We will be announcing our 2023/2024 conference dates soon.

Remarks of Founder & CEO Yeshimabeit Milner at the White House Roundtable on Protecting Americans from Harmful Data Broker Practices

We launched Decompress on Juneteenth with trailblazing voices in electronic music, such as Kenny Larkin, house music legend DJ Heather, Greg "Stryke" Chin, Godfather of the Miami electronic music s...

To commemorate Juneteenth and the launch of Decompress, we convened a powerful panel discussion featuring electronic music pioneers DJ Heather, Daygee Kwia, Eddy Andre Samy of Paperwater, and Greg ...

D4BL Decompress is a co-working lab, studios for artists/ practitioners, and a multi-use venue for events.

The battle for the soul of AI is not about preventing tech from becoming human but about preventing AI from being used to define who is human and who is not.

Our DMV Hub has spent months working with the Brennan Center to push for transparency and accountability from the MPD regarding their social media monitoring policies. Today we explicitly and publicly name MPD's use of social media as the weaponization of data.

The state of California is the first and only state to have created a state body dedicated to the study and proposal of reparations. On January 27 I gave expert testimony on discrimination in techn...

In 2021 Data for Black Lives joined forces with the Consentful Tech Project to release a curriculum guides practitioners through a process to develop technology in truly inclusive but also consentf...

We at Data for Black Lives stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and demand an end to Israeli Apartheid.

​​​​​Big companies are using data to preserve the power imbalance that keeps them rich. This economic model is rooted in chattel slavery and relies on the extraction and commodification of data.

Data for Black Lives is launching #NoMoreDataWeapons. No more investing in data weapons, no more building new data weapons, no more disguising data weapons as legitimate and neutral.

In this keynote address at the FAcct 2021 Conference, Founder & Executive Director Yeshimabeit Milner calls on researchers to do more than push for fairness, accountability and transparency-- but ...

After struggling for decades against pervasive narratives and disinvestment, Detroiters are making policy work for them.

Data for Black Lives is launching #NoMoreDataWeapons. No more investing in Data Weapons, No more building new Data Weapons, No more disguising Data Weapons as legitimate and neutral.

Data for Black Lives is launching #NoMoreDataWeapons. No more investing in Data Weapons, No more building new Data Weapons, No more disguising Data Weapons as legitimate and neutral.

Black people, overrepresented in COVID-19 deaths, are underrepresented in vaccinations.

What's up with facial recognition? Facial recognition technology has become well integrated into so many parts of our lives. We unlock our phones with our face, Facebook can automatically recognize...

What is abolition? More specifically, what does it mean to "abolish the police" or "abolish big data"? Why may we even want to abolish policing and big data? These phrases were thrown around a lot ...

What even is an algorithm? Algorithms seem to have this vice grip on our lives. However, most of us don't even know exactly what an algorithm is or does. Here at Data for Black Lives, we aim to fig...

What is predictive policing? Well, if you've seen the movie Minority Report, you already have a bit of an idea. Predictive policing involves using algorithms to analyze massive amounts of informati...

Data for Black Lives is a movement of activists, organizers, and mathematicians committed to the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people....

Learn about the disparate impact that Black and Brown communities in the DMV have been facing as a result of COVID-19, highlight the work that local DMV organizations are doing, and provide ways fo...

We convened a roundtable of organizers, activists, and practitioners to discuss how we can organize, mobilize and coordinate in this moment and for the long haul. Together, we ask the questions - w...

We convened a roundtable of organizers, activists, and practitioners to discuss how we can organize, mobilize and coordinate in this moment and for the long haul. Together, we ask the questions - w...

Following an initial system dynamics workshop at the Data for Black Lives II conference hosted at MIT in January of 2019, a group of conference participants interested in building capabilities to use system dynamics to understand complex societal issues convened monthly to explore issues related to racial bias in AI and implications for health disparities through qualitative and simulation modeling.

Data for Black Lives Statement of Solidarity with Black Minneapolis -- Campaign to stop the Cradle to Prison Algorithm

In this critical moment, COVID-19 data is being collected, released, analyzed, interpreted, and used to inform recovery and response efforts. D4BL has worked to consolidate state level data to expl...

On April 15, 2020 the Data for Black Lives Movement held a roundtable to serve as a pulse check for our movement. Today we release the report of this historic event, a culmination of voices and exp...

On April 15th, 2020, Data for Black Lives hosted a virtual roundtable and pulse check for our movement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The roundtable features experts including Black epid...

Big Data is more than a collection of technologies, more than a revolution in measurement and prediction. It has become a philosophy, an ideological regime, one that determines how decisions are ma...

