Triangle Regional Data Jam

-

The Where and What
Yesterday when I was writing about the history of the Triangle Data Jam I forgot to post where and when and a link to the event registration.

The Data Jam is Really Happening



Dr. Rajiv Shah and Todd Park at the USAID Data Jam

The Data Jam that is happening in two weeks came together through the efforts of many folks. +Jason Widen, +Mital Patel, +Chris Gergen, +Erin Monday, +Zach Ambrose all worked very hard and graciously included me in the club starting this past December.



It All Started When...
In December at the White House there was a USAID Data Jam. Until that moment I only thought of the White House in terms of data.gov. I was not aware of the amazing job The Office of Science and Technology does in promoting the use of open data. I attended the event. Everyone else there was Federal and I was the only municipal person. I keep meaning to blog about. I returned and I gave my presentation to the Raleigh HUB. It was Chris Gergen that got me the invite from Nick Sinai.
And Down to the Wire
Planning the data jam was exciting. At times not knowing exactly who was going to be here and what the venue would be was frustrating. What data sets would we have and would our portal be ready on time? When we started planning for this I had been with the city for 9 weeks or so. I did not know many folks within the city but I did know several people in Socrata.


Socrata worked with me to develop a time line that was realistic. We launched right on time. March 15th was the go live date for the portal that will house the Data Jam data. After the launch and the press coverage getting data is much easier. State and county agencies as well as the surrounding municipalities are all participating. This is about our region and not one city. Our municipalities and county have come together to collaborate on a regional data ecosystem. One person did not do this. Dozens of people from all over the Triangle gave their input and time to move the discussion toward cooperation and not competition.

The Regional Data Jam is a celebration of community as much as it is data.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Podcast: Open Data Discussions with Anthony Fung

-
Image
A look back at Virginia’s 4 years of data innovation with Anthony Fung, Deputy Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia  Welcome to the OpenDataSoft Leadership Podcast Series, “Open Data Discussions”. Each month, Jason Hare, our Open Data Evangelist, features a different open data program around the country to discuss what has made it successful. These examples will provide insights and strategies that you can implement in your own city. We had the pleasure of welcoming Anthony Fung, Deputy Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia for the fifth podcast in our series. Anthony discussed various subjects, including: What role does open data play in policymaking at the state level in Virginia? Does his department work on ensuring open data quality? What are some of the steps he makes in ensuring sound data governance? How did Virginia come up with this technology and engagement solutions?  How, for example, did yo
Read more

Open Data Licensing

-
Image
Everything you wanted to know but you were afraid to ask. Making data open and available is not just about choosing a format or having an API. A poor choice in your license can prevent people from using them. A traditional open license reassures potential users that their work on the data will be useful in the long run. So, what license should you pick for your data to be broadly used? There are a few things to consider. Choosing a license for your open data can usually be one of the biggest challenges for an open data project. There are plenty of licenses available for your data. Choosing one mostly depends on the usage and reach you want to give to your project. CHOOSE A LICENSE: BASED ON NATIONAL, INTERNATIONAL AND LOCAL STATUTES IN ADDITION TO REUSE It should be noted that different parts of the world use data licensing terms differently. In the US, works in the “public domain” are works are not covered by intellectual property rights, such as copyright. The copyright mig
Read more

AN OPEN DATA POLICY FOR NORTH CAROLINA: COMING SOON?

-
Image
All parts of North Carolina will benefit from open data legislation. FOR THE BETTER PART OF TWO DECADES, I’VE WORKED TO OPEN UP NORTH CAROLINA’S DATA. I’ve been a public servant at Durham Public Schools and the Department of Energy. I have been an onsite consultant for the Cities of Raleigh, Durham as well as the Towns of Cary and Chapel Hill. I’ve been on teams serving state agencies and local governments. I’ve witnessed dozens of open data projects both locally and abroad. All of these projects share crucial steps and goals in common. First, by transforming public documents from disconnected PDFs into machine-readable data, by applying the right open formats, we can liberate public information from the repositories where it used to require manual review. Insights become instant. Second, by publishing machine-readable data compilations online, for everyone to use, we can crowdsource those insights. Citizens and companies and the media can scrutinize. Even better, when a government age
Read more