Improving the world through the power of advanced analytics

ABW will enable social good, sustainable development and humanitarian aid organizations to scale up the use of analytics, by helping them to carry out analytics projects and developing new analytics applications and techniques related to the SDGs.

Personal drive

”The three parties are committed to the new institute. “During my 27 years at ORTEC, I have seen how analytics truly makes a difference at companies across the globe”, says Michael van Duijn, CEO at ORTEC. “At the same time, it’s frustrating to see that valuable research, technology and knowledge does not easily find its way to non-commercial organizations. And when it does, the tangible impact is often limited.” Analytics have proven their value in creating impact for businesses, but the brightest minds are especially harnessed to accelerate the adoption of analytics products at companies. “There’s nothing inherently wrong with that”, says Dick Den Hertog, Professor of Operations Research at the University of Amsterdam and Science-to-Impact Director of ABW. “but there is so much value to be created by applying analytics to the SDGs.” Dimitris Bertsimas, professor of Business Analytics at MIT, couldn’t agree more: “Analytics has had an increasing influence on the commercial sector and has attracted a lot of talent in the process. The financial incentives drawing people to the non-profit sector are less alluring, which is why there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit to be picked.”

“It's frustrating to see that valuable research, technology and knowledge does not easily find its way to non-commercial organizations.”

A special mission

The mission of ABW stretches further than just implementing analytics. “We’re also looking to create an open-source digital solutions marketplace on which NGOs can shop around for solutions that have already been developed by others”, says Marc Salomon, Professor of Decision Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, and Chairman of the Amsterdam Business School. “This free for use marketplace will help NGOs cut costs, give them quicker access to solutions and significantly boost the impact of investments.” ABW will also help NGOs with educating their staff. Salomon continues: “We’ll be organizing in-house courses and plenary Summer and Winter schools aimed at teaching NGO staff what they can do with analytics.” On top of that, ABW will also conduct applied research, launch a journal, and organize meetups and seminars for researchers.

“We're also looking to create an open-source digital solutions marketplace on which NGOs can shop around for solutions that have already been developed by others.”

ABW brings together both science and practice to pursue its special mission. “Over the past 40 years, we have learned that analytics is not ‘just some technical tooling’. You need much more to make data, mathematics, and statistics work in practice”, says van Duijn. “From the science side of things, much has been written about analytics and its role in boosting humanitarian endeavors, but it is rarely applied in practice”, says den Hertog. “To build something real, you often need software and business skills. Fortunately, that’s what ORTEC does best, making this the perfect combination.

Challenges facing humanity

The parties made the commitment to grant the institute a serious startup budget for the next three years to help run the organization and launch projects related to the SDGs. “We’re a non-profit, so any profit we make is invested right back into the institute to help advance our mission”, says Robert Monné, Director of ABW. “I believe that ABW can contribute to solving some of the major challenges facing humanity: climate, hunger, deforestation, the extinction of flora and fauna, you name it. We’ve already seen the tremendous value that analytics can have for commercial organizations and the time is now to harness their power to help accomplish the SDGs.”

“I believe that ABW can contribute to solving some of the major challenges facing humanity.”

Sharing the same dream

One of the founders already worked with other parties on the optimization of the food supply within the World Food Programme of the United Nations. There are also running multiple succesful projects at for example AMREF and 510, an initiative of the Red Cross. The focus of the Analytics for a Better World institute will be primarily on expanding the partner network and working on new joint projects. “Ideally, we’re looking for high-impact projects with NGOs, public bodies or non-profit institutions. That’s who we want to work with and help evolve into data-driven organizations”, says Monné. He is happy to admit that the plans are ambitious: “We don’t want to restrict ourselves to a single SDG, and the problems we’re hoping to address are global. That’s why we’re aiming for a large community and want to create a broad network with business sponsors, technology or services sponsors, NGOs, and non-profits.” Van Duijn concludes: “In five years’ time, I hope that ABW has become a much larger movement with measurable impact on the SDGs and a lot more partners that share the same dream of improving the world using the power of advanced analytics.”

“We're aiming for a large community and want to create a broad network with business sponsors, technology or services sponsors, NGOs, and non-profits.”