DataPotluck #8 - Using Social Network Data and City Projects

Please join us for Data Potluck #8, where the room everybody brings something to pass in ideas, and something pass in meals.

Rough and flexible agenda:

1. Food! Either:

• Bring a dish or food item to share, or
• Bring a few dollars to contribute if you're strapped for time.

Nick, Young-Jin, Matt will make sure there are extra veggie-friendly plates and drinks.

2. Roundtable - Who's here, why, and how do you want to get involved?

3. Talking tools, data sources and data:

Rayid Ghani, former Chief Scientist for the Obama for American 2012 Campaign will give a talk on "Using Social Networks to Target, Influence, and Mobilize People".

Tom Schenk Jr with give an overview of current City of Chicago analytics projects underway at the Department of Innovation and Technology.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Note: Please RSVP 24 hours ahead of the meetup so that we prepare food and set up the room accordingly.

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Rayid Ghani was the Chief Scientist at Obama for America 2012 campaign focusing on analytics, technology, and data. His work in the campaign focused on improving different functions of the campaign including fundraising, volunteer, and voter mobilization using analytics, social media, and machine learning. Before joining the campaign, Rayid was a Senior Research Scientist and Director of Analytics research at Accenture Labs where he led a technology research team focused on applied R&D in analytics, machine learning, and data mining for large-scale & emerging business problems. In addition, Rayid serves as an adviser to several start-ups, non-profits, and corporations, is an active organizer of and participant in academic and industry analytics conferences, and publishes regularly in machine learning and data mining conferences and journals.

Tom Schenk Jr is the Director of Analytics for the City of Chicago. He has served as a researcher and policy adviser in education, medicine, and the economy. He led the development of Iowa’s longitudinal data system, which permitted analysts to follow students from education into college, workforce, and even prisons. His work on Iowa’s longitudinal data system has resulted in the regular publication on the value of education, large scale evaluations of government-funded programs, and increased access to student’s historical records by school faculty. He has also led the creation of legislation affecting community colleges; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education; and workforce policy. In addition to academic publications, his forthcoming book, Circos Cookbook for Data Visualization, will be published by Packt Publishing in early 2013. He was a lecturer in statistics and economics at Grand View University, visiting scholar at Iowa State University’s Office of Community College Research and Policy, and was a visiting graduate fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. He received his Master’s in Economics at Iowa State University and B.A. in economics and politics at Drake University.