Data storytelling isn't just about presenting numbers—it's about creating shared wisdom that drives better decision-making. In our increasingly polarized world, we often miss that most people actually have reasonable views hidden behind the loudest voices. But how can technology help us cut through the noise and build genuine understanding? What if AI could help us share stories across different communities and contexts, making our collective knowledge more accessible? From reducing unnecessary meetings to enabling more effective collaboration, the way we exchange information is evolving rapidly. Are you prepared for a future where AI helps us communicate more effectively rather than replacing human judgment? Professor Alex “Sandy” Pentland is a leading computational scientist, co-founder of the MIT Media Lab and Media Lab Asia, and a HAI Fellow at Stanford. Recognized by Forbes as one of the world’s most powerful data scientists, he played a key role in shaping the GDPR through the World Economic Forum and contributed to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as one of the Secretary General’s “Data Revolutionaries.” His accolades include MIT’s Toshiba Chair, election to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the Harvard Business Review McKinsey Award, and the DARPA 40th Anniversary of the Internet Award. Pentland has served on advisory boards for organizations such as the UN Secretary General, UN Foundation, Consumers Union, and formerly for the OECD, Google, AT&T, and Nissan. Companies originating from his lab have driven major innovations, including India’s Aadhaar digital identity system, Alibaba’s news and advertising arm, and the world’s largest rural health service network. His more recent ventures span mental health (Ginger.io), AI interaction management (Cogito), delivery optimization (Wise Systems), financial privacy (Akoya), and fairness in social services (Prosperia). A mentor to over 80 PhD students—many now leading in academia, research, or entrepreneurship—Pentland helped pioneer fields such as computational social science, wearable computing, and modern biometrics. His books include Social Physics, Honest Signals, Building the New Economy, and Trusted Data. In the episode, Richie and Sandy explore the role of storytelling in data and AI, how technology reshapes our narratives, the impact of AI on decision-making, the importance of shared wisdom in communities, and much more. Links Mentioned in the Show: MIT Media LabSandy’s Booksdeliberation.ioConnect with SandySkill Track: Artificial Intelligence (AI) LeadershipRelated Episode: The Human Element of AI-Driven Transformation with Steve Lucas, CEO at BoomiRewatch RADAR AI  New to DataCamp? Learn on the go using the DataCamp mobile appEmpower your business with world-class data and AI skills with DataCamp for business

Cookies were invented to help online shoppers, simply as an identifier so that online carts weren’t lost to the ether. Marketers quickly saw the power of using cookies for more than just maintaining session states, and moved to use them as part of their targeted advertising. Before we knew it, our online habits were being tracked, without our clear consent. The unregulated cookie-boom lasted until 2018 with the advent of GDPR and the CCPA. Since then marketers have been evolving their practices, looking for alternatives to cookie-tracking that will perform comparatively, and with the cookie being phased out in 2024, technologies like fingerprinting and new privacy-centric marketing strategies will play a huge role in how products meet users in the future.  Cory Munchbach has spent her career on the cutting edge of marketing technology and brings years working with Fortune 500 clients from various industries to BlueConic. Prior to BluConic, she was an analyst at Forrester Research where she covered business and consumer technology trends and the fast-moving marketing tech landscape. A sought-after speaker and industry voice, Cory’s work has been featured in Financial Times, Forbes, Raconteur, AdExchanger, The Drum, Venture Beat, Wired, AdAge, and Adweek. A life-long Bostonian, Cory has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Boston College and spends a considerable amount of her non-work hours on various volunteer and philanthropic initiatives in the greater Boston community.  In the episode, Richie and Cory cover successful marketing strategies and their use of data, the types of data used in marketing, how data is leveraged during different stages of the customer life cycle, the impact of privacy laws on data collection and marketing strategies, tips on how to use customer data while protecting privacy and adhering to regulations, the importance of data skills in marketing, the future of marketing analytics and much more. Links Mentioned in the Show: BlueConicMattel CreationsGoogle: Prepare for third-party cookie restrictionsData Clean Rooms[Course] Marketing Analytics for Business

Before the COVID-19 crisis, we were already acutely aware of the need for a broader conversation around data privacy: look no further than the Snowden revelations, Cambridge Analytica, the New York Times Privacy Project, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). In the age of COVID-19, these issues are far more acute. We also know that governments and businesses exploit crises to consolidate and rearrange power, claiming that citizens need to give up privacy for the sake of security. But is this tradeoff a false dichotomy? And what type of tools are being developed to help us through this crisis? In this episode, Katharine Jarmul, Head of Product at Cape Privacy, a company building systems to leverage secure, privacy-preserving machine learning and collaborative data science, will discuss all this and more, in conversation with Dr. Hugo Bowne-Anderson, data scientist and educator at DataCamp.Links from the show

FROM THE INTERVIEW

Katharine on TwitterKatharine on LinkedInContact Tracing in the Real World (By Ross Anderson)The Price of the Coronavirus Pandemic (By Nick Paumgarten)Do We Need to Give Up Privacy to Fight the Coronavirus? (By Julia Angwin)Introducing the Principles of Equitable Disaster Response (By Greg Bloom)Cybersecurity During COVID-19 ( By Bruce Schneier)