March’s Civic Tech Events

PLUS, on March 9, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer is hosting a citizen workshop on responses to the L train shutdown, and how to improve the 14th street corridor.

The rest of the month:

March 3-5

Giving Tuesday DataDive, Presented by 92Y, DataKind, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Open Data Week)

• Friday 3/3 6:30pm-8pm EST: discuss goals for the DataDive and dive into the data!
• Saturday 3/4 9am-9pm EST: choose a team and get to work!
• Sunday 3/5 9am-3pm EST: final presentations and networking
  Note: You can attend one or all days.

We’re thrilled to be hosting a DataDive March 3-5 and are looking for data pros of all backgrounds to roll up their sleeves and work side by side with experts from the 92Y, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Facebook to help use data to unravel tough questions and prototype new solutions.

March 4

International Data Day (Open Data Week)

Open Data Day is an annual celebration of open data all over the world. For the fifth time in history, groups from around the world will create local events on the day where they will use open data in their communities. It is an opportunity to show the benefits of open data and encourage the adoption of open data policies in government, business and civil society. View activities happening around the world here.

NYC School of Data (Open Data Week)

New York City School of Data is a community conference showcasing NYC’s civic design, civic/government technology, and open data ecosystem.

March 6

Civic Hall Presents: Open Data, Mapping Global Security & the Department of Defense (Open Data Week)

How can we get national security data into the open? The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) will demo its geospatial data portals for the Arctic, for combating wildlife trafficking in Africa, and for Hurricane Matthew.

March 7

March 2017 NY Tech Meetup and Afterparty

Join us for NYC’s most famous and longest running monthly tech event! You’ll see a fantastic lineup of New York tech companies presenting live demos of their products, followed by an afterparty where you can network with the community and meet our demoers and sponsors.

Five Year Anniversary of New York City’s Open Data Law, Local Law 11 of 2012 (Open Data Week)

In many countries, states and cities Open Data is a policy – here in New York City it is a law, which ensures that Open Data is here to stay.

NYC Chief Analytics Officer Dr. Amen Ra Mashariki speaking at Socrata’s Connect 2017 Conference in DC (Open Data Week)

10 – 10:25am on the Main Stage. Livestream details coming soon.

NYC Big Apps Workshop – NYC Open Data Portal & Department of City Planning Facilities Explorer Tutorials (Open Data Week)

Join members of the NYC Open Data team and Department of City Planning for a demo of the NYC Open Data Portal and new Facilities Explorer tool (launching soon) followed by a breakout session at the Tuesday March 7th NYC Big Apps Workshop. You’ll learn the basics about how to access NYC data (1600+ datasets!) and get an overview of other tools such as the Facilities Explorer powered by NYC Open Data that you can use to support your research and work for the Big Apps competition as well.

Disability, Bring It On

We will explore notions about stressors, and how when cultivated correctly, stressors can yield great fruit.

Hacknight @ Grand Central Tech

Come join us for a night of hacking at Microsoft’s Grand Central Tech Space! There will be a talk on Microsoft APIs and time to work on your own projects.

March 8

International Women’s Day 2017 at Civic Hall

In celebration of #IWD2017, and their campaign for #BeBoldForChange, we invite everyone—men and women—to participate in all-day programming at Civic Hall. Visit the website to find out more information about how to participate in this year’s International Women’s Day.

Civic Hall supports and encourages the initiatives by both the Women’s March and the International Women’s Strike on March 8th. We’re gathering our global community as we act together for equity, justice and the human rights of women, through a series of panels, workshops, and talks on economic solidarity.

Databite No. 95: Amanda Lenhart, Alice Marwick, & Zara Rahman

Please join us for presentations from D&S affiliate Amanda Lenhart on the prevalence and potential effects of online harassment and D&S fellow Alice Marwick on best practices for conducting risky research. Talks will be followed by a panel discussion, moderated by D&S fellow Zara Rahman, exploring ways to reclaim power and control of activism in both the digital sphere and offline world.

NYC BigApps 2017 Workshop: Understand the Constraints (Design)

From here we’ll begin a series of rapid and iterative brainstorming processes that will lead us through prototyping and ideation. This session will focus on using the research from the previous weeks to start making design decisions and scoping product prototypes.

Made in NY Media Center + Fabernovel Data & Media: Open Data Breakfast (Open Data Week)

Whether you are a developer, agency or civil service non-profit having access to data drives business, improves services, and promotes free public access.

Together with FaberNovel we are hosting and interactive breakfast and conversation on March 8th to learn more about the City of New York’s Free Open Data Portal and how you can use it to build products, conduct research and analysis or create new applications.

Department of Small Business Services: 2017 Smart Districts Summit (Open Data Week)

Inaugural NYC Smart Districts Summit, where community and technology leaders will collaboratively explore how emerging technologies are being leveraged to address the most pressing district-level challenges.

College of Staten Island (CSI) Tech Incubator + Vizalytics: Data – A Driving Force of Innovation (Open Data Week)

Connect with us to discover how organizations and entrepreneurs are utilizing data to drive innovation within our local community. Learn the practices, technologies, and patterns the experts use to fuel their enterprises by way of big data.

Interrupting the Gender Imbalance in Media

Women continue to be under represented in the media. According to Media Matters for America, in 2015, only 21 percent of guests discussing foreign policy on prime-time cable and top Sunday news shows were women.

Join New America, Foreign Policy Interrupted, and Media Matters for America for the release of 2016’s findings and for a series of interactive workshops focused on “interrupting” the obvious lopsidedness.

