The Data Swap
A project celebrating the emergence of civic data, and the possibility of equitable hackathons
How might we develop a brainstorming & rapid prototyping experience that invites inclusive participation with equitable outcomes for both organization and participant?
My Role
I created our brand identity, built our promotional site, led the event design, and assisted in managing the participants through the process.
My duties included:
Identity/Branding
Visual Design
Web Design/Development
Event Planning/Management
Project/Product Management
Copy Writing
The Problem
Walk through the trends that led to this seminal event.
Limitations
Mis-aligned institutional schedules and limited funding
Funding was our main challenge. Our institutions paid our salaries, and space was abundant between our various affiliations. But otherwise we were mostly on our own. This lead to an interesting learning experience in incentivization when it came time to think of prizes and winners.
Time became another interesting problem. The academic calendar runs very differently from the business calendar. So while trying to plan and launch the event we had to contend with finals, spring break, end of semester break, etc.
Finally, we had to be careful to brand the event as a more meaningful improvement on the traditional 36-hour hackathon.
Metrics
Or, What Does Success Look Like?
50 Applicants
5-7 Teams
50% Retention
Solutions
Event Design and Branding
Planning, designing, and executing on the experiment
Distributed Collaboration
Watch one of our Hangouts-On-Air to see how the group worked between in-person sessions.
Lessons Learned
You may notice some of these come up in Open Knowledge
Timing Is Everything
8 months was much too long. Though I am proud of the 50% completion rate, we knew about 3 months in that the time frame was a bit of an overcompensation.
Work with existing infrastructure
We received feedback from faculty and students that outcomes would have been greater if we had been able to provide classroom credit or otherwise tied the engagement to the student’s academic work.
Money isn't everything
Though we offered no financial prize, we hit all of our success metrics. And satisfaction was high among participants and companies. We generated 74 applicants (50% more than the number we had anticipated) with exceptional credentials and diverse academic backgrounds. At the end of eight months we still maintained three teams of the original six which was exactly 50% retention. Additionally, several of our participants leveraged their time with The Data Swap to secure advanced degrees with Ivy League schools, or placement with competitive fellowships across the country.
Very excited to present findings on Friday re: campaign contributions in MA 08-12, esp in light of today's ruling on McCutcheon. @Data_Swap