It is a well-known problem that in the civil society space, there are various efforts in collecting different kinds of data that don't necessarily talk to each other; there are varying levels of maturity when it comes to data usage and understanding; and while everyone understands data can prove to be useful, it is often used only to write proposals and reports. There are reasons why, despite the need for a better data-driven discourse in civil society, any such common initiative has failed to take off. It is in this context, we have created Tarkam-Centre for Data-driven Discourse with Prof. Srinath Srinivasa, Dean, R&D, IIIT-B, Anand Sahasranaman, Bharath M. Palavalli, Rishabh Verma and Sruthi Krishnan as founding members. IIIT-Bangalore has been consistently at the forefront of IT education and innovation. Continuing IIIT-B's tradition of nurturing centres of excellence at the intersection of technology, data, and society, Tarkam, a new centre for data-driven discourse was launched on December 17, 2024. Tarkam is dedicated to the needs and challenges of civil society when it comes to data. It is where different civil society organisations (CSOs) including academia, NGOs, and governmental organisations can get together, deliberate, and sharpen their understanding of data to build a more thoughtful data-driven discourse. The launch of Tarkam took place at the IIIT-B campus with representatives from different civil society organisations across different domains participating in the event. Prof. Debabrata Das, Director of IIIT-B, spoke about the importance of data for societal challenges and the need to work with multiple stakeholders to achieve change. Prof. Srinath Srinivasa stressed on the need for improving data-driven discourse and the possibilities technology offers. The participants discussed on challenges at the intersection of data and civil society needs, laying the ground for Tarkam's work. #IIITB #IIITBangalore #Data #Tarkam #Centre #NewCentre