A2 Datadive Recap: Over 70 participants and 2 non-profits helped!

Welcome to the very long overdue recap of the A2 Datadive that I helped host from February 10th - 12th. We had 78 people attend our event that weekend and a lot of amazing work was done for the two non-profits that kindly shared their data with us.

To refresh your memory, a datadive is an opportunity for local non-profits with data they aren't sure what to do with to meet up with data scientists who are willing to provide assistance. The concept was developed by Jake Porway at Data Without Borders, who lamented the fact that non-profits didn't always have the resources to take full advantage of the data they were collecting. Datadives are intended to give these organizations access to folks with the skills to get them started on taking their data to the next level.

This year we had two non-profit participants: Focus: HOPE, a group that is working to improve the quality of life their neighborhood in Detroit and the African Health OER Network (AHON), which is collaboration between medical colleges in the United States and Africa that is providing open educational resources to under-resourced medical colleges in Africa. Each group came with their own set of unique data problems and questions. Focus: HOPE was interested in learning more about the community that they serve (which areas of their neighborhood are taking advantage of their programs? what are the demographics of their community like? can we identify under represented populations in our target area?). AHON wanted to know about the resources they distributed (who was taking advantage of them? which resources or mediums were most used?) and the network that provided those resources (who in the network contributed the most content? could we identify influential members in the network? could we identify members that were not as engaged as other members?)

The plan for the weekend was simple. On Friday evening, the non-profits we had recruited presented their data and questions to the group and there was time for all the participants to socialize before the big work day. Work on Saturday started early, with the data scientist participants digging through the data and coming up with methods to begin answering some of the non-profits' questions. Sunday was reserved for wrapping up the work that was done, documenting the process, and reporting to the non-profits on what we uncovered. Simple, right?

We lost no time getting started on Saturday morning. Above are the two teams strategizing what they intend to work on and how they will plan out their work for the day.

We took over North Quad on the University of Michigan's Central Campus for the weekend. Thankfully there was a lot of space for all of the break out groups to work.

Several Ann Arbor community members came up to me during the event to thank me for hosting an event like this; they were so excited to help in such a unique way. Data Without Borders really tapped into a deep unvoiced need amongst data scientists to be able to contribute their skills for the greater good. It was inspiring to be around so many folks who were so enthusiastic about lending their talents to help institutions in need.

Having fun working with data

Sunday's wrap up was a great chance for us all to see what everyone else had been working on. Above is the work from one of the AHON groups looking at the influence of various members within the organization's network. Preparing for the presentations also gave groups the opportunity to clean up their documentation on the Data Without Borders wiki. As you can see below, several groups tried to create step-by-step instructions so that the non-profits could replicate the work that was done after the datadive was over. Here's a link to the wiki page, in case your interested in the details of what work was done.

But none of this would have been possible without the enormous efforts of my team mates and the student volunteers we had on hand during the event. And of course I can't forget organizations like, Data Driven Detroit and Code for America, who lent their support and know-how to our event as well. Sometimes I'm really staggered when I think about the fact that we basically planned this whole event in less than 3 months... while still being full-time grad students.... HA!

Thanks again for all your help guys!

The Dream Team: Nikki Roda, Emily Puckett Rodgers, and Claire Barco

Emily, Claire, and I are already getting started on planning the event for next year. Fingers crossed, we'll have this event tucked into one of the student organizations on campus. By doing so we hope to keep the institutional memory so that SI and Open.Michigan will keep on datadiving even after Claire and I graduate.

Our big brother organization, Data Without Borders, has shown us so much support and been so encouraging during this whole process that I have no doubts we'll be able to muster up enough energy to hold this event again next year.