The DataScientia Manifesto

Unity through diversity

  1. Data, as they are available in the Internet, are the fuel that is boosting the rise of a new, smarter society that we want to be more open, inclusive and enabling a better quality of life.
  2. Data should be available and reusable at affordable costs by everybody, independently of gender, religion, nationality, level of wealth or any other contingent factor.
  3. Data should properly represent the diversity of the worlds that are perceived, as they result from the local culture and traditions, needs and purpose. Data should be expressed in the local languages and should record those facts that are contextually relevant, with the format and values that are most appropriate.
  4. Knowledge should absorb the diversity of data into progressively more unified representations of the unity underlying it.
  5. Knowledge and data should be developed thanks to the voluntary efforts of the interested parties, each operating in full autonomy.
  6. DataScientia is a non-profit organization whose aim is the development of an infrastructure supporting the emergence of a unitary knowledge-driven understanding of diversity, as represented by data.
  7. DataScientia’s first aim is the technological infrastructure.
  8. DataScientia’s second aim is the organizational infrastructure, via the development and adoption of shared best practices.
  9. DataScientia’s third aim is the legal infrastructure, dealing, among others, with the issues related to licensing and privacy.
  10. DataScientia’s fourth aim is the social infrastructure, that is, a community centered around the understanding of data, their development and their exploitation, both social and economic.

DataScientia - Unitas per veritam

“DataScientia”, for “Scientia per Data” the Latin text for “Knowledge through data”. 

“Scientia”, from sciens, the present participle of scio, meaning to know, to understand - the same root as conscientia, meaning both knowledge shared with others and knowledge within oneself. 

“Data”, the plural of datum, meaning a given, what we take for granted as the basis of our thinking - that we take here to be a digital representation of the world.

“Unitas per Varietatem”, the Latin text for “Unity through Diversity” - How can we reach to the Unity of Knowledge by understanding and thanks to the Diversity of Data?