Dear CHANCE Colleagues,

Have you considered using your data analysis skills to promote social good and make the world a better place? Many skilled professionals from a wide gamut of fields apply their skills, through full-time employment or part-time volunteering, to worthy causes such as promoting clean air and water, combating hunger and disease, and fighting slavery and human trafficking. Maybe you would like to be involved, but are unsure where to begin or what is even possible. In this special issue of CHANCE, we offer the opportunity to hear from those who have used their data analysis skills to make a difference in challenges facing the world.

It is my pleasure to share this special issue of CHANCE with you on the topic of collaborating to apply data and statistics to the public good. I wish to thank the three guest editors for their shared expertise and hard work: Caitlin Augustin, senior director, product, at DataKind; Matt Brems, senior manager of data science product and strategy at DataRobot, managing partner at BetaVector, and vice chair of Statistics Without Borders; and Davina Durgana, quantitative research lead at the Minderoo Foundation’s Walk Free human rights group, who is also chair of Statistics Without Borders.

In addition to the articles in the magazine, be sure to check out extra online-only articles on the CHANCE website. There you will find an article by Benjamin Kinsella describing the data for good movement and insights into volunteer motivations. An article by Violeta Balinskaite highlights the pro bono work she performed for Sydenham Gardens, a charity that provides group arts and activity-based recovery programs for people with mental health problems. An article by Preetam Debasish Saha Roy and Sangeeta Jayadevan outlines the development of a COVID-19 monitoring framework for Indian cities. PDF versions of all articles can be obtained from the Taylor & Francis website.

Amanda Peterson-Plunkett

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