WASHINGTON -- The Coleridge Initiative, Inc. hosted their third annual national convening in Washington, D.C. from March 27th-29th. The convening highlighted the transformative potential of collaborations among government agencies and researchers that use linked administrative data to produce actionable insights to improve government programs.

"States play a critical role in building evidence to improve the impact of federal programs administered at the state and local levels," said Dr. Ahu Yildirmaz, President and CEO of the Coleridge Initiative. "They should be partners in creating the evidence-building ecosystems needed to leverage all data in ways that benefit constituents, improve programs, and inform policy."

"The Coleridge Initiative's 3rd Annual National Convening has been a highly valuable gathering of multi-state, cross-agency, and cross-sector peers," said Robert McGough, Chief Data Officer of the State of Arkansas. "The convening served to catalyze, scale, and accelerate the incredible benefits being realized through the multi-state data collaboratives and Coleridge's Administrative Data Research Facility."

"The Convening – the first in person - hosted by our partners at the Coleridge Initiative has been a huge success in continuing the conversation from the curious to the committed," said Scott B. Sanders, President and CEO of NASWA. "These discussions have helped our members in the multi-state data collaboratives move their vision to value generation in evidence-based policy discussions."

This year's convening sparked interest and continued to build upon the interest of federal, state, and proprietary data owners to work together to harness the rich government administrative and statistical data as well as private sector data to answer important policy questions. Sessions highlighted state and federal projects working with linked data, state data products being used to inform policy, and the impact of the Democratizing our Data Challenge.

About The Coleridge Initiative, Inc.

The Coleridge Initiative is a nonprofit organization working with governments to ensure that data are more effectively used for public decision-making. Coleridge provides agencies with the opportunity to enhance their workforce data literacy and collaborate within and across states to develop new technologies through the secure access and sharing of confidential microdata. Coleridge's secure data hosting platform, the Administrative Data Research Facility (ADRF), is a FedRAMP-certified environment that enables government agencies to link their longitudinal data with other states and agencies. Learn more: www.coleridgeinitiative.org

Contact: Johana Caba, M.A.
johana.caba@coleridgeinitiative.org