There has been an interesting conversation about this article by Priya Rajasekar “India’s Media — Missing the Data Journalism Revolution?” in Global Investigative Journalism Network.
The thread, which you can find here, is a back and forth about whether India’s journalists are really missing out or if this is a global problem that needs more innovative solutions.
Feel free to add your thoughts to the comments or the thread.
On Thursday we had a DataMeet up! We would like to thank the Ashoka India offices in Bangalore for hosting us and providing chai and snacks!
You can see the notes on the DataMeet HackPad and Thej’s presentation here. The topic was getting data from large scale telephone data collection methods. Thej shared his experience using these techniques on a political campaign and at NextDrop.
It was a really great meeting and we had an interesting conversation on what tools to use to for what, what was effective and also methodology strategies.
Looking at telephone related data collection some of the interesting findings regarding the response rates to different outreach techniques.
After a long hiatus, we had a DataMeet-Up in Delhi on Friday, July 31. Thanks to the Centre for Internet and Society for hosting us.
The meet-up had a small but very productive mix of old and new faces. Here is the list of participants:
* Deeptanshu
* Guneet Narula, Sputznik
* Isha Parihar, Akvo Foundation
* Namrata Mehta, Center for Knowledge Societies
* Praachi Misra, Competition Commission of India
* Rajat Das, Contify
* Riju / Sumandro Chattapadhyay, ajantriks.net
* Rohith Jyotish, Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability
* Shobha SV, Breakthrough
We started with a round of ‘what is DataMeet’ and moved into ‘what should DataMeet do in Delhi.’ Here are the suggestions that came up in the meeting:
1. Data Liberartion Strategy: We can work towards creating a strategy and workflow to undertake data liberation tasks. These tasks can focus on two types of data – (1) data that is not available in public yet and needs to be brought out by requesting the authorities concerned and/or speaking to them about it, and (2) data that is available in public but not in an open / directly-usable / machine-readable manner. We of course have done some work towards especially the second type of data, such as with MP constituency boundaries shapefile and with scraping of weather data. It will be useful to prepare and document strategies for such tasks.
Deeptanshu suggested that an important available-but-not-machine-readable data that we can work with in near future is the proceedings of the parliament published in the parliament’s website. We can possibly speak to ADR and PRS if they have done any work towards converting that data to machine-readable formats.
2. Learning and Sharing: We felt that DataMeet should undertake pedagogic functions – from internal training / sharing sessions within the DataMeet members, to public workshops for data and visualisation tools and techniques, to online documentation of the same. It seems that the existing (regular or otherwise) members of Delhi chapter of DataMeet is a good mix of those who look forward to pick up data / visualisation / programming skills and those who can offer to teach that. Often the latter group looks forward to learn about available datasets, ways of interpreting government data (from NSSO to budget sheets), and legal considerations associated with data — all of this the former group (who wants to learn data / visuaisation / programming skills) can offer to help with. Hence it make a lot of sense to convert our monthly meet-ups into short learning and sharing sessions.
Further, we can document the learning and sharing taking place in the meet-ups and put it up as online references. This will slowly create a knowledge base, with contributions from across the city chapters. There was a short discussion if we should use a Wiki to create such a knowledge base or a WordPress blog. The programming group is more comfortable with the former, while the non-programming group is more comfortable with the latter. With WordPress providing detailed ‘edit history,’ I guess it is alright to use WordPress for the sake of general ease of use.
Let us start the documentation over the next 3-4 meet-ups and think of what is the best way to upload it – either as a section of DataMeet blog / wiki / github or a sub-site.
3. DataMeet-Ups as Tiny Hackathons: It was suggested that on each DataMeet-Up, we take up a particular task — either of data liberation or of data visualisation — and focus on a particular topic and dataset, and spend time together working on the task. This will include thinking about the task, creating a workflow, sharing the skills concerned, and doing the task. And finally we showcase the work done through the DataMeet blog and elsewhere.
