Young data scientists help nonprofits and city governments harness their data

Organizations across the world are employing small armies of data scientists in order to unlock the potential of their troves of data. Employing emerging technologies like machine learning and neural networks, as well as a range of statistical analysis methods, these organizations are able to mine valuable insights from their data. However, this kind of research is expensive, often requiring highly-educated personnel. Although small organizations like municipalities and non-profits are sitting on mountains of data, they often lack the budgets to mine it with data science.

Bloomberg’s Data for Good Exchange (D4GX) Immersion Fellowship Program was designed to ensure that these smaller, but important organizations aren’t left behind in the Big Data revolution. The program pairs Ph.D. students studying data science with Bloomberg Philanthropies supported non-profits and municipalities, in order to provide these organizations with invaluable data analysis insights on a pro bono basis.

“The D4GX Immersion Fellowship program gives non-profits and municipalities access to unlock new ways for data science and analytics to help solve specific challenges they face,” says the D4GX Conference Director, Vicki Cerullo, “It is also an opportunity for students to put their data science skills to use in a way they may not have experienced in an academic setting. This is a true embodiment of data for good.”

The Immersion Fellows recently presented their findings and shared their experiences at this year’s D4GX conference. Here are four exciting projects that participated in this year’s D4GX Immersion Fellowship Program.

Public works online tool with the City of Bogotá

Columbia University’s Xavier Gonzalez, in partnership with the Bloomberg Associates Municipal Integrity Team, worked with the City of Bogotá to implement an online platform that will give city managers and citizens access to synthesized information about local infrastructure projects. The tool also will allow them to provide feedback, with the goal of empowering citizens and bringing transparency to local government.

The Public Works Tracker, requested by the Peñalosa administration and overseen by Veeduría Distrital of Bogotá , will enable city managers and citizens to see what projects are under construction throughout the city, such as schools, roadways, parks, and government buildings. Citizens will be able to access this information via a QR code posted at each construction site, which will unlock the project’s timeline, budgeting data, and images. Its implementation reused an open source code developed by the City of Buenos Aires.

Bloomberg Associates’ Rose Gill Hearn says, “The tracker is a great transparency project intended to decrease public frustration, and inform people in real-time about what is being done to improve the city. It pulls together data that was siloed and it is the first time this much data on open public works projects — representing a total investment of $200 million USD — is going to be open to the public in this visible way.”

Water quality project with Love City Strong 

Love City Strong is a grassroots group of residents of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, who were responding to the needs of their community, which had been ravaged by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. This year, they hosted Immersion Fellow Matthew Harrington of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), who helped them with waterborne pathogen testing and chlorine treatment studies conducted on the island. This data, collected in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the USVI Department of Health, is crucial when requesting post-disaster mitigation funding and long-term subsidies for low-income or vulnerable individuals.

“In the Virgin Islands, cistern catchment systems account for the vast majority of residential access to water, yet there is very little data currently available that speaks to how the average person can make their cistern water safe for use,” says Love City Strong Program Manager Stephen Libbey. “Our goal was to fill that information gap through data collection.”

“Our method of data collection has allowed us to create unique projects which directly benefit the most vulnerable among us, such as seniors and families with small children,” says Stephen.

The professional assistance provided by D4GX is so invaluable for smaller nonprofits like us that are working in a more isolated area. The data experts with whom we have been connected have helped us refine our collection methods and built our capacity for future data analysis. The partnerships developed through D4GX have afforded us an otherwise unattainable resource to leverage more funding for future projects, while strengthening the existing relationships with our territorial and federal partners.

Harrington says that he got involved due to his interest and academic background in sustainable development. “It was a great experience getting to participate and observe the data collection process for the first time. Likewise, it was very interesting to see how a partnership between non-profits, government agencies, and academia can work out.”

Open space project with the Natural Areas Conservancy

New York City’s Natural Areas Conservancy (NAC) is studying the relationship between open space and demographic information to understand the correlation between social and ecological health. The project is looking at 20,000 acres of urban forests and wetlands and their access points together with open data on social and economic indicators. This analysis will inform future NAC grant proposals to invest in underserved areas, particularly with youth programming.

Fatima Koli, of Columbia University’s Data Science Institute, served as the Immersion Fellow attached to this project. “I care a lot about working with organizations and non-profits that are trying to make the world, cities in particular, a more equitable place,” she says. “I think of my data science background as one of the tools I can use to support that work.” The project was especially important to Fatima because it addressed the experiences of marginalized and underserved communities.

The Equity Intelligence Platform with My Brother’s Keeper

The national My Brother’s Keeper initiative seeks to “Change the Narrative” around boys and young men of color, and all students, by closing and eliminating the opportunity gaps they face thereby helping them reach their full potential. For this immersion project, NYU School of Engineering’s Ayanna Seals helped to replicate the Equity Intelligence Platform (EIP), a successful data-sharing tool, from Oakland, CA to Houston, TX.

“The EIP was developed to fill a gap in the field. We strongly feel by adding a discussion around data and outcomes to all the existing grassroots advocacy and system-reform work, it makes for a stronger field,” says Bloomberg Associates’ Niiobli Armah IV, whose team has been working with My Brother’s Keeper for several years. “There is a need to scale the work,” he added. “There should be no corner of our society where there is the single exemplar story of black male success. It should be normalized, accessible, and attainable for all young men of color in our country.”

Learn more about the Data for Good Exchange conference on our Tech At Bloomberg blog.