March 9

Reaktor Open Data Studio (Open Data Week)

The goal of this evening is to share some ideas about how Open Data could be utilized in new ways, especially in New York. We have a happy hour with benchmarks from Helsinki, where open data catalogues have been advanced for a while, and companies and developers alike are used to creating cool applications for it.

Join us to hear examples of applying open data in a user-friendly way, and let’s come up with new ways to use open data to create new tools.

General Assembly Panel Discussion: Data and…Health (Open Data Week)

Big Data is continuing to significantly impact the way in which organizations operate and make informed business decisions. Emerging technologies are now paving the way to innovative medical developments, and it looks as though data is beginning to transform the entire healthcare industry! In collaboration with the first annual NYC Open Data Week, GA is bringing together influencers from the health and wellness spaces to discuss how data is impacting their organizations.

March 11

2017 Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

Wikimedia’s gender trouble is well-documented. In a 2011 survey, the Wikimedia Foundation found that less than 10% of its contributors identify as female. While the reasons for the gender gap are up for debate, the practical effect of this disparity, however, is not. Content is skewed by the lack of female participation. This represents an alarming absence in an increasingly important repository of shared knowledge.

Let’s change that. Join us at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Education and Research Building at The Museum of Modern Art, 4 West 54th Street, on Saturday, March 11, 2017 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. for an all-day communal updating of Wikipedia entries on subjects related to art and feminism. People of all gender identities and expressions welcomed and encouraged to attend.

NYC Parks Computer Resource Centers Open Data for All: TreesCount! Workshop (Open Data Week)

This free workshop, presented by NYC Parks and the NYC Open Data team, offers a broad introduction to the NYC Open Data Portal along with the concept of data literacy and analysis.

Using NYC TreesCount! 2015 data, the most accurate map of NYC’s street trees ever created, you will learn how to identify, download, manipulate, and visualize NYC Open Data with a focus on community engagement and awareness. Using tools such as Google Sheets and CARTO, you will be able to create your own graphs and maps from NYC Open Data.

March 20

Women’s Political History Gallery Reception by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer

In my office gallery, beginning March 7th, will be a display documenting women’s political history, with photographs, posters and political campaign ephemera from women candidates and causes. The reception for this show, on Monday, March 20, from 6–8 pm, will also serve as our celebration of Women’s History Month, and we will honor the late Maggie Peyton by naming the 19th floor gallery in her honor. Please RSVP for the event at PeytonGallery.eventbrite.com.

March 22

NYC BigApps 2017 Workshop: Ideation and Prototype Building (Design)

At this stage of the workshop series, we’ll “build to think.” We’ll rapidly prototype our concepts in order to get a better sense of how it more tangibly supports the needs of our users. This will be an opportunity for teams to get early stage feedback from a variety of experts, mentors, and community members.

March 27

Understanding Media Studies: “Power Plays with Data” with Zara Rahman and Mimi Onuoha

Media Studies invites you to a talk with Zara Rahman, Fellow, Data & Society and Mimi Onuoha, Artist & Research Resident, Eyebeam.

March 30

SPARCC Launch Event — A Conversation on Building Equity, Prosperity & Sustainability for All

Join us for a conversation on how collaborative, community-driven approaches to addressing poverty, racial equity, health, and climate impacts can positively shape our cities and regions for generations.

Over the next decade, trillions of dollars of public and private sector funding will fuel new investments in infrastructure, transit, housing, health, and preparing for the challenges of climate change. This event will bring together thought leaders, philanthropic visionaries, community representatives, and stakeholders to discuss how to ensure large-scale investments benefit everyone.

The Strong, Prosperous, and Resilient Communities Challenge (SPARCC) is supporting locally driven efforts to ensure that major new infrastructure investments lead to equitable, healthy, and sustainable opportunities for all.

March 31

Machine Eatable: When Recommendation Systems Go Bad, with Evan Estola

Microsoft Technology & Civic Innovation presents Machine Eatable, a lunchtime conversation at Civic Hall. This monthly series offers a candid discussion led by community leaders on the front lines of data science for civic good.

Machine learning and recommendations systems have changed how we experience the internet, and by extension, many of the products and services we use in our civic and private lives. While the reach and impact of big data and algorithms will continue to grow, how do we ensure that people are treated justly?

As the people that build these systems, we have a social responsibility to consider their effect on humanity, and we should do whatever we can to prevent these models from perpetuating some of the prejudice and bias that exist in our society today.

Evan Estola (@estola), the Data Team Lead at Meetup, will share examples of recommendation systems that have gone wrong across various industries, and what can be done about them. Importantly, Evan will offer concrete technical approaches that can be employed. Evan will also offer arguments data scientists can use to justify making ethical decisions in a field that’s obsessed with optimization.

You can arrive at 12pm for light lunch and conversation. Feel free to bring your own, too. We’ll begin the program at 12:30pm and wrap up by 1:30.

Tags: 92Y, Alice Marwick, Amanda Lenhart, BetaNYC, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, BureauBlank, Civic Hall, College of Staten Island, Data & Society, Databite, DataKind, Dr. Amen Ra Mashariki, Events, Foreign Policy Interrupted, Gale A. Brewer, General Assembly, Giving Tuesday, Giving Tuesday DataDive, Grand Central Tech, International Open Data Day, International Women's Day, Made in NY, Matt Stempeck, Media Matters for America, Microsoft, Microsoft New York, Mimi Onuoha, New America, New York, NY Tech Meetup, NYC Big Apps, NYC BigApps, NYC Open Data Portal, NYC School of Data, NYC TreesCount, NYTM, Open Data Week, Reaktor Open Data Studio, Socrata, TreesCount!, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Women's History Month, Zara Rahman