Further, this will also produce visible evidence of the government data made available at the
4. Legal and Policy Discussion: It was briefly mentioned that some members of the group often face questions related to legal and policy context of open government data, and also regarding opening of non-governmental data. We should look for resource persons and organisations to advise on such issues. The DataMeet mailing list can also function as a primary discussion space for these topics. However, the mailing list can be too public a space for certain discussions.
Open Data Camp Delhi 2014
We had an initial chat about organising the Open Data Camp in Delhi in November 2014. The date and venue discussion is pending. We will take that up in the next DataMeet-Up.
The two primary objectives of the Open Data Camp Delhi are (1) a social and networking event for open data people (who are talking about and/or working with open data ) in Delhi, and (2) learn about their interests and challenges and prepare the road plan for Delhi chapter of DataMeet. Clearly, the first objective is more community-facing, and the second one is DataMeet-facing.
Here is the draft agenda for the Open Data Camp Delhi:
09:30-10:00 Ice-Breaker
10:00-10:30 Open Data and DataMeet [What is open data? What is DataMeet? Why is DataMeet? Why is open data relevant?]
10:30-11:30 Lightning Talks #1 [6 talks of 8 minutes each]
11:30-12:00 Tea/Coffee
12:00-13:00 Lightning Talks #2 [6 talks of 8 minutes each]
13:00-14:00 Lunch
14:00-16:00 Open Data Matchmaking Session [We set up two boards at the beginning of the day. One for writing down what data project one has in mind and what skills are required, and the other for writing down what data skills one can offer. On the basis of this, people meet up during the matchmaking session and talk about their plans.]
16:00-17:00 Closing and Thanks followed by Tea/Coffee
17:00-18:00 DataMeet Roadmap Discussion [Open to anyone who wants to participate]
It was suggested that lightning talks should be chosen as a combination of directly selected (by organisers) and community selected (through a submission and voting mechanism) modes.
DataMeet-Up in August 2014
We planned the next Delhi DataMeet-Up to take place on Wednesday, August 27, afternoon, where we will work on visualising datasets related to budget 2014. Rohith from CBGA, and his colleagues, will help us select the datasets and interpret them.
The venue is yet to be decided. Possible options are Akvo, CKS, Sarai, and Youth Ki Awaaz. Maybe CBGA can host it too.
Further, this also works as a warm-up session towards the Hack the Budget event being organised by World Bank in September.
Looks like a great event for thos who are interested in Open Data and civic hacking.
Thej
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Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore invites you to the third edition of the IIMB Policy Hackathon on the 9th and 10th of August, 2014. IIMB Policy Hackathon seeks to use analysis and coding skills amongst the larger public to generate ideas and tools for better governance and to develop more relevant public policy. It provides an exciting opportunity to contribute to innovative solutions to public policy challenges and even win a prize for it.
We have two parallel hacking events this year:
The Policy Hack is a team event focused on developing data based policy responses to a policy issue. Participants are given access to a nationally representative dataset (e.g. Census of India, National Sample Survey Data, District Level Health Surveys, etc.) and have 24 hours to identify a policy challenge and develop a data-based solution to it. Participants are required to analyze, code, and offer data based solutions to policy challenges in a 5 page document.
The App for Governance is also a team event where we look at developing technology tools (web portals, mobile apps, and in general, software solutions) that seeks to leverage information from ordinary users that is crowd-sources to strengthen governance and public service delivery. Participants will be given a problem statement that poses a significant governance challenge at the start of the App Hack and will be expected to develop, in 24 hours, a technology-based solution to address it.
Timeline:
2-2:30 pm, 9th August 2014 : Team Registration
3:00 pm, 9th August 2014 : Teams begin Hacking
3:00 pm, 10th August 2014 : Teams submit their work
2:30 pm, 12th August 2014 : Top teams present their work
12.00 pm, 13th August 2014 : Winners Announcement & Prize Distribution
Registration:
Participants may register in teams of 3-4, or register as a solo participant and join a team at the venue on 9th August. There is also the option to pre-register by writing to [email protected]. There is no fee for registration.
