With Big Data Week 2014 drawing to an end, we felt there was no better way to send it off than to host a datathon with our partners, Data for Good. The objective was to bring together data scientists, statisticians, programmers and others in the data community to analyze and use data provided by UNICEF in order to produce innovate visualizations and tools to better the lives of future generations.
Lisa Wolff, Director of Policy and Education for UNICEF Canada, spoke to us about their work and their data initiatives, inspiring the crowd and seeding ideas. After revealing some exciting new plans for data collection from the world’s most at-risk populations and how child indicators have been used to stabilize child survival rates, Lisa finished by thanking the Toronto data community for donating their time to such a worthy cause.
“It was a revolution in child survival, using data to influence governments.” – @UNICEF‘s Lisa Wolff at #BDWTO pic.twitter.com/myWQ5GPdsI
— Viafoura (@viafoura) May 10, 2014
Our teams worked tirelessly over the day, stopping only for meals and the odd game of foosball. They covered the whiteboards with notes and the air was thick with chatter and planning.
Plans (and doodles) galore at the #data4children datathon! Everyones working hard for @Data_for_Good! #BDWTO pic.twitter.com/B7eWPtF69Q — Viafoura (@viafoura) May 10, 2014
Breaking for foosball! Our teams work hard and play hard! @Data_for_Good #data4children #BDWTO pic.twitter.com/n6DAN8P6t4 — Viafoura (@viafoura) May 10, 2014
The teams drew a lot of conclusions, some surprising, some affirming and came up with a lot of fantastic visualizations and interactive tools to educate and inform. At the end of the night, they presented their findings, and propelled rich discussions among the room.
“The easy answer is infrastructure, invest in that and you can save people’s lives.” – Team 4 #BDWTO #data4children @Data_for_Good
— Viafoura (@viafoura) May 11, 2014
Team 3 looks at the dropping fertility rate in Africa as technology and education becomes more widespread. #BDWTO pic.twitter.com/Z5Z5VgPSPo
— Viafoura (@viafoura) May 11, 2014
Awesome empathy map mockup by @vohrasam and team created for kids to learn a/b others in the world #data4children pic.twitter.com/eEGGsD577q
— Data for Good (@Data_for_Good) May 11, 2014
Thanks to our friends at OneEleven, we had plenty of space to host all 100 participants, while Alchemy API donated 100 API keys for use during the datathon. We were thrilled with the turnout and by the potential of the projects and can’t wait for the next one! It was our great honour to be involved with this event, and to be able to witness the innovation, creativity and intelligence of our participants from the Toronto data community. Good company, good food and good causes makes for an amazing weekend and the perfect send off to another fantastic Big Data Week in Toronto. Be sure to read our Tech Talk recap as well!
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