Data for the People! | Podcast Guru

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Every day, millions of Americans rely on federal data—often without realizing it. From checking the weather forecast to planning retirement, from tracking disease outbreaks to measuring economic growth, government datasets power decisions that shape our daily lives and drive billions in economic activity. Data for the People! is a new podcast from the Data Foundation that shines a light on this essential but often overlooked infrastructure. Hosted by J.B. Wogan, each episode features conversations with leaders from the public and private sectors about the national datasets that belong to the American people and the policy changes in Washington that could enable—or limit—their use.

Recent Episodes

David J. Hayes on Making Climate and Environmental Data More Useful for Decisionmakers

Send us Fan Mail The latest episode of Data for the People! features David J. Hayes, an attorney and legal scholar who served in three presidential administrations, including twice as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior, and most recently as Special Assistant to the President for Climate Policy. He is currently an Advisory Board Member and Co-Founder of the Center for Climate and Environmental Data (CCED) at the Data Foundation and a professor of practice at Stanford U...

26 MIN

Building Government That Works Together: Natalie Evans Harris on Data, AI, and Putting People First

Send us Fan Mail The guest for this episode of Data for the People! is Natalie Evans Harris, Chief Data Officer for the State of Maryland and a Data Foundation Senior Fellow. Harris discusses how Maryland is building a statewide data infrastructure that enables agencies to work together, strengthens data governance, improves data literacy, and prepares the state for responsible artificial intelligence. Read a blog summary of the episode. During the interview, Harris also offers two cont...

35 MIN

Better Data, Stronger Communities: Using Data to Build Resilience in a Changing Climate

Send us Fan Mail At the 2026 Data Summit, Leanne Spaulding, Resilience and Data Lead at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center, moderated a conversation on how better data can support resilience, environmental risk management, and growth. She was joined by Emily Dhingra, Senior Project Manager for Climate Resilience and Adaptation at AECOM; Kathie Dello, Assistant Secretary for Resilience at the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality; and Paula Pagniez, former Executive Direct...

35 MIN

Funding the Future of Public Data

Send us Fan Mail This episode of Data for the People! shares highlights from the Data Foundation’s 2026 Data Summit, focusing on philanthropy’s role in supporting a stronger shared data ecosystem. Data Foundation President and CEO Nick Hart moderates a conversation with Daniella Lowenberg of the Data Funders Collaborative and Rachel Snyderman of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Lowenberg describes the Collaborative’s priorities, including modernizing state and local data infrastructure, ...

22 MIN

Taka Ariga on Using AI to Combat Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Public Programs

Send us Fan Mail In the latest episode of Data for the People!, Data Foundation Senior Fellow Taka Ariga discusses the prospect of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance government efforts to prevent fraud and other types of improper payments in public benefit programs. Ariga was the first Chief Data Scientist at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) where he also directed GAO’s Innovation Lab. He later served as the Chief Data Officer (CDO) and Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer at ...

47 MIN