The digital world is complex. We all get lost amidst cookie banners, consent forms and privacy policies. Even though being online belongs to our daily life, digital literacy is not a part of our education and even for adults it is difficult to understand data policies and the rights granted by data protection regulation. At the same time, data sharing is also the basis for participation and a discourse in the society.

The lack of a basic understanding of what data is, what happens when we share it and who profits from it creates an imbalance in terms of equality and democracy. Our project aims to change that.

We transfer the rules of data sharing into the physical world of a board game. We want to produce a game that reflects the most important players in the online world and make data visible by materializing it in the form of cards. In a number of challenges, the players can actively fight the Internet giants. Our vision is to invent a multigenerational game that can be updated by add-ons in order to keep up with new rules and regulations and that might integrate online components.

With Datopia (working title only), we increase digital literacy. We provide the unique experience to see the consequences of data sharing in a protected environment. Participants will see how they can collaboratively fight back, how they can engage in a digital society and how they can protect their privacy. We chose a board game to remove barriers and enable further discussions. We empower individuals to understand the rules of the online world by playing a game – join us! .

We envision a data cockpit that acts as a digital assistant to ensure a user’s data sovereignty. The assistant announces individual preferences of the user regarding data usage to service providers and digital platforms. It acts like a middle man that communicates the user’s privacy settings. A practical application would be that the location of a user can only be tracked by a GPS but not used for other purposes. The cockpit collects the data produced by the users and randomizes to preserve the level of anonymity wanted by the user. Social networks and data collecting platforms only receive the data a user has chosen to share, thus preventing monetisation and political information as well as disinformation without user’s explicit approval or choice. Expert Thought Leaders could give advise on how to program the digital assistant. The digital assistant could act as a matchmaker for the data market place.

Without trust, voting results lose legitimacy. Trust is a prerequisite for depth and amount of data shared: it is relevant for medical /scientific study purposes as well as for municipal and small scale votings and elections. In this context, trust is an important building block primarily for democratic processes, but also for economic processes that involve selection, voting, or stating preferences. 

So then, how can we build trust and make data sharing mutually beneficial? The aim of our project is to create a voting system that relies on blockchain technology to execute a vote. There are already a variety of companies that have created some form of e-voting system. Some of these rely on a secure and decentralized system such as the one offered via a variety of blockchains. Others simply offer a means of transmitting information digitally without the added security and transparency of using blockchain.  

With this project we would like to offer a decentralised platform, that is open sourced and enables a fully transparent exchange of data from users within an organisation. Via this system, our tool to generate trust, we would be able to fulfill the 3Ts -Track, Trace, Trust. Be part of making it reality!  

Visualize yourself as a bee. You produce honey, which is valuable to many. You are willing to share it with others for money or for the community. But you are a lonely bee, you have no beehive! Your honey goes to waste or is collected by others who profit from it. In this metaphor, your data is your honey. Your digital footprint is valuable to many: big tech companies, researchers and advertisers are collecting your data for their own purposes. But they don’t share the benefits with you. There is no equality in data sharing and the result is an unequal distribution of wealth. We want to change that.

With our project, we want to invite you to make profit out of your data on your conditions.
D-Souk is a digital marketplace which connects data owners (you) and data users (those who want your data). Data owners bring their data to the table and data users present their cause and project and offer payment in return. We envision a virtual data hive and a multisided app which allows you to trade data through your data wallet. Your benefit as a data owner is that you can sell it for profit or donate it for purposes you believe in: You may go for a remuneration, choose to donate the value of your data for supporting third-party needs or sustainable goals, receive coupons from your preferred sellers or trade at best price with interested buyers. And as a plus, you will get awareness for data flow. The decision is in your hands – you fix your conditions!

At D-Souk, you can gather information and start trading – and you will know exactly where your data goes and who profits from it. By focusing on the bee, we want to ensure that the data honey is protected, utilized properly and monetizable by you and only by you. With this project, we contribute to a shift in power dynamics, create transparency around data use and empower the individual. But our beehive is not full yet – come join us!