CIF 2017 Field Report – First lab experience
(This week’s blog post is written by Federico Toscano and edited by Ramesh Beharry.) Introduction the first week’s lab: Last week, the 4th cohort of NYC Civic Innovation Fellows experienced their first bootcamp training at the Manhattan Borough President’s Office. The training consisted in a well-explained lecture by Noel Hidalgo, in which he…
Testimony for Intro 1696-2017 (Open Algorithms Bill)
“We […] want to ensure that New York City leads the way in ethical algorithmic government. We want transparency around data tools, algorithms, artificial intelligence, and tracking. We want New York City to be the thought leader in smart, ethical, algorithmic government.” – 4 Jan 2016 – http://bit.ly/BetaNYC-2016-YearInReview To: NYC…
Introducing Year 4 Civic Innovation Fellows
Introducing Year 4 NYC Civic Innovation Fellows! Last week marked the kickoff of the NYC Civic Innovation Fellowship’s 4th year! Throughout this program, our fellows will be trained in a bootcamp where they will learn the fundamentals of civic technology, data, and design. After this bootcamp training, graduates are partnered…
🗽💛💻 – NYC 311 Data Jam Recap!
If you attended the event, and did not yet fill out the post-event survey, please visit < https://betanyc.forms.fm/nyc-311-data-jam-followup >. This past weekend, 185 participants joined 10 NYC agencies and 19 community partners to address 6 challenges or attend 3 classes. With the Manhattan Borough President and members of…
Press Release – Manhattan Borough President Brewer, BetaNYC launch BoardStat, new data research and visualization tool for Community Boards and everyday New Yorkers, at NYC311 #datajam
NEW YORK – Today, Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer and BetaNYC unveiled BoardStat, a new interactive tool help laypersons sort, display, and map 311 complaint system data without advanced technical skills or specialized software. BoardStat was built to bridge the gap between merely providing access to open data and…
How to improve NYC’s open data law 2.0?
Last week, we had the chance to join with members of the NYC Transparency Working Group and provide feedback on the future of NYC’s open data law (video). As this bill is under discussion we encourage all to provided your thoughts via councilmatic. Intro 1525-2017 This bill would require updates to…
Announcing NYC 311 Data Jam – NYC’s National Day of Civic Hacking event
Join us on Saturday, 23 September, for a day dedicated to improving the people’s dataset! For 2017’s National Day of Civic Hacking, we ask you to roll up your sleeves and data jam with us. Last year, we worked with NYC Parks to improve their TreesCount! Census data. This year, we will shine…
NYC Planning Data Jam Recap
Event Summary On May 8th, fifty urban planners, data scientists, and civic hackers came together for the Department of City Planning’s first data jam! For the day, participants improved NYC’s most comprehensive dataset of facilities. This facilities database is produced by the NYC Department of City Planning and is used…
Video: Represent NYC: Probing Open Data to Solve NYC’s Problems
For the last two years, BetaNYC has partnered with Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer to create the Civic Innovation Fellowship. This program has created the City’s first open data and civic technology curriculum, performed a gap analysis on Manhattan Community Board’s capacity to use civic technology, and is currently…