Category Archives: City

Bangalore, GeoBLR

GeoBLR – PIN Code Extravaganza!

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Last week at GeoBLR we discussed the issues around PIN codes. The most  important questions were around the processes the postal system and also what are the issues around the availability of reliable spatial data.

Couple of weeks back, Nisha and I started putting together several questions that we would like to get insights on. We used that as the starting point for the discussions. The meat of the problem really is that nobody knows what the processes are and how to get that information.

Prior to GeoBLR, we met some people who are interested in the same issue and clarified a lot of things – for instance, we are now sure that some times a single post office can deal with more than one PIN code.

To get a sense how people felt about the PIN codes issues, we asked around. Some people don’t bother to use PIN codes for any substantial service other than sending post cards.  As long as we are not able to tie PIN codes to geographic locations reliably, it’s not so useful.  Everybody agrees that it has immense potential just because it’s the only part of the address that everybody gets right (most of the time).

We also started to brainstorm how to come up with a plan so that a group like ours along with several other partners could work together to attempt to crowdsource the issue. Read more about the plan and next steps here!

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Bangalore, DataMeet-Up

Screening: The Internet’s Own Boy – Aaron Swartz Documentary and discussions

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All of us on DataMeet group are aware of Aaron Swartz. So I thought it would be a great idea to watch it together and share ideas. Hence we are screening the movie coming thursday. Please make it if possible. RSVP on the meetup page. If you can’t make it. The movie is on archive.org for everyone to download and watch. You can also visit the movie project page for more details.

http://www.meetup.com/DataMeet/events/201596972/

Bangalore

Bangalore DataMeet Up: July 31st

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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!

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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.

Response rates from out reach techniques:
Responses to SMS – 6 to 8%
Responses to missed call – 12%
Responses to IVR – 20 to 25%
Some big questions regarding telephonic data collection. Are people comfortable giving out their numbers? Seems they are as long as you represent yourself in a straightforward manner and convey that people will get information from doing this.
What are the ethical ways to get contact information and demographic information? There are many ways to get this information but it might be worth doing your own baseline, data collection first to build trust and get cleaner data.
There are more great insights in the notes and the presentation feel free to look them over and ask questions in the comments.
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DataMeet-Up, DataMeet-Up Report, Delhi

Notes from DataMeet-Up in Delhi, 31 July 2014

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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 portal being actually used, and thus to raise awareness of the available data and its demand.

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.

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Bangalore, DataMeet-Up

DataMeetUp – Bangalore – July/2014

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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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DataMeet-Up Report, Delhi

Notes from DataMeet-Up in Delhi, 22 November 2013

We had DataMeet-Up on Friday, November 22, 2013, at the Akvo office in Yususf Sarai Community Centre, Delhi.

Here are the notes from the meet-up [additional information in square brackets]:

Election Data Hackathon

  • We will undertake a collaborative mapping of datasets relevant for election data hackathon, using GitHub and Google Drive. More details about this below.
  • Datasets that we are trying to locate include: election results data (total vote count, vote count per party/candidate, etc), total utilisation and composition of utilisation of MP Local Area Development funds, parliamentary activities of MPs (presence/absence, questions asked, bill discussed, committees joined. etc), crime data corresponding to constituencies, etc.
  • We will identify organisations who might hold additional relevant data, such as PRS Legislative Research, Association for Democratic Reforms (and MyNeta.info), Gramener, and Hindustan Times [Anika used to work at HT].
  • Two caveats: (1) we may not get unique and standard identifiers across datasets, and (2) calculations may get difficult in case of by-elections [Lok Sabha Secretariat will have details of all by-elections, which can be accessed through RTI request].

Hack for Change on Women’s Rights

  • Shobha, Breakthrough.tv, led the discussion on the planned Hack for Change event being organised by Breakthrough and Hacks/Hackers, as part of the 16 days of activism against violence against women.
  • The hackathon is organised around urban safety data from Whypoll , multimedia evidences of early marriage practices in Bihar and Jharkhand gathered by Gramvaani , etc. It will also include a Wikipedia Edit-athon facilitated by Noopur Raval.
  • There were multi-directional discussions around other datasets of relevance for the hack event, which I have not kept track of very well. Overall, there were discussions around datasets available from , those published by National Crime Records Bureau, FIR and call database of Delhi police (and how to access that), and data on violence against women gathered by Tata Institute of Social Sciences from police stations across seven states.

Presentation on iPython

  • Konark Modi presented a detailed introduction to using iPython to undertake data cleaning in a very organised manner, as well collaboration features/workflow of iPython.
  • There emerged a demand for a tutorial on OpenRefine (previously Google Refine), which will be organised in a later meeting.

Mapping Indian Election Data

  • We will start documenting publicly available datasets relevant for studying past General Assembly (Lok Sabha) elections in India and the activities of the elected members at present. One can contribute to this mapping exercise in two ways, as mentioned below.
  • GitHub: We have created a repository for this data mapping exercise under the DataMeet organisation at GitHub. The organisation page can be accessed here, and the (india-election-data) repository can be accessed here. In the repository, I have created a draft format for documenting the identified datasets. This draft format can be accessed here. Please feel free to suggest changes to the draft format by opening an issue.
  • To document a dataset, use the format given in the repository, fill up the details, and rename the file according to the dataset’s name, such as “election-results-delhi-1995.md”. Then if you notice any requirement of data cleaning/reorganisation or lack of clarity regarding the dataset, open an issue (where the name of the dataset is mentioned) to note that task.
  • Google Drive spreadsheet: Alternatively, you can access this spreadsheet on Google Drive and add the relevant information about the dataset documented by you.

