Researchers partner with global nonprofits and municipalities on three data for good projects
The projects were presented as part of an ongoing partnership between Bloomberg and NYC Media Lab at the annual Data for Good Exchange (D4GX).
For the past three years, Bloomberg and NYC Media Lab have worked together to support the Bloomberg Data for Good Exchange Immersion program, which recruits and pairs data scientist graduate students with global nonprofit organizations and municipalities. The selected student fellows receive a grant and are given access to real-world datasets in an effort to help their nonprofit and civic partners learn how to leverage data more meaningfully. The results demonstrate how emerging trends in computer science, engineering and information systems, such as big data and machine learning, can help impact social missions.
This year, the focus of the collaborations were to support citizen engagement in the public sector, with an eye towards building a more connected and sustainable future.
The program coincides with the annual Data for Good Exchange (D4GX), which was held this year on Sunday, September 16th at Bloomberg’s Global Headquarters in New York City. At the event, NYC Media Lab’s Executive Director Justin Hendrix sat down with program participants to share updates on the Immersion projects that took place in 2018.
Three projects were presented, which spanned from providing better ways for direct communication with civic leaders to helping innovative nonprofits safeguard valued cultural spaces and ecosystems. Nonprofit and municipal partners included New York City’s Billion Oyster Project, which supports clean water in the Harbor through education and activism; Love City Strong of the St. John in the US Virgin Islands, which aids in disaster response and recovery; and the City of Milan, which is currently working with Bloomberg Associates to build out a dashboard to support urgent citizen needs.
The D4GX Immersion program was first piloted in 2016, when the first cohort explored how to make datasets informative for nonprofit collaborators. In 2017, 8 data scientists partnered with nonprofits and municipalities in the U.S. and overseas with the goal of improving civilian support systems.
Read on to learn about the innovative collaborations from this year’s Immersion program…
Billion Oyster Project
Billion Oyster Project’s mission is to restore one billion oysters to New York Harbor. Oysters help to filter nitrogen pollution that depletes the water of oxygen, making oysters an integral part of a sustainable city. They can also help protect New York City from storm damage — softening the blow of large waves, reducing flooding, and preventing erosion. With the doubly important goal of advancing STEM education, the nonprofit trains the City’s school students in various restoration tactics. The students participate in data collection about oyster growth and movements, as well as make regular trips to the Harbor to learn about aquatic life.
Immersion fellow Rebecca Elyanow from Princeton worked with the organization’s Digital Learning Specialist Heather Flanagan to develop tools to better visualize the data. How could they work together to design an education program — especially for students with limited knowledge of math — that can also solve an ecological goal? The team built a digital platform and scatter plot that allows students visualize metrics about water quality and oyster survival, while reinforcing the impact their work has on their community. This experience with data visualization can encourage students to keep the Harbor clean for years to come.
Love City Strong
Love City Strong serves the community of St. John by addressing citizens’ safety and wellness needs. It began as a grassroots effort of St. John residents who came together in the direct aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. One of its key missions is to help advance St. John’s workforce, which can not only direct money into the local economy, but also will provide private funding and support for future disaster response and the assets needed to overcome natural threats.
Immersion fellows Amanda Ernlund of NYU and Jonathan Auerbach of Columbia University partnered with the nonprofit’s Senior Project Manager Stephen Libbey with the goal of using data to help identify ways to diversify the economy for workforce development funding. Yet the team faced a challenge: little citizen data was available, and populations were small. The group worked instead to provide a data roadmap that can help St. John’s government round out their census and collection processes. Ultimately, the team encouraged the city to visualize the population at large by 2020.
The City of Milan
The City of Milan has a mix of digital and non-digital touch points for citizens to connect to government leadership. After some initial research, data showed that many of its citizens prefer to contact the city via the website. The mission was to build out a platform that would help citizens inform Deputy Mayors about emerging issues; provide government managers real-time updates on everyday needs; and increase the way the city is able to respond in a timely manner.
Dario Manuli of The City of Milan worked with Immersion fellow Luca Venturi (NYU) and Xavier Gonzalez, an alumnus of the 2017 Immersion program, to build a CRM platform that can aid in these needs. The CRM re-engineers the workflow for government managers by prioritizing the most popular requests for the week based on citizen feedback. It can also predict emerging issues and high volume response times based on incoming data, and provides a tool to visualize it all. With the new CRM in place, the team found that website activity and responses jumped from 60% to 90%.
Please contact Alexis Avedisian with any questions about this program. alexis@nycmedialab.org
