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Apply Now! School of Data’s 2018 Fellowship Programme

Cedric Lombion - April 16, 2018 in Announcement, Fellowship

UPDATE: the application window has closed. Thanks for applying!

School of Data is inviting journalists, data scientists, civil society advocates and anyone interested in advancing data literacy to apply for its 2018 Fellowship Programme, which will run from May 2018 to January 2019. 8 positions are open, 1 in each of the following countries: Bolivia, Guatemala, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, The Philippines. The application deadline is set on Sunday, May 6th of 2018. If you would like to sponsor a fellowship, please get in touch with School of Data.

The Fellowship

Fellowships are nine-month placements with School of Data for data-literacy practitioners or enthusiasts. During this time, Fellows work alongside School of Data to build an individual programme that will make use of both the collective experience of School of Data’s network to help Fellows gain new skills, and the knowledge that Fellows bring along with them, be it about a topic, a community or specific data literacy challenges.

Similarly to previous years, our aim with the Fellowship programme is to increase awareness of data literacy and build communities who together, can use data literacy skills to make the change they want to see in the world.

The 2018 Fellowship will continue the work in the thematic approach pioneered by the 2016 class. As a result, we will be prioritising candidates who:

possess experience in, and enthusiasm for, a specific area of data literacy training
can demonstrate links with an organisation practising in this defined area and/or links with an established network operating in the field

We are looking for engaged individuals who already have in-depth knowledge of a given sector or specific skillsets that can be applied to this year’s focus topics.. This will help Fellows get off to a running start and achieve the most during their time with School of Data: nine months fly by!

The areas of focus in 2018

We have partnered with Hivos and NRGI to work on the following themes: Procurement and data in the extractives industry (oil, mining, gas). These amazing partner organisations will provide Fellows with guidance, mentorship and expertise in their respective domains.

2018 Fellowship Positions

Bolivia

The Fellowship in Bolivia will be focused on public procurement data through the Open Contracting Programme. For this position, School of Data is looking for someone with: Experience with and interest in community building, experience with the implementation of civic projects with a data or technical component, storytelling skills, and experience with promoting data or technical stories to a wide audience, basic understanding of the public procurement process

Guatemala

The Fellowship in Guatemala will be focused on public procurement data through the Open Contracting Programme. For this position, School of Data is looking for someone with: Experience in the planning, coordination and implementation of projects with civil society organisations, the ability to advise and train organisations on working with data and delivering technical projects, basic understanding of the public procurement process

Ghana

The Fellowship in Ghana with be focused on extractives Data through the Media Development Programme at NRGI. For this position, School of Data is looking for someone with: an interest in supporting or working within the civil society sector, experience working with financial (or related) data for analysis experience as a trainer and/or community builder, interest and/or experience in the extractives sector, demonstrated skills as a data storyteller or journalist

Malawi

The Fellowship in Malawi will be focused on public procurement data through the Open Contracting Programme. For this position, School of Data is looking for someone with: experience with delivering technical and data-driven projects, experience with facilitating training activities, experience with data collection projects, basic understanding of the public procurement process

Indonesia

The Fellowship in Indonesia will be focused on public procurement data through the Open Contracting Programme. For this position, School of Data is looking for someone with: experience with delivering technical and data-driven projects, experience with facilitating training activities, experience with working with government systems or data. Candidates with the following optional interests and experience will be appreciated: experience with explaining complex topics to varied audiences, experience with user design methodologies, experience with community development

The Philippines

The Fellowship in The Philippines will be focused on public procurement data through the Open Contracting Programme. For this position, School of Data is looking for someone with: experience with user-centric research and design methodologies, experience with community-building activities, experience with data storytelling. Candidates with the following optional interests and experience will be appreciated: graphic design skills, experience with delivering trainings

Kenya

The Fellowship in Kenya will be focused on public procurement data through the Open Contracting Programme. For this position, School of Data is looking for someone with: experience with delivering data-driven projects, experience with user research and data storytelling, experience with explaining complex topics to varied audiences. Candidates with the following optional interests and experience will be appreciated: interest in or experience with supporting civic projects and civil society organisations, experience with facilitating training activities.

