On the occasion of International Women’s Day and its 2023 theme #EmbraceEquity, the Datasphere Initiative spoke to a range of policy professionals in the Datasphere Initiative’s global network, to ask them: why equity should be a core goal in policy and technical approaches to responsibly unlocking the value of data?
Tamara Singh, Board Member, People Centered Internet shared her perspectives and identified specific actions that can be taken.
Read more about the campaign and other contributions here
“Do no evil”. Well, technology doesn’t. The frissons and fractures causing strife in society today are man-made, having grown starker as industrial and technological advances have widened the gaps between the identities we embraced. The policies that were implemented in good faith, with the best of the knowledge available to us, have proven insufficient to promote a thriving society. Learning from the growth that got us here today, the time has come to act consciously, and to test ourselves. Policies must be designed to serve the communities they cater to, and policymakers and implementers must continuously question whether these are working as intended. Data is the key to allow us to grow in this exponential age, where lagging indicators can mean that a course is too deeply trodden to correct. Data enables us to better model outcomes, and monitor performance, to avoid building burning platforms in the future.
The People Centered Internet is proud to have long supported equality and inclusion. Our Chair, Fung Mei Lin, is a pioneer of Customer Relationship Management and continues to build inclusive, equitable communities with people at their center. In our work, we consider how data, while neutral, can be poorly assembled or interrogated, resulting in biased outcomes. We also examine how fear of backlash can lead to organizations evading the issue, rather than taking the opportunity to step up and show growth. The same exists in today’s world of greenwashing, and we hope that people are empowered by policy and practice to instead responsibly use data to drive superior outcomes.
Tamara draws on her expertise in Financial Systems, Digital, and Sustainability to consider global systems and the nudges that may help to render them more sustainable. She enjoys a portfolio career that allows her to devote her energy to her profession and her passions. Having built her career across energy, financial services, and fund management, governing trading floors in London, New York, and the Asia Pacific. Tamara earned her stripes at Centrica Plc, BP Oil International, Deutsche Bank, and Macquarie Bank, before returning home to Singapore in 2012. On home ground, Tamara served Westpac Banking Corporation and then her country. Whilst supporting GIC’s mandate for the nation, she contributed to digital transformation and sustainability initiatives, building relationships across the financial ecosystem worldwide.
This ignited her to structure a portfolio career centered on enabling sustainable organizations to scale while championing impactful change. At present, Tamara works at all levels across industries to both better the finance ecosystem and to further enterprises through sustainable business practices. She holds Board positions with the People Centered Internet, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, Conjunct Consulting, South East Asia’s first social change consultancy, and Advancement for Rural Kids. She coaches leaders of organizations and advises start-ups navigating sustainability and scale. She leverages her experience and degrees in Law and Applied Accounting to boost the organizations and causes she works with. Tamara attained her Executive Masters in Business Administration from INSEAD whilst pregnant with her second child, which she confesses to being “efficient but not necessarily recommended”. She recharges through appreciating food and drink in excellent company, then exercising and dieting in solitude. She is devoted to her two young sons, who have stretched her out of her comfort zone and into efforts to master ball sports and patience.
