We’d like to invite you to take part in the next DataDive, on the weekend of 17-19th April at the ODI Node in Leeds.

NEW deadline for project applications: Friday March 6th.

DataKind UK has teamed up with The Young Foundation, Leeds City Council and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to help local charities and social organisations to use data to explore the issue of inequality. This is part of a larger project to tackle the structural causes of inequality in the city. More about the project below.

Charities
Are you a charity or social organisation working on issues related to inequality in Leeds? Do you want to better understand your own data and use it to improve what you do? Do you want to combine your data with other data to dig into a pressing social problem? If so, we’d love to hear from you.

In particular, we are interested in...

• Issues related to financial inclusion, financial hardship and payday loans
• Safeguarding and vulnerability, particularly child sexual exploitation, and the elderly and isolated

Have other great ideas about how to unlock insights into social issues around inequality? We’d love to hear them!

Yes! How do I get involved?
We will be selecting three charities or social organisations for the April DataDive. If you are one of the selected charities, participation will require:

• Meeting with your Data Ambassadors regularly to make sure your data and your questions are ready for the DataDive
• Having at least one senior representative come along to the DataDive to guide the data scientists in their explorations of your questions and your data
• Staying committed to working with your Data Ambassador to ensure that the insights from the event are incorporated into your organisations' approach

Want to apply to be one of our charities for the DataDive?
Please fill in this web form by midnight Friday March 6th.

We will be selecting and contacting the successful applicants in mid-March.

Data people
Are you a data scientist interested in using your super powers for good? Every DataDive needs great Data Ambassadors who have experience in data analytics. These Data Ambassadors are our super heroes! They ensure that all charities have smart questions and useable to keep the two-day DataDive on track and productive.

Interested in becoming a Data Ambassador?
Please email emma@datakind.org.uk.

What does a DataDive look like?
DataDives are weekend-long events, where a group of data and technology professionals work intensively with three charities to help them use data better. The professional volunteers are people whose day jobs involve analysing and finding insights in data for multinational organisations. These specialists are not usually affordable to the charity and third sector: a DataDive is a way for charities to access sharp data minds pro bono. The types of questions and challenges we look at might include:

• Where and with what types of clients do our services have most impact? How might we target those people better?
• What regional patterns of need do we see in our particular area? Is there anything we’re missing which might help us have more effect?
• Are there better ways to measure what we do?

What’s the larger project about?
The Young Foundation is working with Leeds City Council and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to tackle the structural causes of inequality in Leeds.

The project aims to establish an enduring partnership for open social innovation between the civic, commercial and charitable institutions of Leeds and its people. The project will involve ethnographic research, community engagement, and the creation of new social innovations targeted on priority themes and in priority areas of the city. As part of this, The Young Foundation is working with DataKind UK to run a DataDive in Leeds to help us, the third sector, and wider data science community to understand inequality in Leeds.

What is the Young Foundation?
The Young Foundation harnesses the power of social innovation to tackle the root causes of inequality. They believe inequality undermines the economy and corrodes our wellbeing, leaving its mark on communities, relationships, aspirations and self-worth.  

The Young Foundation is working to create a more equal and just society, where each individual can be fulfilled in their own terms. They work with the public and private sectors and civil society to empower people to lead happier and more meaningful lives.

What is DataKind UK?
Organisations can gain huge advantages by using data in an intelligent and analytical way. However, managing and making sense of data needs skilled professionals, and those professionals are hard for charities to get access to.

At the same time, many of those professionals would love to use their skills to achieve something good. DataKind UK is a vehicle for that pro bono work, organising DataDives and longer term relationships to help charities benefit from the best of these skills and technologies. It was set up by a group of UK data professionals, to give local focus to the already very successful international DataKind charity.

DataKind UK is a charity run by volunteers and funded by grants and donations.