Please comment here or post to the DataMeet mailing list for any clarifications and suggestions.

DataMeet-Up, Delhi

DataMeet-Up in Delhi, Friday, November 22

After a hiatus, the Delhi DataMeet-Up is back. We are meeting today, Friday, November 22, at Akvo Foundation office, at 5:00 pm.

Here is the tentative agenda of the meeting:

  • Updates: Sharing news across the network.
  • Discussion: Discussing how we can support Hack for Change around women’s rights being organised by Breakthrough.tv and Hacks/Hackers New Delhi. Shobha and Anika would begin the discussion by talking about the planned event.
  • Discussion: Beginning a discussion towards a election data hackathon. It will be led by Satyakam and Surendran.
  • Presentation: Using iPython for exploratory data visualisation – Konark Modi, MakeMyTrip.com.
  • Discussion: Brief chat about the overall agenda of the Delhi chapter of DataMeet.

Location: Akvo Foundation, 3rd Floor, Ramnath House, Plot #18, Yusuf Sarai Community Centre, Yusuf Sarai. Nearest metro is Green Park.

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DataMeet-Up, Delhi

DataMeet-Up in Delhi, Saturday, 31st August

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We are organising the next Delhi DataMeet-Up at 5:30 pm, Saturday 31st August, 2013.

This time we are meeting at the Mimir Technologies office. The address and map are given below.

As suggested in earlier meetings, we will begin with three short presentations (around 5 minutes each, followed by 5 minutes of discussion for each presentation) and then get into the core discussion.

Here is the structure of the meeting:

RSVP: If you are joining us for the DataMeet-Up, please let us know by commenting to this post (see below).

Location: Mimir Technologies Office, Basement, #U1, Green Park Extension.
Note: The office is located just behind the main road that goes by the Green Park metro station. Please contact Gora at 9868527992 in case of any issues with finding the place.

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DataMeet-Up, Delhi

DataMeet-Up in Delhi, Friday 19th July

We are organising the next Delhi DataMeet-Up at 6 pm, Friday 19th July, 2013.

This time we are meeting again at the Akvo Foundation office. The address and map are given below.

We have decided to focus on the following topics in this meeting:

  • Update on data.gov.in activities from Satyakam
  • Update on the ‘Opening Government Data by Mediation: Exploring the Roles, Practices and Strategies of Data Intermediary Organisations in India’ project by Sumandro and Zainab
  • Update from other organisations and individuals
  • Update from Nisha Thompson on plans for DataMeet Foundation/Trust
  • Setting the future agenda for DataMeet Foundation/Trust in general, and the Delhi chapter in particular

RSVP: If you are joining us for the DataMeet-Up, please let us know at mail[at]ajantriks.net.

Location: Akvo Foundation, 3rd Floor, Ramnath House, Plot #18, Yusuf Sarai Community Centre, Yusuf Sarai. Nearest metro is Green Park.

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DataMeet-Up Report, Delhi

Notes from DataMeet-Up in Delhi, 31 May 2013

Authors: Satyakam Goswami & Nasr ul Hadi

Venue

Akvo Foundation, Yusuf Sarai, New Delhi

Discussion

This was our second meet-up in Delhi. We began with a round of introductions, a brief discussion about DataMeet’s (Bangalore-centric) history.

Data Journalism

Nasr shared his experiences trying to apply data science to journalism and how, in most cases, the data was either incomplete, not specific enough or simply inaccessible. One of his projects involved patrolling with the Delhi Police and tracking the number of accident victims they transported to the Jai Prakash Narayan Trauma Center. Out of curiosity, Satyakam asked him more about how the trauma centre worked, because they have been using a FOSS SMS service to reduce clogging of their registration/reception counters.

Nasr also discussed the work of organisations like Human Rights Law Network and the immense amount of data they have on instances of abuse, child incarceration, etc in Indian prisons. Unfortunately, these aren’t digital. Guneet gave a similar description of police reform work done by CHRI.

Collaborations with Other Groups

We also discussed opportunities to collaborate with other meetups that shared our interest in data science. Hack/Hackers’ Delhi chapter conducted a news apps hackathon in February. Their next event will focus on data journalism, probably along the lines of the recent Editors’ Lab. We still need to discuss how to:

  1. educate Journalist on the importance of data driven journalism, and
  2. enable them with the tools and possible collaborations with people in this group.

We are also open to other such collaborations, but couldn’t think of any other community with a similar interest. If you know of any, please do let us know.

Elections 2014 and Public Infrastructure

Everyone was interested in building apps around then upcoming Delhi Elections and then the General Elections in 2014. Anyone interested in taking the lead on this, please do as soon as possible.

Akvo’s Isha told us how they are working closely with organisations that collect substantial amount of district-level data about water/sanitation infrastructure. To collect data in the field, they use/promote a self-developed Android-based software called FLOW.

Vivek also brought up data.gov.in and how he found some of their data to be incomplete. Satyakam suggested we work closely with the data.gov.in team in order to get the data we want. Developers in attendance suggested we ask the portal for a webservices API. Surenderan described how they do this at Change.org. Google’s Raman Jit joined us close to wrap up and offered to help with sourcing any data we need from various government stakeholders.

We still have to decide a date and venue for the June meet.

Participants

Guneet Narula, Sputznik

Isha Parihar, Akvo

Ashim Kapoor

Nasr ul Hadi

Vivek Khurana, Mintango Technologies

Surendran Balachandran, Change.org

Gaurav, Film Maker

Gora Mohanty

Irshad Reyaz, Landshark Labs

Rahul

Raman Jit Singh Chima, Google India

Satyakam Goswami, Consultant