Boston Data Swap: An un-hackathon to examine data about Boston

The deadline to apply for Data Swap 2013 is Friday, October 4. Apply here!

http://dataswap2013.com/apply.html

Just wanted to let you know about an event that the NULab at Northeastern is cosponsoring with the Globe and the Boston Area Research Initiative, what we're calling the "Boston Data Swap". This is a two day event, one day at Northeastern, and one day at the Globe, looking at data around Boston. The objective is to foster multi-disciplinary/multi-sector groups that will pull together interesting projects over the next 6+ months.

The details:

WHO: Data-driven grad students, hackers, journalists and activists

WHAT: An un-hackathon to examine data about Boston

WHERE: Northeastern University (10/17) and Boston Globe Lab (10/18)

WHEN: October 17 and 18

WHY: Promote sustained collaboration between academics, students, hackers, and civic leaders around important questionsHOW: A "skill-a-thon" on 10/17 to showcase state-of-the-art methods for analyzing data and a kick off event on the 18th introducing the data and forming teams to collaborate on them

The 2013 Data Swap is soliciting applications from students interested in civic data for an event to brings together organizations with fascinating datasets, urgent questions from community leaders, and the diverse skills of students and hackers. Our goal is to create a new kind of collaboration that crosses the boundaries of universities, professions, or disciplines to address pressing issues facing the Bostoncommunity. This is an "un-hackathon" that will select approximately 50 people to form teams. These teams will spend six months deeply engaging with a data set such as the Boston Globe's news coverage, MediaCloud's records of news coverage, Digital Public Library of America's millions of digitized records, the Federal Election Commission's disclosures about campaign contributions, and the City of Boston's tax assessment data. At the end of the six months, teams will present their insights, models, and visualizations to a panel distinguished researchers, civic leaders, and journalists who can work with teams to call attention to these findings and begin to bring about real change in our communities. Find out more at:

http://dataswap2013.com/