Data Visualization
Sophisticated data visualization tools that illustrate data stories
Our team of visual designers and data scientists bring the AI for Good Lab’s learnings to light via “data stories” developed for a broad audience and illustrated using sophisticated data visualization tools. By combining science with art, we translate research into beautiful, compelling, and inclusive data narratives. In partnership with non-profits, research institutes, NGOs, and governments, we strive to make complex data easier to grasp, increase our shared understanding, and catalyze others to uncover hidden insights. Some of the projects include:
Mapping digital equity
Accurate mapping is essential to disburse broadband funds efficiently and to maximize resources and investments in communities of the highest need. This dashboard is intended to empower state agencies, nonprofits, and policymakers with the best data possible as a resource to assist in identifying key places and communities within their state so they can direct funding and programmatic investments.
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Opening broadband data
We are publishing datasets we developed as part of our efforts with Microsoft’s Airband Initiative to help close the rural broadband gap. The data can be used to analyse, understand, improve, or address problems related to broadband access. We use illustrations to communicate broadband availability and usage across the nation.
The path to becoming carbon negative
Microsoft made a commitment to become carbon negative as a company by 2030 – meaning that by that date we will remove from the environment more carbon than we emit. By 2050, we committed that we’ll remove from the environment all the carbon that Microsoft has emitted directly or through electricity use since the company was founded in 1975. Here we use an illustration to visually show the pathway to becoming carbon negative.
Expanding the cybersecurity workforce
At the end of 2021, Microsoft launched a national campaign with U.S. community colleges to help skill and recruit into the cybersecurity workforce 250,000 people by 2025, representing half of the country’s workforce shortage. While some of these individuals will work at Microsoft, the vast majority will work for tens of thousands of other employers across the country. We created a Power BI dashboard so you can check out the details for each state in the nation.
Sustainability and increasing our carbon fee
New research we commissioned with Pricewaterhouse Coopers UK (PwC UK) shows that greater adoption of AI across even a few sectors has the potential to boost global GDP by up to 4.4 percent, while also reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 4 percent. This is approximately 2.4 gigatons of CO2, equivalent to zeroing out the 2030 annual emissions of Australia, Canada and Japan combined.
Addressing the sustainability skills gap
This report represents the culmination of intensive research conducted by Microsoft and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) with roughly 250 employees at 15 companies that are at the forefront of sustainability innovation and change. It highlights the formidable sustainability skilling challenges we must overcome around the world. Even more important, it offers several concrete recommendations, both for business leaders and government policymakers.
Read the article (opens in new tab) | View the report (opens in new tab)