Open Data Campaign

Microsoft talk about closing the data divide and the need for open data.  Thus helping remove barriers to data innovation. The data divide progress report on can be read here

Microsoft launched five data collaboration principles in connection with this. 

Open: We will work to make data relevant to important social problems as open as possible, including by contributing open data ourselves.

Usable: We will invest in creating new technologies and tools, governance mechanisms, and policies to make data more usable for everyone

 

Empowering: We will help organizations generate value from their data according to their choices and develop their AI talent to use data effectively and independently

Secure: We will employ security controls to ensure data collaboration is operationally secure where it is desired.

Private: We will help organizations protect individuals’ privacy in data sharing collaborations that involve personally identifiable information

Data Toboggan - our year 2021

We have had a very busy first year and enjoyed it all. Thank you to all who made our conferences possible, organisers, speakers, attendees, our logo designer and to those who helped share our event.

We are back 29 January 2022. 

Call for Speakers https://bit.ly/DT22CFS 

Register https://bit.ly/DT22Register

Azure Purview Dataset provisioning by data owner for Azure Storage (preview)

 

Azure Purview Dataset provisioning by data owner for Azure Storage (preview)

Guide: how a data owner can enable access to data stored in Azure Storage from Azure Purview

To enable access policy enforcement for the Azure Storage account the following PowerShell command needs executing in the subscription where the Azure Storage account resides. It relates to all Azure Storage accounts in that subscription.

# Install the Az module

Install-Module -Name Az -Scope CurrentUser -Repository PSGallery -Force

# Login into the subscription

Connect-AzAccount -Subscription <SubscriptionID>

# Register the feature

Register-AzProviderFeature -FeatureName AllowPurviewPolicyEnforcement -ProviderNamespace Microsoft.Storage

Note: Only new Storage accounts, created in the subscription after the feature AllowPurviewPolicyEnforcement is registered, will comply with access policies published from Purview.

More details to read about this option

Put Responsible AI into Practice

I attended a digital event, 7 December, where Microsoft launched the Ten Guidelines for Product Leaders to Implement AI Responsibly following their own journey. This is a really useful document and has been collated with diverse perspectives, lived and possessional skills sets. It is where technology meets society and business and research have been working together to enhance the output. 

Microsoft shared their path to a responsible AI governance model.

1. AETHER - AI & Ethics in Engineering & Research
2. ORA - Office of Responsible AI
3. RAISE - Responsible AI Strategy in Engineering

The AI guidelines process has 3 stages:

• Assess & prepare
• Design, build, & document
• Validate & support

The report explains the actionable steps

There is a Responsible AI dashboard which is helpful for actionable insights.  The responsible AI dashboard includes: Error Analysis Model Statistics, Data Explorer, Aggregate feature importance, What-if counterfactuals, Causal analysis.

There is a Responsible AI Toolbox  to get started with 

The Chief Data Officer seat at the table

Microsoft have written a white paper called Microsoft Azure: The Chief Data Officer (CDO) Seat at the Cloud Table It is an interesting paper to read.

The Whitepaper looks at four areas

1. Journey
2. Framework
3. Product
4. Resources

The document mentions other related capabilities that need to be included in a data governance program:

• Data Discoverability 
• Data Quality Management
• Data Access Management 
• Data Compliance 
• Data Lifecycle Management 
• Data Health Scorecards  

Microsoft’s data governance approach is listed as

• Set the scope of data governance for your organization
• Set enterprise data governance requirements through policies and standards
• Set ownership and accountability for data governance
• Start with a unified, metadata-driven vision with automation
• Iterate, not big bang
• Educate and enable change
• Monitor and revise

The Data Management Capabilities Model Framework (DCAM) core capabilities closely align the Microsoft Framework.  DCAM establishes the data strategy, position the business case, implement the operating model, ensure funding and supportive organizational collaboration.

The holistic list of capabilities highlighted in the CDMC from the EDM Council is:

• Data Cataloguing and Discovery 
• Data Classification 
• Data Ownership 
• Data Security 
• Data Sovereignty and Cross-Border Data Sharing 
• Data Quality
• Data Lifecycle Management 
• Data Entitlements and Access Tracking  
• Data Lineage  
• Data Privacy 
• Trusted Source Management and Data Contracts 
• Ethical Use and Purpose 
• Master Data Management