NYC School of Data 2025: Full Schedule

Welcome to NYC School of Data — a community conference that demystifies the policies and practices around open data, technology, and service design. This year’s conference concludes NYC’s Open Data Week & features 30+ sessions organized by NYC’s civic technology, data, and design community! Our conversations and workshops will feed your mind and inspire you to improve your neighborhood.

To attend, you need to purchase tickets. Venue is accessible and content is all ages friendly! If you have accessibility questions or needs, please email us at < schoolofdata@beta.nyc >.

If you can’t join us in person, tune into the main stage live stream < schoolofdata.nyc/live > provided by the Internet Society New York Chapter and sponsored by Reinvent Albany. Follow the conversation #nycsodata on Bluesky.

9:00am EDT

Breakfast

Saturday March 29, 2025 9:00am - 10:00am EDT

2-300 - Cafe

Saturday March 29, 2025 9:00am - 10:00am EDT
2-300 - Cafe

Food

9:00am EDT

Childcare at School of Data

Saturday March 29, 2025 9:00am - 4:45pm EDT

TBA

Free childcare is available to those who have pre-registered their child on Eventbrite (not Sched!).

Parent(s) or guardian(s): Register your child(ren) on Tito BEFORE March 26 by selecting a Childcare Ticket and responding to the registration questions.

What to know:

This year, we have contracted Smart Sitting for on-site child care from 9:00 am to 4:45 pm.
The deadline to register your child(ren) is March 26.
Childcare is free for ticket holders. All ages under 18 are accommodated.
If your child can be vaccinated and wear a mask, they must be vaccinated and wear a mask.
Children must come with their own snacks and lunch for the day.
All children MUST be picked up between 4:30 pm and 5:00 pm.
If you register for childcare and do not show up, BetaNYC will incur a fee of approximately $200 per child and you may have prevented someone else from using the childcare services. Please communicate with us if your plans change before March 26. If you don't, and if you care to help us defer these costs, you can make a tax-deductible donation at https://beta.nyc/donate

If you have any questions, please email us at < schoolofdata+children@beta.nyc >.

Speakers

BetaNYC

Saturday March 29, 2025 9:00am - 4:45pm EDT
TBA

10:00am EDT

Opening Session

Saturday March 29, 2025 10:00am - 10:45am EDT

2-301 - Auditorium

Speakers

BetaNYC

Saturday March 29, 2025 10:00am - 10:45am EDT
2-301 - Auditorium

Plenary

11:00am EDT

A year of using AI @ citymeetings.nyc: what it took, how it works, and the impact it has had

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT

3-301-A/B Combined

citymeetings.nyc uses AI to make NYC council proceedings accessible to everyone using AI.

Since launching it last February, the site's traffic has grown to hundreds of visitors daily, over ten-thousand visits a month, and it is now used widely among professionals in NYC's government, lobbyists, trade associations, advocacy groups, and the media.

Vikram Oberoi, creator of citymeetings.nyc, will share:

- The impact and coverage the site has had to-date
- How his approach changed so he could break down 5-20 hours of public proceedings comprehensively, same-day
- How his tools work and how he uses AI to make citymeetings.nyc possible
- Tips and takeaways for folks working on products that use AI

LLMs have the power to bring more transparency to unstructured government data, but they're tough to use well! Practitioners will come away with learnings they can use in their own projects and leaders will get a glimpse into what investing in using AI to navigate public records will require of them and their teams.

Speakers

Vikram Oberoi

citymeetings.nyc

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
3-301-A/B Combined

Presentation or Talk

11:00am EDT

Congestion Pricing, As Seen Through DOT Cameras

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT

2-112

Join machine learning engineer Isaac Donis and designer/UX expert Tim Harris for an illuminating data-driven presentation on New York City's congestion pricing through the lens of NYC Department of Transportation cameras. Born as a passion project, they've developed a custom computer vision approach to capture and analyze traffic patterns across the city, creating a unique grassroots dataset that offers fresh insights into the real-world effects of congestion pricing on our streets.

This session will showcase their methodology for counting vehicles per minute across DOT camera feeds and present their findings in accessible, visually compelling formats. Perfect for data enthusiasts, policy-minded New Yorkers, transportation advocates, and anyone curious about how technology can provide new perspectives on urban challenges. The presentation will conclude with a Q&A session where audience members can engage directly with the presenters about their techniques, findings, and implications for the future of NYC transportation.

Speakers

Isaac Donis

Community Organizer, Transit Techies

Isaac Donis is a machine learning engineer, and community organizer of Transit Techies, a local meetup that explores how technology can be used to increase mobility options for New Yorkers. He’s spent his career in data science and is passionate about urban infrastructure.

Tim Harris

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
2-112

Presentation or Talk

11:00am EDT

Congestion Pricing: Data Lessons From the First Three Months

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT

2-301 - Auditorium

On January 5th, New York began an ambitious effort to reshape how people and vehicles share the public space of our city streets. With tolling equipment now operational below 60th Street, it is also the very first time that the public has access to detailed data about how vehicles enter the Congestion Relief Zone (CRZ) each day.