Tanzania

The Fellowship in Tanzania will be focused on public procurement data through the Open Contracting Programme. For this position, School of Data is looking for someone with: experience with delivering data-driven projects, experience with facilitating training activities, experience with explaining complex topics to varied audiences. Candidates with the following optional interests and experience will be appreciated: experience working with journalists or as a journalist, interest in or experience with supporting civic projects and civil society organisations, experience with writing pedagogical content

9 months to make an impact

The programme will run from May to January 2019, and entail up to 10 days a month of time. Fellows will receive a monthly stipend of $1,000 USD a month to cover for their work.

What are you waiting for?

Key Information: Fellowship

Available positions: up to 8 fellows, 1 in each of the following countries: Bolivia, Guatemala, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, The Philippines
Application deadline: May 6th, 2018, midnight GMT+0
Duration: From May 14th, 2018 to January 31st, 2019
Level of activity: 10 days per month
Stipend: $1000 USD per month

Key links

Detailed info about the Fellowship
Application form links: closed

About diversity and inclusivity

School of Data is committed to being inclusive in its recruitment practices. Inclusiveness means excluding no one because of race, age, religion, cultural appearance, sexual orientation, ethnicity or gender. We proactively seek to recruit individuals who differ from one another in these characteristics, in the belief that diversity enriches all that we do.

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2017 Summer Camp dispatch #1: Thank You

Cedric Lombion - October 3, 2017 in Event report

School of Data’s 2017 Summer Camp has reached an end and was, by most metrics, a resounding success! This is especially when one considers the leap of faith we took on several aspects: the first three days included a new mix of sessions, which we tried to broadcast live; the last 2 days featured an Open Training section with 70 (!) participants, which required its own dedicated event planning to make it work; the full camp was documented on a live agenda allowing for remote following and contribution.

The secret in making it work was to rely both on the skills of our staff and the power of our network. A round of thanks is consequently in order:

Joachim Mangilima, who has been School of Data’s conductor on the ground throughout the Summer Camp, and was able to produce the work of a full event team on his own;

Photo by Juan Casanueva, SocialTIC

Our own Meg Foulkes, who was the second magician working behind the scenes and who made sure, among other key contributions, that School of Data network members reached and left Tanzania safely;

SocialTIC, longtime School of Data network member and partner, who brought the Latin American team to the Summer Camp;

the IREX team, who has been involved from the very beginning and helped make the Open Training with YALI Fellows a reality;

The Data Collaboratives for Local Impact teams, who took responsibility for a huge part of the logistics involved in the Open Training, from the set up of the training space to the amazing barbecue!

And finally, of course, the dozens of participants from the combined networks of School of Data, DCLI, dLab and Data Zetu who all contributed to make this event a success.

A thousand times thank you!

Tags: Tanzania Comments Off on 2017 Summer Camp dispatch #1: Thank You

Building an Open Data Ecosystem in Tanzania with trainings and stakeholder engagement

Joachim Mangilima - August 14, 2016 in Community, Event report

Open data is often defined as a product: events, portals, hackathons, and so on. But what does the process of opening data look like? In Tanzania, among many other things, it’s a gradual, iterative process of building capacity in Tanzanian government, civil society and infomediaries to manage, publish and use open data. Of late, the open data scene in Tanzania has been growing from strength to strength.

