Feng Gao

I’m an activitist, researcher and practitioner promoting and builiding an open digital future in China. Co-Founder of Open Data China, and SODA. Proudly on the board of Open Supply Hub, and Shanghai Association of AI and Social Development.

Public Data for Public Interest

This is a new project launched in 2023 aimed at focusing on public data governance from a public interest perspective. We will approach it from three aspects:

  • (1) Define what is public data? Specifically, from a public interest perspective, which data should be placed under a governance framework that aligns with public interest?
  • (2) Exploring reasonable public data governance models, including but not limited to China’s current exploration of public data authorized operation (i.e., entrusting third parties to implement data openness/sharing ) and the application of data trusts/institutions in managing public data held by a mixed group of private and public bodies.
  • (3) Observing and tracking the current circulation and governance status of high-value public data in China.

Lay Man’s Guide to Digital RIghts

The project origianlly started in 2021 as a series of interactive workshops with the aim to raise citizens’ awareness of ditial rights issues, equip them with necessary knowledges and tools, and convene a community for discussion and possible actions. There is a plan to further continue and expand the project in 2023 to:

  • Grow the community and produce bi-weekly newsletters to further engage the community
  • Create an open training kit to teach basics of digital rights, promote existing tools and engage citizens in imagining a more participatory governance approach
  • Conduct reality-check studies to evaluate the effectiveness of the efforts made by large enterprises towards AI and personal data transparency.

Open License for AI Data

A joint project with Shanghai Baiyulan Open AI Institute. We explored how to develop a new license (github repo) to openly share data for AI development. In addtion to the development of the license, we also ran surveys and conducted desk research to understand the curernt landscape of existing open AI data authored and published by Chinese entities.