A2 DATADIVE
Categories: leadership, data science, nonprofits, community organizing
Date: September 2011 – May 2013
Skills: leadership, project management, public speaking, event planning, data manipulation and analysis, and public service
Project Description
After learning about the new data-outreach non-profit, Data Without Borders (now DataKind), in the summer of 2011 I knew that I should find a way to bring them to the School of Information. DataKind is a non-profit organization that is trying to build connections between non-profits with data they want to make better use of and data scientists with the skills to help them do data collection, analysis, or visualization. I participated in the inaugural DataDive in NYC in October 2011 and was convinced I could bring an event like this back to the University of Michigan. So, with DWB’s blessing and in coordination with Open.Michigan, I launched the planning for the inaugural A2 Datadive, which will be held in February 2012.
In the same spirit of “Science for Service” the A2 DataDive invites data scientists from the UMich, Ann Arbor, and Detroit communities to provide a weekend of service to lend their expertise to the social, environmental, and community problems local non-profits are tackling.
What is a DataDive?
Think: A weekend long design jam for data scientists. A DataDive provides the collaborative space for real work to happen. It starts on Saturday with the selected non-profits presenting their data and the problem they are trying to solve to the community of data scientists ready to help at the start of the day. From there, the data scientists clean, collect, sort, merge, plot, and analyze the data — hopefully providing the data analytic resources that the non-profits need to get the job done. Sunday is saved for wrapping-up and presenting the work that was completed to all the participants. And now that the connection is made between the non-profits and the data scientists, there is no reason why the collaboration has to stop here.
This has been an amazing experience for me; I’ve made connections with data scientists, non-profits, and administrators all over the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Detroit. The thing is that “Science for Service” is something that has been going on all across the University of Michigan campus; the difference with the A2 DataDive is that we’re bringing these various groups together, to share their skills and any lessons they’ve learned. If all goes according to plan, the data scientists will learn and get as much out of this DataDive as the non-profits we’ll be working with!
2012 A2 DataDive: Outcomes
39 participants turned out, despite the snow, to hear from our two non-profits, Focus: HOPE and African Health OER Network.
Focus: HOPE, based in Detroit, has made a commitment to its neighborhood (the Home Village Initiative) that by “2031, 100% of those living in the HOPE Village Initiative area would be educationally well-prepared and economically self-sufficient, living in a safe and supportive environment.” They are interested in understanding how well used their programs are and want more information on the context of their neighborhood (demographics, homicides, community amenities). We map their participant data on to an easy to use Google Map, which allowed them to add additional GIS layers for added context. To see more of the nitty-gritty of the project details check out the project’s wiki page on the Data Without Borders Wiki.
The African Health OER Network is provides open education teaching materials to help augment the resources of constrained health sectors in Africa and beyond. To measure how wide the distribution of their open educational resources has spread using their Google Analytics data. They are also interested in understanding more about how its members engage in the network (produce materials, attend conferences, etc). For AHON, volunteers built detailed network maps of the most influential members of the network. They also uncovered that the open educational videos that AHON provides were being used not just in Africa, but all over the world. To see more of the nitty-gritty of the project details check out the project’s wiki page on the Data Without Borders Wiki.