💬 “There’s great curiosity in the data science community to learn what to do when we feel morally compromised. To help with this, there has been calls for accreditation. I think that’s a good idea, although I’m not sure who would come up with it or agree on it, but then at least ethics would be part of such an accreditation.”

This is a conversation with Dr. Kim Nilsson

🎙️ Kim is an Astrophysics PhD, MBA and Entrepreneur. She is the CEO of Pivigo; supporting organisations to innovate with data by connecting them with a global community of the best and brightest freelancing data scientists. She is passionate about people, data and connecting the two.

🎧 In this episode, Kim described the real-world daily work of a data scientist. How they have to spend their time at present, mostly trying to fix data problems, but also what might change in the future. I asked her what makes a successful data scientist and how we might introduce more ethical thinking into the profession. Talking about ethics led onto a fascinating conversation about Cambridge Analytica and the recent A levels scandal here in the UK. I asked Kim to tell us in her own words want went wrong on both of these occasions. I asked her whether companies engage her businesses services to try to reduce their blind spots, biases and stereotypes and whether she thought open-innovation programmes such as crowdsourcing data scientists to solve problems was worth exploring for corporates. Finally, I asked Kim what inspiring message she had for new and aspiring data scientists.