Submission

2KLAS: Building the data economy marketplace

Establish a digital marketplace for data sets where both buyers and sellers congregate, display, select, or purchase curated data they need.

Jove I. Tapiador

M&E Specialist, USAID E-PESO

jtapiador@epeso.org.ph

Asia

USAID E-PESO

Economic Growth and Trade
Supply Chain Solutions

Development practitioners try to formulate and track indicators using consistent, high-quality data. However, they find that baseline data is not readily available, or even accessible, since it may be stored in other people or other firms' databases. In fact, much of the social, health, economic, and demographic data are archived in government, academic, and private databases -- virtually unusable to those who need it.

2KLAS (pronounced 'too-klas') solves this problem by deploying a marketplace and platform of data sets such that data sellers are incentivized to share their unused data to a general market of buyers such as non-profits, development actors, and private companies. This demand for high-quality, curated data supports the efforts of suppliers to produce needed information as well as monetize a new asset class in the long-term. Data-rich companies such as research firms, media companies, and even development players such as Chemonics can finally leverage this type of unused asset to strengthen their balance sheet, boost profitability, and sustain their mission. It also kickstarts a genuine data economy, where data is the new currency for the digital economy.

By the way, 2klas or 'tuklas' is Filipino for 'discover'.

This idea builds on other data marketplaces, usually for financial services, but deploys it in the development space. 2KLAS introduces innovations by providing strong data integration technology, wherein disparate data sets are combined on the platform itself and need not be downloaded. It also allows a buyer to purchase data at a record-level, rather than purchasing an entire file, such that you buy only what you need. You buy a song instead of an album. You buy retail instead of wholesale.

The application of 2KLAS can be felt at the firm level and project level. At the firm-level, Chemonics can finally tap into years of data accumulated from projects around the world for the past decade and marry it with a Big Data initiative to identify project trends and anticipate project outcomes in healthcare, environment, or economic growth. At the project-level, a project can access datasets it requires without having to waste time and effort looking and curating for it.

Initially, Chemonics can internally pilot 2KLAS to create a virtual marketplace and develop mechanisms to incentivize data sharing. Once tested and improved, it can be incubated, accelerated, and spun-off as a subsidiary or affiliate company that can offer its services not just to its partners such as USAID, but even to competitors. This cooperation with competitors allows Chemonics to tap into other high-quality data pools to craft better proposals and strategies for higher impact development outcomes -- all using data-derived analysis.

To develop the technology, a dedicated software engineering team would require 7-9 months to develop a minimum viable product (MVP) and 6-8 months to pilot it, for a total of 13-17 months of development work and piloting. For a total direct project cost of $250,000-$300,000, it is less than 0.033% of Chemonics' total revenue. However, Chemonics' returns are in incalculable since it will rationalize data flows, improve project efficiencies, and catapult the company to a technology-driven development firm with a long-tail revenue stream from this idea.

Globally: Home Office in the United States; Field Offices touched by Supply Chain Solutions; Philippines

Potential outcomes:
1. Data-driven Chemonics strategic decisions, reduced cognitive biases;
2. Data-driven project-level decisions, reduced cognitive and behavioral biases;
3. Better allocation of company and project resources, improved asset productivity;
4. Data-driven proposal formulation, improved project wins;
5. Efficient data sharing schemes, improved employee collaboration and productivity;
6. Alternative sources of income, increased profitability.

This technology is firm-wide and can be used by all data-intensive projects now and in the future ranging from healthcare, education, agriculture, environment, to economic growth.

2KLAS Small Deck.pdf