department of Health (Hawaii), philanthropic grants from entities like the Gannett Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation, and inkind support from partners including the Hawaiʻi Technology Development Corporation and private-sector firms.
Project work spans thematic portfolios including housing and homelessness dashboards that integrate inventories from the Hawaiʻi Public Housing Authority and providers such as Catholic Charities Hawaiʻi; transportation analytics combining feeds from TheBus and county transit agencies; public health surveillance providing case and vaccination data aligned with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting standards; and sea-level rise and coastal resilience layers coordinating with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment. Programs include training workshops leveraging methods from the Alan Turing Institute and the Carnegie Mellon University school of public policy, reproducible research pipelines using tools popularized by the R Project for Statistical Computing and Python (programming language), and data standardization efforts referencing schemas like those promoted by the Open Geospatial Consortium and the International Organization for Standardization.
The Collaborative partners with academic institutions such as Hawaiʻi Pacific University, Chaminade University of Honolulu, and the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo; government entities like the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation and the Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency; philanthropy and civic groups including the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation and Common Cause; and national research centers like the National Academy of Sciences and the Pew Research Center. It also engages industry partners ranging from cloud providers used by organizations like Google and Amazon Web Services to local firms participating in regional innovation networks such as Elemental Excelerator.
The Collaborative's datasets and visualizations have informed legislative briefings at the Hawaiʻi State Capitol, operational planning by the Department of Land and Natural Resources for coastal management, allocation decisions by the Hawaiʻi Public Housing Authority for voucher distribution, and public-health outreach strategies by the Hawaiʻi State Department of Health during infectious-disease responses. Researchers at institutions such as Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have cited or used Collaborative-curated datasets for studies on housing affordability, while local nonprofits like Aloha United Way and Partners in Care have used dashboards to prioritize service delivery.
Data governance practices emphasize privacy-preserving techniques and ethical stewardship aligned with frameworks from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Federal Trade Commission, and academic ethics guidelines from institutions like Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University. The Collaborative applies deidentification protocols consistent with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act considerations when sharing health-related datasets, conducts privacy impact assessments similar to those recommended by the United States Digital Service, and consults indigenous stewardship models involving stakeholders such as Office of Hawaiian Affairs and cultural practitioners from hālau and Hawaiian civic organizations to respect data sovereignty concerns.
Category:Organizations based in Honolulu Category:Non-profit organizations based in Hawaii