The Data for Good Exchange Awards Program

Transcription

1 The Data for Good Exchange Awards Program For Bloomberg LP s first seed project with NYC Media Lab, the company sought to build relationships with a variety of datadriven university programs across NYC s campuses and beyond. To this end, in preparation for its Data for Good Exchange (D4GX) conference, Bloomberg aimed to secure a variety of submissions from universities across the country. The themes of the conference spanned education, environment, public health and government innovation. NYC Media Lab anticipated that the interdisciplinary nature of the conference would appeal to a wide range of university faculty, researchers and students.

2 PROGRAM CREATION Gideon Mann, Head of Data Science, approached NYC Media Lab with a few ideas for working together, and a few discussions led to brainstorming how the seed project funds could be used for awards. NYC Media Lab understood that it was important to share the Data for Good Exchange call for papers widely to attract great submissions. The NYC Media Lab - Bloomberg Data for Good Exchange Awards program collected research from faculty, researchers, and students from diverse backgrounds relating to data science including but not limited to computer science, engineering, mathematics, statistics, and other fields like data visualization, data journalism, open data and civic technology, information architecture and information science. An on-campus information session at CUNY City College, where undergraduate and graduate engineering students came to learn about the awards program. Promotion across a variety of data-driven campuses NYC Media Lab planned and implemented a communications and outreach program to share the details about the Impact Grants and Prizes to relevant data science departments and social good centers across New York City s campuses. Digital communications included a targeted campaign and use of NYC Media Lab s social media channels. Campus visits added a personal touch- for instance, at a site visit to the Zahn Innovation Center at CUNY s City College, Amy Chen, Seed Project Manager at NYC Media Lab, held an information session about the program to a group of a dozen engineering and computer science students who were working on social innovation projects. Beyond New York City, NYC Media Lab connected with universities and nonprofit research organizations focused on the D4GX themes. NYC Media Lab targeted over two dozen institutions and organizations in its outreach. A tweet from Bloomberg s Head of Data Science, Gideon Mann, on the competitive submission process.

3 Culmination of the program at the Data for Good Exchange All Impact Grant and Prize awardees attended, and several spoke at Bloomberg s Data for Good Exchange on September 28, The conference drew 500 other data-driven researchers and practitioners to its audience. Kathryn Kelly, Marketing Strategist, and Michael Marinello, Head of Global Communications were also involved with the awards program from the beginning through its execution.

4 IMPACT GRANT WINNERS The Impact Grants were designated for faculty who were involved with data-driven research that benefits a nonprofit organization for continued partnership in A total of two Impact Grants funded faculty members at $7,500 each. Noel Hidalgo Lecturer, Pratt Institute Mr. Hidalgo s work focuses on entrepreneurial ideas that are changing the world. He is the Executive Director of BetaNYC and a 2015 fellow at Data & Society Institute. After helping the City s startups recover though Sandy Coworking, he worked for Code for America s brigade program and helped reshape NYC s BigApps. From 2009 till 2011, Noel served the NY Senate as the Director of Technology Innovation where his team launched the award winning NYSenate.gov, and his team organized the first unconference inside a State house, CapitolCamp. Mr. Hidalgo s Impact Grant will support creating curricula on NYC open data and online mapping tools. I m super honored to a recipient of this D4GX impact grant. Over the last few years, we have made dreams reality. New York City s open data program is one of the Nation s best open data programs. Like all things, there is room for improvement. I m excited to partner with Manhattan Borough President, Data & Society Institute, and build on top of the great work of Pratt University s Spatial Analysis and Visualization Initiative (SAVI). Matthew Hale, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs, Seton Hall University Dr. Hale is currently an Associate Professor and MPA Program Chair for the Department of Political Science and Public Affairs at Seton Hall University. His research focuses on the intersection of media and technology and the public and nonprofit sectors. Recently, his articles have appeared in The International Journal of Press Politics, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Mass Communication Society, and the Stanford Law Policy Review. At Seton Hall, Dr. Hale has taught many courses in the M.P.A. program including the Environment of Public Service, Public Policy Analysis, Public Sector Leadership, Public Sector Ethics, Financial Management and Budgeting, Research Methods, and Strategic Management and Governance. Dr. Hale s Impact Grant will support identifying best practices and commonalities on state data consortiums. The grant will also support developing a concentration in Data Visualization and Analytics within the Masters of Public Administration program at Seton Hall University in partnership with The Nonprofit Sector Resource Institute.CapitolCamp. One of the things I have tried to do in my research is examine the relationships between government, nonprofits and the media and how those relationships influence the public. Many of the same questions about the public nature of privately delivered news content are now being asked in regards to big data Who owns the data? What can we do with data? What should we do with data? This grant will help me understand the answer to these exciting and important questions.

