Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

March 15, 2013

February NYC DataKind Meetup (video)

Filed under: DataKind,Public Data — Patrick Durusau @ 1:35 pm

February NYC DataKind Meetup (video)

From the post:

A video of our February NYC DataKind Meetup is online for those of you who couldn’t join us in New York. Hear about the projects our amazing Data Ambassadors are working on with Medic Mobile, Sunlight Foundation, and Refugees United as well as listen to Anoush Tatevossian from the UN Global Pulse talk about how the UN is using data for the greater good. It was a fantastic event and we’re thrilled to get to share it with all of you.

A great pre-meeting format, beer first and during the presentations.

Need to recommend that format to Balisage.

None for the speaker, they could be the “designated driver” before and during their presentation.

May 4, 2012

Bridging the Data Science Gap (DataKind)

Filed under: Data,Data Analysis,Data Science,Data Without Borders,DataKind — Patrick Durusau @ 3:43 pm

Bridging the Data Science Gap

From the post:

Data Without Borders connects data scientists with social organizations to maximize their impact.

Data scientists want to contribute to the public good. Social organizations often boast large caches of data but neither the resources nor the skills to glean insights from them. In the worst case scenario, the information becomes data exhaust, lost to neglect, lack of space, or outdated formats. Jake Porway, Data Without Borders [DataKind] founder and The New York Times data scientist, explored how to bridge this gap during the second Big Data for the Public Good seminar, hosted by Code for America and sponsored by Greenplum, a division of EMC.

Code for America founder Jennifer Pahlka opened the seminar with an appeal to the data practitioners in the room to volunteer for social organizations and civic coding projects. She pointed to hackathons such the ones organized during the nationwide event Code Across America as being examples of the emergence of a new kind of “third place”, referencing sociologist Ray Oldenburg’s theory that the health of a civic society depends upon shared public spaces that are neither home nor work. Hackathons, civic action networks like the recently announced Code for America Brigade, and social organizations are all tangible third spaces where data scientists can connect with community while contributing to the public good.

These principles are core to the Data Without Borders [DataKind] mission. “Anytime there’s a process, there’s data,” Porway emphasized to the audience. Yet much of what is generated is lost, particularly in the third world, where a great amount of information goes unrecorded. In some cases, the social organizations that often operate on shoestring budgets may not even appreciate the value of what they’re losing. Meanwhile, many data scientists working in the private sector want to contribute their skills for the social good in their off-time. “On the one hand, we have a group of people who are really good at looking at data, really good at analyzing things, but don’t have a lot of social outputs for it,” Porway said. “On the other hand, we have social organizations that are surrounded by data and are trying to do really good things for the world but don’t have anybody to look at it.”

The surplus of free work to be done is endless but thought you might find this interesting.

Data Without Borders – name change -> DataKind, Facebook page, @datakind on Twitter.

Good opportunity to show off your topic mappings skills!

Powered by WordPress