Category: Report Back

Making History – The First Hackathon Inside the historic New York City Hall 

In partnership with the Department of Education’s Computer Science for All and NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and Technology Committee Chair Council Member Peter Koo, BetaNYC co-hosted 130 students and 30 teachers in the City’s historic Council Chambers for the finale of the second annual Hack League. These Twenty-eight teams, from all five boroughs, used municipal open data and media literacy skills to identify community concerns, and computer science concepts to build prototypes to address the final challenge — identifying internal and external metrics, potential stakeholders, and extending their prototypes.

🗽💛💻 – 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 Community Boards we worked to […]

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 to shape NYC’s neighborhoods. It […]

🗽 ❤ 💻 — NYC SoData 2017 recap!

Where Civic Technology, Data, and Design Align! To celebrate 2017 International Open Data Day and kick off NYC’s open data week, 276 participants, 66 speakers, 35 Volunteers, and 13 Sponsors and Community Partners met at Rise New York to engage in a thought provoking day about technology, data, design, and the future of digital civics! Not […]

2016, a year in review. a look at 2017 & its challenges.

(This article is broken into two parts. If you are interested in what challenges 2017 brings, click here.) 2016, A year in review. 2016 marked BetaNYC’s seventh year as a community group. As we continue to expand our role in promoting civic engagement through technology, this was one of our most intense years. Community Membership BetaNYC […]

BetaTalk – Affordable Housing: Data, Policy, People (report back)

Affordable Housing: Data, Policy, People Introductory remarks: Noel Hidalgo, Executive Director of BetaNYC Moderator: Lucio Tolentino, Co-organizer of BetaNYC; Data scientist and Civic hacker Panelists: Caitlyn Brazill, CAMBA; Moses Gates, Regional Plan Association; Emily Goldman, Cornell U & BetaNYC; John Krauss, Carto & Accursed Ware Introduction to the Event: On July 8th BetaNYC hosted a […]