In this talk, you will hear from the MTA Data & Analytics team, who will be sharing key findings and lessons from the first three months of Congestion Pricing. Beyond top-line findings, they also introduce newly released Open Datasets, allowing participants to understand with their own eyes - and with their own data - how this program is reshaping traffic within NYC.

Participants who have a passion for Open Data, or have a specific interest in New York's newest urban policy, should join for a lively technical discussion.
https://www.mta.info/article/most-detailed-view-of-nyc-traffic-so-far

Speakers

Matt Yarri

Data Science Manager, MTA

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
2-301 - Auditorium

Presentation or Talk

11:00am EDT

Leveraging Open Data for Independent Analysis: Stormwater Fees, Police Overtime Trends, and the State of NYC's Public Education

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT

3-201

The NYC Independent Budget Office (IBO) aims to enhance understanding of New York City’s budget, public policy, and economy through independent analysis. We leverage Open Data in numerous ways to achieve this goal. IBO researchers will present 3 separate projects that used Open Data:

- Brian Cain (Assistant Director) modeled the cost and burden of potential stormwater fees in NYC using geographic data;
- Valerie Gudino (Budget and Policy Analyst) researched IBO police overtime trends, specifically the relationship between NYPD tenure and hours of OT usage of uniform NYPD personnel in fiscal year 2024 using tabular data; finally,
- Emma Gossett (Budget and Policy Analyst) compiled NYC Education Indicators using Department of Education student-level data that is now available Open Data.

This event is perfect for anyone interested in data-driven policy analysis, or the specific areas of environmental, public safety, or education policy. IBO will present all three projects then take audience questions.

Speakers

Brian Cain

Assistant Director, NYC IBO

Emma Gossett

Budget and Policy Analyst, Education, Independent Budget Office of New York

Valerie Gudino

Budget and Policy Analyst, NYC IBO

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
3-201

Presentation or Talk

11:00am EDT

Machine Readable Laws: How LLMs can help democratize NYC Administrative Code

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT

2-119

Laws are meant to govern everyone, yet they often feel inaccessible to all but legal experts. As we move into an era where AI and automation shape how we interact with information, we have to ask: What does it mean to digitize the law? Who decides how legal texts are structured, processed, and interpreted by machines? And most importantly—how can we ensure that legal AI tools serve the public, not just Big Tech?

This talk will explore these questions through the lens of a project building a custom, domain-specific LLM trained on Titles 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, and 20 of the NYC Administrative Code. It will walk through the process of transforming administrative code into a machine-readable format, the challenges of working with legal language, and the value of building a custom LLM instead of relying on existing AI tools. Along the way, we’ll consider the bigger implications of legal AI—who gets to decide how we interpret laws for digital systems, how do those systems execute the laws, and what are the implications for equity and a future shaped by technology?

The session will include a live demo of the chatbot and see firsthand how it engages with NYC administrative code. We’ll close with key takeaways on the future of AI in legal accessibility and what it means to build tools that truly serve the public.

Jordan Shapiro, M.A., is a tech policy expert and data analyst focused on government digitalization. She has worked on tech policy initiatives in the U.S., U.K., and E.U. and serves as a SPRITE+ Expert Fellow and BetaNYC Associate Board member. A techno-optimist, she aims to help shape a world positively transformed by technology.

Speakers

Jordan Shapiro

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
2-119

Presentation or Talk

11:00am EDT

Pulling Out All the Stops for a Stop Sign: Lessons From a Long and Winding Road

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT

3-113

Following up on last year's talk summarizing three years of work pursuing an all-way stop sign in one little corner in Brooklyn, join Josh Sucher and Roisin Ford to talk about the softer side of hard data. We'll review lessons learned from a year of working closely with and persuading neighbors, safe-street advocates and local officials whose on-the-ground work is just as important - if not more important - to the fight as open data.

Only through the support of low-tech activism have we made incremental pedestrian safety improvements in our neighborhood in the past year, including a walkabout with our local city councilwoman and Brooklyn DOT commissioner, and - yes! - at least one new traffic signal added to our boulevard.

Learn about how we've married this activism with the right open data at the right time in order to supercharge our efforts, and bring these lessons back to your own neighborhoods!

Speakers

Roisin Ford

Josh Sucher

Creative Technologist & UX Researcher

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
3-113

Presentation or Talk

11:00am EDT

Ranked Choice Voting in the Big Apple

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT

2-109

This session will explore New York City’s experience with Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) since its implementation in 2021. I will present key findings from the New York City Campaign Finance Board’s (CFB) research on the 2021 and 2023 RCV primaries, shedding light on how voters engaged with this new system.

