The Business of Data Cooperatives

This panel will present a conversation among several people who are leading data coops/data unions in the real world. Their business models differ in significant ways, but all share the motivation of transferring power away from a few large corporations and to regular people who produce valuable data.

Angela Benton Founder and Chief Executive Officer • Streamlytics Angela Benton is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Streamlytics, which helps everyday people and companies ethically access consumer data streams while helping them own their data in the process. Prior to her role at Streamlytics she founded the first accelerator for minorities globally in 2011, NewME was acquired in December 2018

Shiv Malik Head of Growth • Streamr Shiv Malik is the author of two books, the co-founder of the Intergenerational Foundation think tank, and a former investigative journalist for the Guardian. He currently evanglises about a new decentralised data economy for the open source project Streamr and is completely psyched about bringing data unions to the world.

Erik Rind CEO • ImagineBC Erik Rind is the CEO of ImagineBC and an expert in understanding the largely untapped potential that Blockchain and AI technologies bring forward in order to help secure user’s data. He has had significant exposure to writing software in the HCM space and is in the position to bring these skills to his new company. Erik graduated from George Washington University in 1983 with a B.A. in History.

Christian Liensburger Principal PM Manager & Advisor to the CTO • Microsoft Christian is a seasoned technical leader at Microsoft. He manages a multidisciplinary team of program managers, designers and developers to incubate disruptive ML/AI products that are directly sponsored by Microsoft’s senior leadership team. This includes a set of key cross-company initiatives & projects to evolve the approach to ML/AI & data at Microsoft and throughout the industry.

James Felton Keith (Moderator) First Black Queer For US Congress, President • The Data Union James Felton Keith, affectionately known as JFK, is an award-winning engineer and author who was the first Black member of the LGBTQ community to run for federal office in the USA via Congress. As an author and ethnographer of technology, he defined data as a natural resource. He is currently President of The Data Union and an editor of the Anthem Press Ethics of Personal Data Collection series. His core philosophy is Inclusionism and he hosts the WHCR 90.3FM radio show with that title on Sundays from Harlem, NYC.