Fostering data literacy. Promoting transparency. Informed community decision and policy-making. Driving innovation. Enhancing civic participation. These are just some reasons we host NYC Open Data Week every year, and 2024 was no different! In March, the Open Data Team at the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation (OTI), BetaNYC, and Data Through Design came together to demystify open data at our eighth annual NYC Open Data Week festival.
Throughout the week, 7,906 people registered to attend 105 events and conference sessions, with 444 attendees closing out the festival at BetaNYC’s annual School of Data conference. The festival program included something for everybody— beginners and experienced practitioners alike. 143 speakers shared their expertise at events about NYC and Open Data at the intersection of topics that ranged from flooding and environmental justice to mapping parking regulations with Python or learning about the city’s adoption of AI tools. Thirty percent of the events were hosted by a government agency or office. If you weren’t able to join us, check out the event recordings on our YouTube Channel. According to our participation counts, GIS, climate data, mapping, and data journalism events were big hits!
Every year, we look for ways to enhance the festival. Last year, respondents told us that they craved networking opportunities and spaces to get to know the community better. Heading into 2024, we kept this in mind and hosted our first DiscoTech (Discovering Technology) and Happy Hour at School of Data, as well as daily virtual breakfasts throughout the week. We also made sure that there were more in-person events on the program. According to this year’s survey data, people enjoyed coming together in physical spaces where they could network and build community connections. We’re ever-curious to hear your feedback. If you attended 2024 events, please complete our event survey and share your thoughts to help shape next year’s festival.
Thank you!
We would like to express our gratitude to the 226 speakers and organizations who contributed to the program. It was a pleasure getting to know each of you on our pre-festival calls and seeing your work come to fruition. Congratulations!
Thank you, as well, to the 52 dedicated volunteers who braved a rainstorm to support BetaNYC’s staff at School of Data. The conference would not have been possible without your care and support.
Thank you to Joly MacFie and the Internet Society, New York Chapter, for livestreaming School of Data sessions and supporting post-festival video production of all Open Data Week event recordings. If you haven’t, be sure to subscribe and view the 70+ events recordings on our Open Data Week YouTube Channel.
Thank you to the following partners, School of Data sponsors and BetaNYC supporters. We love working with you and appreciate your support!
- NYC Office of Technology and Innovation’s Office of Data Analytics (ODA)
- Data Through Design
- Reinvent Albany
- Esri
- CUNY School of Law
- ISOC-NY
- The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- The Rockefeller Foundation
Each of you is coming from a unique and very valuable lived experience… We’re all here because we want to improve some corner of the city, and one part of our path forward to improve that corner is through open data and technology.
Kate Nicholson, Director of Programs and Partnerships, BetaNYC
Program Highlights
This year marked one of the highest response rates to our Call for Proposals, with 182 responses. Ultimately, we curated a program that saw 105 events on a range of topics. Here are some highlights.
Data Through Design held their annual thematic exhibition, showcasing artwork that illustrates NYC Open Data and left us spellbound. This year’s theme was Aftermath, which asks us to revisit history to understand the current aftermath and envision the future based on current trends.
Newly certified instructors from the NYC Open Data Ambassadors program introduced over 800 people to NYC Open Data at daily classes. Chief Analytics Officer Martha Norrick even held a class at NYC School of Data, teaching us how to access data using Open Data, US Census, and Geoclient APIs!
Open Data Week is about demystifying this website potentially full of intimidating-looking tables and helping people understand that every single piece of data, every single row in a dataset in Open Data represents something about your life in New York City or someone’s life in New York City.
NYC Chief Analytics Officer Martha Norrick
Our Civic Innovation Lab discussed insights on the process behind our civic helpdesk RADAR, led a panel on generative artificial intelligence, discussed ongoing work with housing data, and shared their work on FloodGen, a generative AI flood tool!
In the spirit of tools, Renata Gerecke engaged the audience in a walkthrough of the City’s algorithmic tools directory and discussed the future of AI.
When I think about the small moments and the research and data requests we serve, part of that begins with listening to the request, what do people actually need? It requires a lot of active listening, and understanding and empathy.
Ashley Louie, Chief Technology Officer, BetaNYC
BetaNYC Fellows held Mapping for Equity events that introduced New Yorkers to mapping public amenities and inputting that data into OpenStreetMap. It was all hands on deck!
Also, the NYC Office for Economic Opportunity walked us through its open-source resources, which showed us new ways of bridging benefits enrollment gaps and reducing poverty in NYC.
Adelphi University’s MIXI Institute taught us how to make maps using school and Census data. Python coding and map visualizations were a hit this year!
Speaking of maps, a panel of various NYC agencies kept us in the loop on the latest GIS tools and how the City uses such data to serve residents. These agencies included the Mayor’s Office of Environmental Remediation, NYC Department of City Planning, NYC Emergency Management, NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, and Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice!
Ryan Yeung of the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Service (DCAS) continued the GIS fun in a workshop on how to create maps with NYC Open Data using QGIS!
Urvashi Uberoy of the New York Times took us on a data journey with privately owned public spaces and highlighted instances where buildings violated the public spaces agreement.
Streets and mapping enthusiasm was alive and well in the NYC Department of Transportation’s presentation on using Python to map parking regulations in NYC.
The American Planning Association New York Metro Chapter’s Technology Committee, Zoning and Legislation Committee, and the New York City Department of Planning held a captivating panel on the City of Yes for Economic Opportunity, a historic rezoning initiative.
The NYC Office of Technology and Innovation, Department of Citywide Administrative Services, Clarity Movement Co, and Building Diagnostic Robotics had a dazzling panel on the NYC Smart City Testbed program.
This year for NYC School of Data, we were pleased to be back at CUNY School of Law, where we hold great memories from past conferences. We kicked off the day with a keynote from BetaNYC’s leadership team and NYC Chief Analytics Officer Martha Norrick on how “small things matter” in the context of our universe and open data. Be sure to catch the full remarks!
Small things do matter, and this message resonated with us throughout the day as we explored sessions and learned about the organizers’ great work.
Small things, small actions truly matter… even when we deal with these large abstract generative systems. It is about the metadata.
Noel Hidalgo, Executive Director
NYC Open Data Week 2024 Stats and Facts
| Total # of Events | 105 |
| Virtual Events | 44 |
| In-person Events | 16 |
| Conference Sessions @ School of Data | 42 |
| Hybrid Events | 3 |
| Events with Government Offices | 32 |
| Total # of Individual Organizers | 143 |
| Total # of Organizations | 83 |
| Total # of Individual Organizers @ School of Data | 90 |
| Total # of Organizations @ School of Data | 37 |
| Total # of Registrants @ Open Data Week Events | 7,906 |
| Total # of Registrants @ School of Data | 524 |
| Total # of Registrants @ DxD Exhibition Opening Reception | 700 |
| Total # of Volunteers @ School of Data | 52 |
Stay in Touch
Looking for ways to stay in touch with the NYC Open Data community? Here’s how:
- Sign up for announcements from Open Data Week throughout the year, including our call for proposals, festival dates, quarterly Open Data Week meetups, and NYC Open Data’s annual report!
- View event recordings and information about next year’s festival at open-data.nyc.
- Follow us on LinkedIn: New York City Office of Technology & Innovation, BetaNYC, Data Through Design
