Scotland  

Join us at this one-day event bringing together civic society representatives, and communities of interest to explore and workshop open datasets, data visualisation and data-driven decision making for the public good. This event, facilitated by Life in Data and hosted in partnership with Creative Dundee, focuses on four key themes highly relevant to our civic lives today:

• Participatory Budgeting and Service Design
• Gender, Data and (in) Equality.
• Creative Industries and Place-Making.
• Sports, Leisure and Recreation.

Bringing Data to Earth is open to anyone and everyone interested in how we use data to inform and improve our daily working practices, and is relevant to those involved in grassroots communities through to those working in large public bodies.

During this practical day, we will hear from a range of speakers from across Scotland on the four key civic themes and have the opportunity to engage, debate and discuss how we actually bring data to earth.

Speakers and sessions:

Participatory Budgeting and Service Design: 

What are the possible future designs of PB processes? By considering the qualitative and quantitative data that is and isn't being collected through PB in Scotland, we will explore the good, the bad and the ugly of PB in Scotland and discuss together the art of the possible for PB in the future.

Colin Freeman is Community Empowerment Manager, Participatory Budgeting at Dumfries and Galloway Council. Colin leads on policy development for Participatory Budgeting for Dumfries and Galloway Council. He advises Elected Members, council staff and communities about PB and carries out evaluation of PB practice to ensure continuous improvement.

This session has been co-authored with Leah Lockhart who works at the intersection of government, technology, community, and design. Her happy places are creating interdisciplinary collaborations and using multimedia documentation as an exchangeable tool that captures knowledge. Underpinning all her work is the desire and drive to elevate the voices of seldom heard people.

Gender, Data and (in) Equality:

What can we make out of public data and gender equality? This presentation by Fife Centre for Equalities highlights findings from applying the EHRC Measurement framework for equality and human rights at the local level. We also discuss ‘messy’ data and Gender Paygap reporting as an example of data transparency being used as a level for change. Session led by Nina Munday and Elric Honore from the Fife Centre for Equalities.

Creative Industries and Place-Making:

Clive Gillman works as Director of Creative Industries for Creative Scotland, having previously worked as an artist and also as Director of Dundee Contemporary Arts. In this session we will examine some of the rhetoric around Scotland’s creative industries and use the data available in this area to examine how this sector actually functions and how this data may suggest a slightly different way forward from the popular conception.

Sports, Leisure and Recreation: 

Alan Russell, CEO of Supporters Direct Scotland, will share insights from his work on using data visualisations to explore Scotland’s football clubs’ approach to supporter engagement and transparency, and to improve visibility of clubs’ ownership. By pulling together publicly available data and using visual presentation media it is possible to make complex information accessible to a broad audience; Alan Russell will share techniques for applying this approach to other data sets.

Venue & Date:

Bringing Data to Earth: Life in Data: Local participation, creative industries, and data civics.

Date: 24 September // Times: 10.00am – 4.00pm

Venue: Vision Building, Unit 6, 20 Greenmarket, Dundee, DD1 4QB

Bookings:

https://bringing-data-to-earth-dundee.eventbrite.co.uk

For more information about the activities of the Life in Data RSE Research Network, please visit: http://www.lifeindata.org/

All the best,

Eddy

Principal Investigator: “Life in Data: literacy, openness, education policy and creative data innovation in Scotland” RSE Research Network http://www.lifeindata.org