By Rob Mitchum // July 19, 2016
From Kenya and Mexico to Syracuse and Tulsa, data in the hands of people with skills, expertise, and compassion can produce genuine benefits. For the 2016 edition of the Eric & Wendy Schmidt Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) Summer Fellowship, 42 fellows from around the world will work with partners in these locales and beyond on tackling challenges in education, policing, social services, criminal justice, and other vital real-world topics.
Since 2013, DSSG has trained over 150 fellows from dozens of countries, creating an international community of data scientists committed to using their talents for social good. Past projects included helping Chicago proactively inspect homes for lead, detecting lobbyist influence in legislation, identifying police officers at risk of adverse incidents, and determining causes of maternal mortality in Mexico.
This year’s projects feature partnerships with cities such as Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Syracuse, police departments in Charlotte and Nashville, public school systems in Tulsa and Ohio, and organizations working in Kenya, New York State, Kansas, and Mexico.
“Our 2016 projects represent both exciting new directions for the fellowship as well as important work expanding upon earlier years’ results,” said Rayid Ghani, director of DSSG, a University of Chicago program. “This summer will not only give our fellows and partner organizations valuable experience with data-driven projects, but ideally produce open source tools that can help many more nonprofits and governments achieve their goals of helping people.”
This year’s projects focus on a wide range of subject areas:
Public Safety: Last year, DSSG worked with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) on an “early intervention system” to find and re-train officers at risk of adverse incidents with the public. This year, the fellowship will partner again with CMPD to add additional features to their system, as well as expanding the model to a new jurisdiction with the Metro Nashville Police Department.
Education: With Tulsa Public Schools and Muskingum Valley Educational Service Center, fellows will build models to identify students struggling academically in elementary and high school, so that schools can provide additional assistance earlier and more effectively.
Social Services: DSSG will partner with SEDESOL, the Mexican Ministry of Social Development, to better connect services with the citizens most in need of government assistance. The fellowship will also work with the Office of the President of Mexico on improving their citizen request system to enable faster responses and targeted services. Through the White House Data-Driven Justice Initiative, DSSG will work with Johnson County, KS on identifying vulnerable individuals seen by multiple public systems, such as jails and hospitals, to provide them with more comprehensive care.
City Services: In another White House-facilitated project, DSSG will help the City of Milwaukee analyze multiple data sources, including court, health, and school records, to locate factors that raise or lower the risk of juvenile crime. The City of Cincinnati will partner with the fellowship for a second consecutive year, this time looking for data-driven strategies to improve emergency medical services. With officials from Syracuse, fellows will help predict water mains that are most likely to fail, to aid in repairing and replacing the city’s water infrastructure.
Environmental Protection: Building upon work in 2015 with the national EPA, this year DSSG partners with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to help prioritize inspections of facilities that handle hazardous waste.
Public Health: Sanergy designs and manufactures sanitation facilities for the slums of Kenya, operating them as business franchises with local residents. DSSG will partner with the organization to optimize their waste collection process, freeing up resources for broader expansion.
For more information about the fellowship and projects from previous years, visit dssg.uchicago.edu, and follow us on Twitter @datascifellows.