Prizes for each event:
Winner: Rs. 40,000
First Runners Up: Rs. 20,000
Second Runners Up: Rs. 10,000
Shortlisted teams will be invited to present at the conference.
The event starts on 9th afternoon at 2:00 pm and ends on 10th August 2014. Please spread the word in your networks and join us on Facebook.[1] If you are interested in participating, please pre-register via email with the following details:
Team Name:
# of Team Members:
Contact Name:
Contact #:
For more information, please write to [email protected]. Looking forward to your participation in the event.
CPP Hackathon Organizing Team
Sridhar Pabbisetty (Namma Bengaluru Foundation)
Arnab Mukherji (IIM Bangalore)
Grant Miller (Stanford University)
CPP Conference | Find Us on Facebook
Data and information technology: There is growing excitement about the power of open data as a tool both to inform policy and spending decisions and to hold governments to account for commitments they make. What will this data and technology driven transformation in the development project “marketplace” actually look like?? How might citizens use data to provide feedback on government services and development projects? What will it take to get there?
Its been quite sometime that we had a physical meetup in Bangalore. We are planning to host one this month end, i.e on Thursday, July 31, from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Like all our previous monthly meetups, we have a rough plan
Main Talk: Large Scale Telephonic Polls for Real Time Data Collection
Thejesh GN will share his experiences about conducting large scale telephonic polls for real time data collections.
This could be employed for
– Exit poll conducting
– Real time sentiment gathering during the events like Budget
He will share his experiences, learnings and tips.
Group updates – DataMeet group updates and discussions related to future plans.
If you like to show your data project or talk about it. Let us know we will add it to the schedule.
Please do RSVP on our Meetup group. It helps us in planning the event.
http://www.meetup.com/DataMeet/events/195229042/
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HasGeek has been a great contributor to DataMeet/ODC community. They are running Fifth Elephant for a while now. I have been to couple of them and they are great. Zainab Bawa the lead organizer of Fifth Elephant 2014, sent us a note about the event and why its a great event for our community.
Thej
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Facebook has 100 million users in India. You know who has a billion?
The Indian Census.
Each year, The Fifth Elephant conference brings consumers and producers of technology to understand how data is processed (via available technologies), insights mined from datasets in different domains, and opportunities that data presents for economy and society. The key differentiator of The Fifth Elephant conference is that the content is crowdsourced and carefully curated by a panel of experts.
HasGeek, organizer of The Fifth Elephant, also shares a strong commitment to open access, open knowledge and open data. We ensure that every edition of The Fifth Elephant has representatives from the government –– either officials themselves or technology teams working on important data projects –– addressing citizens’ concerns around privacy and protection of data.
In 2012, we had Pramod Varma and Regunath B. speaking about the Aadhar project alongside Lucy Chambers’ presentation on the OKF’s work with data journalism, Nikhil Pahwa’s on RTI and Sumandro’s on NSSO data.
In 2013, Varsha Joshi talked to participants about the challenges that the census faces in collating data.
This year, we have invited Mr. Ram Sewak Sharma, secretary of Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY), to talk about the state of government data and how citizens can participate in strengthening government’s efforts.
Why should datameet members attend The Fifth Elephant?
The Fifth Elephant is a relevant event for datameet members not just from the immediate standpoint of open data. This year’s edition also brings talks from finance and healthcare where speakers will talk about the challenges of working with complex financial datasets, data security and privacy concerns in the field of genomics, and related concerns. S. Anand will speak about what it took – in terms of technology infrastructure and data visualization – to do real-time visualizations for the recently concluded Indian elections. Participants will also get a flavour of frameworks – Lambda, Julia, OSM – and how these are used for building tools and platforms for mining data.
We welcome you to participate in the discussions and enrich interactions at the conference.
Schedule: https://fifthelephant.in/2014/conference
Registrations: http://fifthelephant.doattend.com
For more information, write to [email protected]
