Skoll World Forum Emerging Leaders Interview: Video with Sam Leon (Global Witness)

Sam leads Global Witness’s work on data-driven investigative journalism and digital storytelling. His work focuses on the use of data to fight corruption and how to turn this information into change making stories. He is currently working with a coalition of data scientists, academics and investigative journalists to build analytical models and tools that enable anti-corruption campaigners to understand and identify corporate networks used for nefarious and corrupt practices. While at Global Witness he has developed a number of innovative web applications and visualizations for a range of campaigns including The Great Rip Off Map, Cambodia Corporates and the DRC Timber Tracker. During the last year he has been working with the Sundance Institute and MIT Media Lab to build an immersive storytelling tool specifically tailored for human rights organizations that need to publish to audiences without access to broadband connections. He previously worked at the Open Knowledge Foundation leading the organization’s work on data literacy for human rights groups and journalists. He has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from Cambridge University and a Masters in the History of Ideas from University College London.