pre-A2 DataDive 2013 post

Happy New Year, dear readers!*  ;)

Apologies for the radio silence during the last couple of weeks. But believe it or not, things have been pretty busy here in Michigan (reeeaaaallly?!)

Some of you may remember the event I put on with my friends Claire and Emily last year, the A2 DataDive. The event is centered around been a bridge for local nonprofits with data challenges and skilled volunteers who want to apply their brains to a good cause.

Last year's event was more of a proof of concept ("We CAN do this!") than anything else. And with the encouragement of our school we decided to put on another one this year! And we are so pleased to say that everything about this event has grown since last year. We had to cap registration (for space reasons) at 120 volunteers, representing students and faculty from all over the university, and we've got four nonprofits with projects this year:

• Ozone House, "a community-based, nonprofit agency that helps young people lead safe, healthy, and productive lives. Since 1969, Ozone House has actively developed unique, high-quality housing and support programs and services that provide support, intervention, training, and assistance to runaway, homeless, and high-risk youth and their families.” They are hoping to show that their programs save Washtenaw County money through a comparison of their data on youth in their programs to youth data from Washtenaw County.

• Huron River Watershed Council, which "is southeast Michigan’s oldest environmental organization dedicated to river protection. The Huron River Watershed Council works to inspire attitudes, behaviors, and economies to protect, rehabilitate, and sustain the Huron River System.” Huron River Watershed is hoping for an interactive map that can more quickly indicate what species are present on any given parcel of land in the bioreserve.

• Food Gatherers, which "as the food rescue and food bank program serving Washtenaw County, ... exists to alleviate hunger and eliminate its causes in our community. They serve 150 non-profit agencies and programs providing direct food assistance in the form of hot meals, nutritious snacks or emergency groceries to low-income adults, seniors and children in Washtenaw County.” Food Gatherers is interested in analyzing trends of the meals they provide to the county. They want to know if they can discover the days, weeks, and months that they provide the most meals so they can plan their services better.

• 826, "a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students aged 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. 826 opened its doors in June of 2005. Since then, they have been blessed with students, tutors, and volunteers overflowing with enthusiasm." 826michigan has many different spreadsheets for any given student that uses their services. They are interested in tracking their students in the long-term to see how much a student has improved through the years.

Claire and I have had a blast working with these organizations and the other student volunteers to help but this event together. It is so hard to believe that it is all going to get started tomorrow! I'm so excited! I'll be sure to send you an update about the solutions we all come up with over the course of the weekend.

In the meantime, you can check out some of the publicity that Claire and I did ahead of the event. Our school made a promotional video to help us get the word out:

And this past week Claire and I were interviewed on Michigan Radio's show Stateside, the podcast of which you can access here: http://www.michiganradio.org/post/stateside-solving-data-needs-non-profit-groups

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* WOW! I can't believe it has been so long since I last wrote!