Four Fellows sit on a bench.

The_Message: March 2024

March is chock-filled with traditions and celebrations. Happy Women’s History Month! Also, happy International Open Data Day, soon-to-be International Women’s Day, and St. Patrick’s Day. And to our friends who observe, Ramadan Mubarak and Chag Purim Sameach!

Here in NYC, we celebrate NYC Open Data’s birthday. Each year, we showcase the diversity of NYC’s Open Data community through three amazing events — Open Data WeekData through Design, and School of Data. This week, we’ve published a diverse program of events, and tomorrow at 9am we will publish School of Data’s schedule with over 30 workshops, classes, and panels. Be sure to secure your tickets! (If you need onsite childcare, we’ll have that too!) 

xr:d:DAF-GftxG20:19,j:5227973622101478789,t:24030123

If you’re new to open data, we have many classes available. Our Fellowship Team is hosting a two-part mapping series on March 16 and March 20. Join them and help create data about the public realm! Additionally, you can join our Open Data Ambassadors for Introduction to NYC Open Data classes, and start your mornings with the Open Data Week Team to meet fellow attendees (more details will be available here soon!). 

NYC Open Data Week is the FOMO’iest week in NYC — view the program and register for events. Take care, and see you later this month!  

— BetaNYC ❤️

What’s New at BetaNYC? 😃 


Open Data advocacy was on full display at the NYC Council Committee on Technology’s hearing on Open Data compliance, featuring NYC’s Chief Analytics Officer Martha Norrick, and Open Data Program Manager Zachary Feder. If you missed it, you can catch the video here. Our very own Noel Hidalgo also testified before the committee.

Interested in meeting our Fellows before Open Data Week? We recently welcomed Bianca, Brianna, Chris, Jovany, Rashante, and Samantha. Learn more about them!   

Community News, Events and Announcements

Here are some content picks from our community. Share yours in next month’s newsletter.

Civic Tech and Legislation Updates 👀 

Manhattan Community Board applications are open until this Friday, while Staten Island applications are open all year round.

Congressional Maps: the court battles have come to an end! The NYS Senate and Assembly approved the congressional districts, which Governor Hochul then signed into law. 

A state appeals court found that the Noncitizen Voting Law violated the state constitution. The law would have given legal permanent residents, including those with green cards, the right to vote in city elections.

Congestion pricing update: the MTA has nearly installed the congestion pricing infrastructure and is accepting public comment on proposed congestion pricing tolls until March 11. Upper West Side residents are advocating for parking permits in anticipation of higher parking demand. Lastly, Reinvent Albany has an informative guide on how to voice your opinion.  

The NYC Department of Transportation released a proposal calling for a renewal of the Red-Light Camera Program and an increase in red light cameras at intersections. 

The U.S. Census released a report highlighting that New York City’s apartment vacancy rate is a record-low 1.4%. THE CITY has more details on the findings.

OpenStreetMap US’s Mapping USA 2024 session recordings are now available! Be sure to catch Dimitri Mimy’s presentation on our ongoing public space data playbook.

The 2024 Du Bois Visualization Challenge is here! Join the Data Visualization Society in recreating W.E.B. Du Bois’s data visualization legacy from the 1900 Paris Exposition.

Lauren Teixeira did a ​​deep dive into the NYC motor vehicle collisions dataset, illustrating the spatial distribution of pedestrian incidents!  

THE CITY utilized ChatGPT to map their critical stories from the past few years.

Upcoming Events 📆

Mar 7 at 11am Forge your Future: An FBI Fireside Chat

Mar 8 at 12pm Developing the FloodNet NYC Community Engagement Strategy

Mar 8 at 12pm Spatial Equity NYC: Walkthrough of New Site

Mar 14 at 9am Digital NY Summit

Mar 14 at 6pm DVS NYC(March 2024)—Designing Compelling DataViz w/Carni Klirs (Graphicacy)

Mar 15 at 6:30pm Data Through Design Aftermath Opening Reception

Mar 16-24 NYC Open Data Week 

Mar 23 NYC School of Data 

Mar 25 at 5:30pm Transit Techies #23: Project Subway NYC

Announcements, Job Openings and Opportunities 📢

Submit to this list by filling out this form and see our #Jobs channel in Slack for more posts.

Join our community! 🛸

Like this newsletter and what we do? Donate to our 2024 campaign. Your support will help sustain our apprenticeship programs, civic data research and assistance capabilities, and public programming in 2024.

See you next month! Peace, openness, and gratitude 🗽