Abolition means the creation of something new - the history of big data and a prophecy for big data abolition.

In 2017, New York City became the first US jurisdiction to create a task force to come up with recommendations for government use of Automated decision systems (ADS). This report is a community pow...

Data for Black Lives and Demos released a groundbreaking new report addressing data capitalism and offering solutions that build power for Black and brown communities. In the age of "big data" and ...

Speakers will discuss algorithms, race, and justice–the problems and the possibilities.

At the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences Abstract: Bid Data is more than a collection of technologies, more than a revolution in measurement and prediction. It has beco...

Opening​ ​Remarks​ ​and​ ​Introduction​ ​of​ ​Keynote​ ​Speaker:​​ ​​Yeshimabeit​ ​Milner, D4BL​ ​Executive​ ​Director​ ​(10​ ​min) Keynote​ ​Address:​​ ​​Meredith Broussard​​ ​​(45​ ​min) Po...

Opening​ ​Remarks​ ​and​ ​Introduction​ ​of​ ​Keynote​ ​Speaker:​​ ​​Yeshimabeit​ ​Milner, D4BL​ ​Executive​ ​Director​ ​(10​ ​min)

There have been only 22 censuses in our nation's history. Every 10 years the data that is the result of nationwide count is used for redistricting, to allocate government funding and for research t...

Defeating Jim Crow required an army of lawyers and a national legal strategy. But new forms of racism and oppression demand new forms of activism and resistance. And scientists are answering the ca...

In 2009, 13% of the US population were either self-employed or working as independent contractors, in 2016 this number had doubled. And from Silicon Valley to the US Supreme court, the rights of wo...

Fingerprints, facial recognition, background checks, gang databases, FBI lists, social media surveillance, credit scores: data has always been central to the expansion of the prison industrial comp...

Almost 65 years after the US Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v Board of Education, public education in this country remains fundamentally separate and unequal. In general, white children from afflue...

For many Black communities, a storm of policies and practices hit well before the first rains of Katrina, Harvey, Matthew or Florence. And everyday, these storms rage in plain sight. Climate change...

In cities like Chicago and Baltimore, where you live determines the length and quality of your life. Life expectancies range from the mid-80s in more affluent neighborhoods to 60s in the poorest co...

As algorithms and automated decisions continue to impact every aspect of our lives, in Black communities nationwide these decision-making systems animate already existing structures of oppression a...

A call to action to dismantle the structures that concentrate the power of Big Data into the hands of a few and to put data in the hands of people who need it the most.

This weekend we will turn a critical eye to the role that data and technology have played in Black communities. In panels, workshops, and over meals, we will chart out a bold new vision for the fut...

In a country where we’re still trying to end the dangerous culture of racial profiling - from Starbucks to student lounges to public spaces - we won’t allow one of the biggest tech companies to use...

Give Black researchers, data scientists and Black communities access to our data.

New innovations in technology are radically changing our economy. Self-driving cars are poised to transform the trucking industry, putting over eight million people at risk of losing their jobs. Ex...

Black artists have shaped the history of American music and continue to do so every day. Virtually every form of popular music around the world has roots in the powerful African-American musical tr...

Keynote​ ​Address:​ ​​Ronald​ ​Sullivan Farewell:​ ​​Yeshimabeit​ ​Milner,​ ​Lucas​ ​Mason-Brown,​ ​and​ ​Max​ ​Clermont

The distribution of health and disease is not random. Health disparities between Blacks and whites run deep, no matter the age or ailment. Here are the facts: Blacks have a higher mortality rate th...

Since the advent of computing, big data and algorithms have penetrated virtually every aspect of our social and economic lives. New data systems have tremendous potential to empower communities of ...

In 2012, for the first time in American history, Black people had the highest rate of voter turnout of any racial or ethnic group. And advances in data and technology have created new opportunities...

The U.S. incarcerates more people than any country in the world, and Black communities are disproportionately impacted by this mass incarceration. The disparities are staggering: although the major...

Black and brown people are vastly underrepresented in science, tech, and engineering. Although Black people report desiring to major in STEM at the same rate as their white counterparts, they are l...

Conference​ ​Welcome:​ ​​Rafael​ ​Reif,​ ​President​ ​of​ ​MIT​ ​(5​ ​min) Opening​ ​Remarks​ ​and​ ​Introduction​ ​of​ ​Keynote​ ​Speaker:​​ ​​Yeshimabeit​ ​Milner, D4BL​ ​Executive​ ​Director​...

On November 17-19 2017 we brought together community members, organizers, academics, technologists, educators, artists, policy makers, and public servants for the inaugural Data for Black Lives conference at the MIT Media Lab.