Data Quest #2: Jozi, 9 Oct. 2015

REGISTRATION IS COMPULSORY - CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE THE SHORT REGISTRATION FORM. (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tZvSez9fwi4PD_q9_J2LgdE4pw3AV6zBLz8RYPfBBds/viewform)

SciBraai and The Global Change and Sustainability Institute will host a Data Quest at The DIZ in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, on Friday 9 October 2015. The event will bring scientists, journos and techies together to tell socially-relevant science stories using data sets from the GCSRI, including data on rural firewood use, renewable energy and urban settlements.

Who can attend?

The event is open to all data geeks and storytellers, including journalists, scientists, developers, designers, science communicators and data analysts. If you’re keen to participate, please REGISTER HERE (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tZvSez9fwi4PD_q9_J2LgdE4pw3AV6zBLz8RYPfBBds/viewform).

What’s the cost?

Zippo, nadda, zero. It’s absolutely free!

What should I bring?

A laptop if you’ve got one, and your sense of humour.

We’ll assign a role to you, depending on your skills – either journo/techie/scientist. The journos are there to help find the story in the data and the data visualisation, the scientists will help find the trends and patterns in the data, and the techies will build the data visualisation. If you can play more than one role, that’s awesome too!

Where does the data come from?

Many of the scientists attending will be from the GCSRI, and we’ll work with them to make sure there are interesting datasets available which are easy to work work with, clean and not too technical.

Will there be food?

As with most SciBraai events, we’ll have a braai (Science + Braai = SciBraai), and we’ll provide snacks, drinks and refreshments.

What’s in it for me?

In a nutshell: prizes, free food and fun. It’s a chance to meet some fabulous people and produce something great. The event is free, the food is free and delicious, and you might even get your work published. We’ll also have some cool prizes for the best stories and data visualisations. If you’re keen to participate, please REGISTER HERE (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tZvSez9fwi4PD_q9_J2LgdE4pw3AV6zBLz8RYPfBBds/viewform).

What’s the point again?

Participants will team up to find stories in data, and then prepare a multimedia article/data visualisation, which will be judged by a panel of SciBraai, GCSRI and Hacks/Hackers Jozi data geeks. Stories should have social relevance, with at least one high-impact data visualisation. We’ll also help turn the winning stories and visualisations into articles to be published on SciBraai.co.za under a Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), and thus potentially also by other publications.

How much time will we get?

Be there at 8:30 for 9:00 on Friday 9 October, hack all day with a break for lunch and the prize-giving, and we’ll try to wrap things up by 18:00 at the latest.

REGISTRATION IS COMPULSORY - CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE THE SHORT REGISTRATION FORM. (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tZvSez9fwi4PD_q9_J2LgdE4pw3AV6zBLz8RYPfBBds/viewform)