Infrastructure Isn’t Neutral: Why Codesign Matters for Data Standards

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is recognized as a critical foundation for delivering inclusive, scalable public services. Drawing on DataKind’s experience building and stewarding digital public goods, this session shares lessons from efforts to address one of DPI’s most persistent challenges: fragmented and closed data standards. As AI-enabled systems are introduced into public services, the absence of shared, interoperable standards—particularly those that support continuity of personal context—has emerged as a barrier to effectiveness, safety, and equity. Without common standards, systems remain siloed, vendor lock-in persists, and communities are excluded from shaping the infrastructure that serves them. "Good Tech" cannot meaningfully exist without technology underpinnings that center and serve the communities the technology purportedly exists for.

This session will explore how data standardization can function as a public good when paired with intentional codesign. Participants will examine why shared, open standards are a foundational layer of DPI, how persistent, user-controlled context
improves AI-supported services, and why community participation is essential to ensuring standards are trusted. During the session, we will share cross-sector, globally-representative examples and learnings from DataKind’s work in education, healthcare, and humanitarian response, and will highlight how participatory, open source codesign strengthens the adoption and long-term impact of these "good" technologies.

Participants will leave with an understanding of how shared data standards enable interoperability, reduce duplication, and unlock innovation across public-interest sectors. Discussion will foreground funding and long-term stewardship as critical objectives for DPI and conclude with a call to action to collaborate on shaping, adopting, and sustaining emerging data standards as digital public infrastructure.