5 THE PRIZE WINNERS The Prizes were designated for a select group of authors of accepted research paper submissions for D4GX. Out of over 100 submissions, a total of four prizes were awarded to three individuals and one team of two individuals for their outstanding paper submissions. The Grand Prize was $5,000, the First Prize $3,000, and two Runners-Up at $1,000 each. GRAND PRIZE David Klein Technical Advisor, Developer, Conservation Metrics David is a scientist and entrepreneur with a career long commitment in applying neural-inspired machine learning algorithms to challenging sensor processing problems, largely for speech/audio and video/image related applications. David is a Silicon Valley startup veteran and advisor; his Ph.D. research explored the learned representation of complex sounds in the brain. Paper: Deep Learning for Large Scale Biodiversity Monitoring FIRST PRIZE Constantine Kontokosta Assistant Professor of Urban Informatics, NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress Dr. Constantine E. Kontokosta, PE, is the Deputy Director for Academics at the New York University Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) and is an Assistant Professor of Urban Informatics jointly at CUSP and the NYU School of Engineering. He is also the Principal Investigator and Head of the CUSP Quantified Community research facility, and leads the CUSP Computational Urban Sustainability research area. Previously at NYU, he was the Founding Director of the Center for the Sustainable Built Environment and a Clinical Associate Professor of Real Estate. His research has been published in leading academic journals in fields including data science, economics, urban planning, and engineering, and he has led data analytics projects ranging from sanitation to sustainability for numerous city agencies. Christopher Tull Research Assistant, NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress Christopher Tull is a research assistant at the NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) where he works as a member of the Building Informatics and Computational Urban Policy research group under Dr. Constantine Kontokosta. He holds an M.S. in Applied Urban Science and Informatics from CUSP, and a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics from California State University Channel Islands. Joint Paper Submission: Web-Based Visualization and Prediction of Urban Energy Use from Building Benchmarking Data

6 RUNNER-UPS Joe Walsh Data Scientist, The University of Chicago Center for Data Science and Public Policy Ben Wellington Visiting Assistant Professor, Pratt Institute Joe is a data scientist at The University of Chicago Center for Data Science and Public Policy and senior policy analyst for Community Technical Resources. He has several years of experience helping academics, nonprofits, federal and state agencies, and companies of all sizes use quantitative tools to answer questions and make informed decisions about health care, transportation, education, and politics. He has served as a fellow and a mentor for the Eric & Wendy Schmidt Data Science for Social Good program. He has master s degrees in economics and peace and conflict studies and a PhD in political science. Joe is a former U.S. marine. Ben Wellington is the creator of I Quant NY, a data science and policy blog that focuses on insights drawn from New York City s public data, and advocates for the expansion and improvement of that data. His work has influenced local government policy (including changes in the way New Yorkers pay for cabs and a new button on NYC subway vending machines!). He is a contributor to The New Yorker, and is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the City & Regional Planning program at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Ben holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University. Paper Submission: Open Data Liaisons in Government: A Means to Participatory Democracy Paper Submission: Identifying Earmarks in Congressional Bills