SciBraai and The Global Change and Sustainability Institute will host a Data Quest at The DIZ in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, on Friday 9 October 2015. The event will bring scientists, journos and techies together to tell socially-relevant science stories using data sets from the GCSRI, including data on rural firewood use, renewable energy and urban settlements.
Who can attend?
The event is open to all data geeks and storytellers, including journalists, scientists, developers, designers, science communicators and data analysts. If you’re keen to participate, please REGISTER HERE or scroll down to the form below.
What’s the cost?
Zippo, nadda, zero. It’s absolutely free!
What should I bring?
A laptop if you’ve got one, and your sense of humour.
We’ll assign a role to you, depending on your skills – either journo/techie/scientist. The journos are there to help find the story in the data and the data visualisation, the scientists will help find the trends and patterns in the data, and the techies will build the data visualisation. If you can play more than one role, that’s awesome too!
Where does the data come from?
Many of the scientists attending will be from the GCSRI, and we’ll work with them to make sure there are interesting datasets available which are easy to work work with, clean and not too technical.
Will there be food?
As with most SciBraai events, we’ll have a braai (Science + Braai = SciBraai), and we’ll provide snacks, drinks and refreshments.
What’s in it for me?
In a nutshell: prizes, free food and fun. It’s a chance to meet some fabulous people and produce something great. The event is free, the food is free and delicious, and you might even get your work published. We’ll also have some cool prizes for the best stories and data visualisations. If you’re keen to participate, please REGISTER HERE or scroll down to the form below.
What’s the point again?
Participants will team up to find stories in data, and then prepare a multimedia article/data visualisation, which will be judged by a panel of SciBraai, GCSRI and Hacks/Hackers Jozi data geeks. Stories should have social relevance, with at least one high-impact data visualisation. We’ll also help turn the winning stories and visualisations into articles to be published on SciBraai.co.za under a Creative Commons License, and thus potentially also by other publications.
How much time will we get?
Be there at 8:30 for 9:00 on Friday 9 October, hack all day with a break for lunch and the prize-giving, and we’ll try to wrap things up by 18:00 at the latest.
REGISTRATION FORM:
About SciBraai
SciBraai is a proudly South African NPO dedicated to science journalism, communication and outreach. Founded in 2013 by Anina Mumm and Engela Duvenage, the blog publishes features stories about South African research, technology and innovation, and the people behind the discoveries.
Building on our strong online presence, SciBraai is now running events around South Africa to promote science journalism and science engagement. This includes Data Quests, like the first one held in Cape Town in partnership with Code4SA and the International Center for Journalists, and the recent SciBraai Live event held at North West University in partnership with the CSIR to celebrate National Science Week.
For more information, email scibraai@gmail.com, or connect with us on Facebook or Twitter.
About GCSRI
The institute was established as an enabling research platform of global significance and local impact, fostering informed action for adaptation and innovation in the rapidly changing southern African region. The Institute is multidisciplinary and some of the research agendas include:
- Global Change adaptation and mitigation
- Biodiversity, human health and nutritional status of rural communities
- Sustainable urban living through improved water, waste and energy management
- Pollution, extraction and ecosystem health
- Action research on environmental policies
- Improve innovation policy-making effectiveness and support cross field collaboration between environmental, science and technological agencies