How can I activate a local data community?
Last updated
Last updated
It's good to think through (1) who you would like to engage as your core group of 'early adopters' or interested partners, (2) why they would want to be part of a local data community and (3) how you plan to engage them. For example, you may want to focus on students because you are on a university campus. But why would they be interested in participating in your community: to add skills to their CV? To improve people's lives? And is the best way to reach them through events or online resources - or some other way?
There are different types of activities you may want to consider running (or joining), or some combination of these. Two or more events may even be linked together into a challenge. See these challenge examples which include multiple events: , or . Or you may want to run a to counter misinformation on social media.
An easy, fun way to get started is to hold a data Easter Egg Hunt. In this event, people form small teams that compete against each other to answer a set of questions by searching for relevant data.
Have a look at this from Open Data Day 2016. It includes questions and datasets that you could use or adapt for your own community.
A good way to start building a local community is by sharing open data, guides or content with your network. If it is web-based you can share with your network as an early draft and update as you source new content, rather than waiting until you have a final book to share as pdf or hardcopy. Examples:
TrainUp publishes open content on scraping data and other topics. More content is being added over time. There are many other online tutorials and books on technical topics, such as this one on data visualisation.
You will probably want to let people know that events are happening or resources are available. There are many different web-based tools for this. The real challenge is to ensure content and communication are relevant to your audience.
Open Data Durban regularly posts useful resources on their Twitter feed. They often repeat tweets about specific projects they are working on or local events, so people are more likely to see this info. They also find and post content from other local and international sources that is of interest to their community.
This article gives a short of what is needed to run an unconference. This South African team runs 1-day (or longer) '' events around the country. You may also consider running a event or hosting/ joining a more traditional conference! See or for events in your area.
These are often closed events related to a specific project. They typically involve some form of or design thinking process.
There are several civic coding (some including data) training providers around South Africa such as , , , .
TrainUp collaborates with who post their own content on extracting, cleaning, analysing, mapping, presenting data - including on specific themes like budget data.
There are also more technical online courses that you (or your community) could do together. For example, offers a number of free introductory courses on Python, R and related topics.
These are useful because people can plan ahead if they know it happens. Although these are social events it is good to provide some structure to the evening (such as speakers or projects to work on) so that newcomers know where to get involved and participants are able to achieve something. Codebridge uses to record and track progress on ideas emerging from hackathons. To see what is already happening in your area visit or sites. Examples of data, tech and innovation hubs around South Africa - which usually have open events:
in Joburg
in Cape Town
in North West
in Centurion
in Polokwane
in Northern Cape
in Tshwane
in Joburg
The CSIR hosts a Data Science for Impact and Decision Enablement () VacWork programme runs over two parts in Dec-Jan and Jun-Jul.
runs #gkVacWork during the holiday period.
See the open data resources in this toolkit for , , and a mini-guide on .
In this from NASA they explain how to track air pollution from space using satellite images and how to compare it to data from terrestrial monitoring stations.
Create a toolkit, wiki or guide on a specific topic, such as the and this one which are built on .
We have been adding to a of 300+ (mostly) public data portals and websites in South Africa that you browse and share with each other.
If you are looking to send a newsletter or setup a mailing list then is great, and free for less than 2000 subscribers. It also integrates with social media.
Many social media managers use scheduling engines such as or . These help you manage multiple social media accounts and schedule posts automatically.
The Code for America Brigades have published useful for hosting a local data community.
If you would like to dig deeper into the strategy, the Sunlight Foundation has published "A Guide to Tactical Data Engagement" (). This guide aims to assist (primarily government) local data champions "Facilitate the impactful use of open data by collaborating communities".
A CMRA identifies a number of key open data needs from a community or civil society perspective. For example, the use of data should lead to dialogue and accountability.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) recently (late 2018) published a to improve data literacy, through 30-60 minute conversations.
