aes19 International Evaluation Conference

Jenny Riley (Clear Horizon), Jess Dart (Clear Horizon), Kristy Mansfield (Seer Data and Analytics), Reuben Stanton (Paper Giant), Chris Newman (ArcBlue Asia Pacific)

Digital, Cloud, Data Science, AI and Machine Learning, Robots....what does all this mean for the field of evaluation? Award winning evaluator Jess Dart, will host a panel of experts to explore current and emerging trends in what is hailed the 4th revolution. We will explore how new technologies are being used for social change (phone apps for finding free food, wearables for tracking in aged-care facilitates, social media for building resilience amongst farmers, apps for stream lining fines applications) and what evaluators need to be equipped to evaluate these technological interventions and also how digital can be leveraged to enhance the practice of evaluation.

The panel will reflect on real-world examples of how technical fixes can fail but also how new technology and design approaches can more democratic, participatory, transparent and importantly useful at potentially much lower costs than before. The panel will share what they have seen work well and how they evaluate success. We will also explore the ethics, risks and challenges of digital data collection, storage and reporting. We will discuss big data, small data as well as open and closed data and how we can leverage digital.