Data science has a really bad reputation recently. Between Facebook's privacy violations , facial scanning at kiosks in restaurants, and racism in algorithms, there are a lot of cases where surveillance, invasion of privacy, and unethical algorithms are dominating the news.
These cases are really important to make public, study, and prevent. But it's just as important to collect examples of good use cases of data science (that are not hyperbolized or PR fluff) so we can focus on those as an industry, and learn about what makes them work, as well.
Have some? Make some? Feel free to leave a comment or edit.
- Lenny - Using chatbots to fight voicemail spam
- NextStrain - Real-time tracking of viral outbreaks and provide interactive data visualizations to virologists, epidemiologists, public health officials and citizen scientists. (thanks to @Gastove)
- OReilly Data Science Survey - Using data science to help data scientists calculate what they should be making
- Boston RAT - Figuring out where rats are coming from in Sommerville, Massachussets and clamping down. (thanks to @ProphetTaku)
Vicki - University of Chicago have this program called "Data Science for Social Good". I tried for an internship for this program in 2013 I think. They have a list of projects - https://dssg.uchicago.edu/projects/ . My personal favorite is food bank - https://dssg.uchicago.edu/project/identifying-new-opportunities-for-food-bank-donation-from-food-service-retail/ - considering how much food is wasted in United States at the same time we have people struggling.