Complexity Simplified: Nick Hart, President of Data Foundation, on Data as Infrastructure

This week, May 10–14, United for Infrastructure 2021 highlights the critical role that infrastructure has in our economy, public health, lives, jobs, and national security. Infrastructure is so important to moving goods along U.S. highways, ensuring communities have access to clean drinking water, and connecting people via broadband internet, among many other things.

This is United for Infrastructure’s ninth time celebrating Infrastructure Week, and this year there are more than 60 virtual events across the country and 548 affiliate organizations involved. The nonprofit’s programming is especially timely as Congress debates how to move forward on investing in infrastructure to help the economy recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Summit Director Sarah Cunningham recently sat down with Nick Hart, president of the Data Foundation, to talk about how data can be infrastructure as well.

“Data has this really important, powerful dynamic in our society today to help us do our jobs better,” Hart says. “You can’t build a road or a bridge, or think about broadband access, without elements of data weaving through everything that’s happening, from measuring distances to checking the traffic flows and predicting where and why you might want to build some physical infrastructure. […] As we evolve into the 21st century, information and data have to be thought of as part of this bigger infrastructure push.”

Tune in below to hear the rest of their insightful discussion, and learn more about “United for Infrastructure 2021: A Week to Champion America’s Infrastructure” here.