Participants in an open data training session related to the Tanzanian health sector

The following milestones are testimony to this growth:

last September, Tanzania hosted the first ever Africa Open Data Conference (AODC).
the drafting of the country’s open data policy ,which is in the final stages of government approval before it can be passed as policy.
formation of the Code for Tanzania chapter,which, among others, will spearhead establishment of local chapters of the global Hacks/Hackers community, as well as a flagship civic technology ‘CitizenLab’, with a core team of software engineers, data analysts and digital journalists, who will work with local newsrooms and social justice NGOs.
the establishment of Tanzania Data Lab (Dlab), serving as an anchor for the Data Collaboratives for Local Impact (DCLI) programme, which aims at enabling data analysis and advocating for its prominent use in Tanzanian governmental decision-making. Since the exciting news broke that Tanzania will be joining the Global Data Partnership, the DLab has also started working with the Tanzania National Bureau of Statistics, and other stakeholders, to support the process of assessing what data is needed to drive progress, as defined in the Global Data Partnership Roadmap and, ultimately, leverage the data revolution to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Tanzania Open Data Initiative

June and April saw another round of training organised under the Tanzania Open Data Initiative (TODI) umbrella, geared towards Tanzanian government agencies covering three key sectors: Education, Health and Water. These are collaborative sessions, tailored towards civil servants working with data related to these sectors, which have been running for three straight years since 2014. They focus on building skills about data-management, cleaning, visualizing and publishing data, open data principles for navigating the legal and professional challenges of managing open data innovation and communicating results to a wider audience.

Often, these sessions produce as many questions as answers – “How precisely do we define ‘access to water’ in rural areas?” or “What does an ‘average passing rate’ really mean?” – but this is encouraged. Indeed, we’re already noticing that a primary beneficiary of open data initiatives is the government itself. Although conventionally billed as a tool for citizens, open data can also be a powerful mechanism to reduce frictions among the multitude of ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) of a government.

One notable difference between these rounds in April and June, and previous ones, was that there were a few selected participants from civil society in attendance. This enriched the quality of discussion which resulted in increased engagement of all participants during the sessions: their presence facilitated sharing of experiences for mutual understanding, thereby collaboration between the government and civil society.

Open Data in a day

June’s week-long sessions culminated in an “open data in a day” event at Buni Hub, which for the very first time had a strong focus on media and technology developers. It was amazing seeing the enthusiasm and the level of interaction of this group and how excited they were to put into action key takeaways from the session.

Participants from the media and technology industry at the Open Data in a Day event at Buni Hub.

These activities are testimony of the progress that Tanzania is making in the open data arena and, with similar activities planned for the future, there is good reason to expect the country’s open data ecosystem to experience further growth in strength and quality.

Infobox
Event name:	Tanzania Open Data Initiative
Event type:	Workshop
Event theme:	Open data in practice
Description:	Training organized under Tanzania Open Data initiative collaboratively between National Bureau of Statistics and E-Government Agency supported by the World Bank tailored towards civil servants working with data
Trainers:	Dave Tarrant ,Emil Kimaryo, Joachim Mangilima, John Paul Barreto
Partners:	Open Data Institute (ODI)
Location:	Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Date:	7th – 14th June 2016
Audience:	Statisticians, Economists and data managers from ministries and government agencies for the first two sessions and journalists, start ups developers and civil society for the third session
Number of attendees	95 across the three sessions
Gender split:	almost 50/50
Duration:	6 days

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Education Data Dive in Tanzania

Joachim Mangilima - November 10, 2014 in Data Expeditions, Events

We recently had a round of training in Dar es Salaam to continue growing momentum and capacity around open data in Tanzania, which is part of a bigger commitment by the Tanzanian government to the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a global initiative that aims at promoting transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption and encourage use of new technologies to improve governance. In Tanzania this commitment covers three main sectors: education, health and water.

“Open Data Training: Education Data Dive” workshop was held on 6-10 October 2014, in Dar Es Salaam, with representatives from Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT), Prime Minister’s Office- Regional Administration and Local Government, National Examination Council of Tanzania (NECTA), E-Government Agency (EGA), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and National Council of Technical Education (NACTE), Tanzania Education Authority and other institutions.

