Techie Brekkie : Collecting Data - Tips and Techniques

Someone once said 'knowledge is power' but in today's information age data, more specifically rapid access to organised and verified data, gives us power. But how can we acquire, organise and publish data in an open, transparent and accessible way?

In this discussion about open data, we’ll look at acquisition of data, it's use and how you can contribute. There are many ways to acquire data; whether it’s using published datasets, enlisting a community of volunteers to find things for you, using Freedom of Information requests to get access to the data you need, or writing code to scrape the data from other people's websites.

At this Techie Brekkie, Ben from mySociety (https://www.mysociety.org/) will share their experiences of collecting data to make data-heavy websites such as WhatDoTheyKnow, TheyWorkForYou and Mapumental.

Come along to discuss data collection techniques and to share your experiences of gathering data for your projects.

Thanks to mySociety for their kind sponsorship of this breakfast!

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