Group photo for training in Dar es Salaam

This was my first time co-facilitating a workshop of this kind as a School of Data Fellow in Tanzania. And it was a fantastic opportunity for me to sharpen my facilitation skills and also to learn from other facilitators, including the main facilitator and a more experienced among us all, Michael Bauer from the School of Data. It was a wonderful thing seeing all these government agencies responsible for education, in one room, learning and sharing from one another, which even by their own admission is very rare situation. When we were preparing for this workshop we knew that there is an existing expertise and knowledge about specific education datasets, but the challenge is mainly in letting other agencies know this so that they can be able to collaborate between themselves. It was fitting then that we had several datasets from some of the agencies that we used during our workshop to bring participants to a common understanding of open data concepts, teach and practice data wrangling skills and clean and join key datasets that some of them were already familiar with.

We started the workshop by focusing on developing a common understanding of open data and data management with concepts such as improving usability of already available public data providing better metadata and improving data workflows, to open licensing of data. Then we proceeded to introduction of various tools for data cleaning, analysis and visualization, including Open Refine, QGIS, Fusion Tables and Pivot Tables. This was the first time that most of the participants were using these tools, and they were excited to see how these tools opened up a world of possibilities that they did not know that existed with the datasets that they are working with often. An example was clearly illustrated by one participant from the PMO-RALG who was glad to have discovered Pivot Tables, as most of the tasks that he is working on most datasets would be simplified a lot using Pivot Tables skills. These practical hands on sessions were met with enthusiasm by all participants, and despite dedicating two full days, they were still up to spending more time cleaning, merging, analyzing and visualizing their datasets using these tools.

Brainstorming during the workshop

One major discussion that resonated throughout the workshop and how these agencies through working together might be able to come up with solutions about this , was the lack of unique codes that can be used to identify schools by different education stakeholders when dealing with education datasets containing schools. Most participants were of the agreement that merging data sets and coming up with analysis and visualizations during the workshop, would have been much easier, if we had unique codes used by every agency whose data sets were used during the workshop.

The latter part of the workshop was mainly spent, collecting feedback about the workshop and jointly plan the way forward for the implementation of what participants learned in their daily workflows. The follow up plan was drafted in which we will have a bi–weekly sessions with some of the participants to work together to implement what they learned during the workshop and also to revise various techniques about the tools learned and to dive deep into techniques we could not cover during the workshop.

Post-it notes from the workshops

The highlight for me of this workshop was the informal discussions that participants were having during breaks in which most of them were of the agreement that Open Data initiatives need not be seen as a foreign based concept imposed on Tanzania, but rather Tanzanians themselves need to see the benefits and take ownership of this concept.

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The Data Bootcamp in Tanzania

Michael Bauer - October 23, 2012 in Events

I am on the Road in Tanzania and Ghana to spread the datalove. Last week Tanzania’s first data journalism event happened: The Data Bootcamp, organized by the World Bank Institute and the African Media Initiative, brought together international experts, journalists, civil society organizations and technologists to work on data related projects.

In 2010 Tanzania comitted to release open government data as part of the open government partnership. Nevertheless, the Tanzanian government has only released two datasets so far. One goal of the data bootcamp was to spur demand by implementing small data projects. The format was tested before in South Africa, Kenya and Moldovia and helped to raise awareness of Open Data. In preparation and during the workshop 4 more datasets were scraped and liberated. Further data was collected by the participants to work on their specific projects.

Of the 40 participants only 7 were able to code – the majority was journalists and activists who never handled data before. Through the three days they received an intensive training in how to use spreadsheets and tools like Google Refine or Fusion Tables to tell stories with data.

The data bootcamps not only consist of intense hands-on learning experience, they also are a small competition, where 2000$ are awarded to the winner. Since the Tanzania bootcamp did not result in a clear winning project, three finalists were chosen. Each of them received a small starting sum to produce a working prototype within three weeks. After this the winning project will be chosen. Final projects were 1.) A platform tracking promises made by politicians and whether they were fulfilled. 2.) Tracking and monitoring foreign direct investments and 3.) a project illustrating the problem with Land-Grabbing and land ownership in Tanzania.

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