The panel will begin with a brief history of RCV and its introduction to NYC’s special and primary elections, where it has been used to elect the Mayor, Public Advocate, Comptroller, Borough Presidents, and City Council members. We’ll explore how this voting method has shaped electoral outcomes and voter participation in the city. Attendees will also gain an understanding of the Cast Vote Record (CVR)—an anonymized dataset that captures individual ballot rankings, allowing for in-depth analysis of voter behavior. We’ll provide an overview of how CVRs are structured and how they can be used to assess the impact of RCV. Finally, we’ll examine New York City’s performance in its first two RCV primary elections. This includes insights into how voters utilized their rankings, common ballot errors, comparisons with other major cities using RCV, and the role of demographics and voting behaviors in ranking choices. Don’t miss this opportunity to deepen your understanding of NYC’s evolving electoral landscape!

Speakers

Kathryn Agnas

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
2-109

Presentation or Talk

11:00am EDT

Intro to NYCDB: Exploring NYC Open Data with the Housing Data Coalition

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT

2-116

NYCDB is an open-source project of the Housing Data Coalition intended to make it easier for housing justice advocates to fight displacement in New York City.

Join Maxwell Austensen of the Housing Data Coalition for this interactive workshop, where you'll learn about the basics of NYC's housing-related open data by asking questions of NYCDB. You'll learn what a BBL (Borough-Block-Lot) is, and how to query NYCDB using a language called SQL. You'll also learn how to use other tools that build on NYCDB, like Who Owns What and the Displacement Alert Project (DAP) to aid you in housing research.

At the end of the day, you'll have learned the basics of how to query the database to answer your housing questions and have a better understanding of NYC's Open Data landscape.

No prior experience with open data or databases is required to attend this session.

Speakers

Maxwell Austensen

Housing Data Coalition

Member of the NYC Housing Data Coalition.

Saturday March 29, 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
2-116

Workshop or Training

12:15pm EDT

Creating a Multimodal Urban Planning Simulation for Diverse Publics using NYC Open Data

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT

2-301 - Auditorium

This panel will discuss the development of a multimodal urban planning simulation that will launch at the New York Hall of Science, in Queens, NY, in April 2025 as part of a new exhibition called CityWorks. The discussion will be of interest to anyone who is using open data to increase opportunities for city residents to reflect on and engage with the urban planning processes that shape their neighborhoods.

This simulation allows public audiences to use physical representations of different kinds of land use (schools, parks, and small and large commercial buildings) to make changes to three different types of NYC neighborhoods (residential, commercial and industrial), and to examine the impact of their changes on neighborhood traffic, flooding risk, and waste production. The simulation was created by a collaborative, interdisciplinary team of multimedia designers (Trivium Interactive), data scientists (Beta NYC’s Data Innovation Lab), and exhibit designers (New York Hall of Science).

After sharing the design, functionality, and goals of the simulation, the group will then discuss two key challenges: how to balance interpretability and data integrity in this simulation, and how to leverage public engagement with the simulation to create new opportunities for more equitable and inclusive participation in urban planning processes.

Speakers

Katie McMillan Culp

Amelia Merker

Exhibit Manager, New York Hall of Science

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
2-301 - Auditorium

Panel Discussion

12:15pm EDT

Navigating the NYC Open Data Infrastructure for Community-Based Organizations: A conversation

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT

3-301-A/B Combined

Join us for a conversation on using open data for community based organizations. In this lively panel we will consider big questions about local data. This panel features Yuki Mitsuda from NYC Housing Preservation and Development, Kevin Lee, the director of data analytics from Breakinground, Inc and Angelica Bravo, the director of data, evaluation and learning from University Settlement. How can these organizations with limited data capabilities leverage open data infrastructure to help demonstrate success? Can open data be utilized more effectively to help meet communities needs? When should a community based organization turn to open data to support the development of new programming? These and other important open data questions will be considered.

Speakers

Yuki Mitsuda

Manager, Analytics & Data Strategy, NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD)

Kevin Lee

Director of Data Analytics, Breaking Ground

Angelica Bravo

Director of Data, Evaluation & Learning, University Settlement

Lauri Goldkind

Professor, Fordham

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
3-301-A/B Combined

Panel Discussion

12:15pm EDT

Analyzing Flood Insurance Claim Trends in New York City: Insights from FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program Data

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT

3-201

What can we learn about NYC's flood risk and flood insurance claims from FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) data? How can combining NFIP claims data with datasets like 311 street flooding complaints uncover new insights?

Join Mark Bauer and Tiffany Cousins, two civic-minded data enthusiasts, to explore key trends and relationships in FEMA’s NFIP redacted claims data for NYC, investigating how these trends align with broader flood risk and urban dynamics. We aim to answer the following questions:
- How can we analyze trends in the number and amount of NFIP claims over time?
- What are the most costly flood events, and how do they impact flood risk management?
- How can we map the geographic distribution of claims, while being mindful of the limitations with redacted data?
- What can we learn by integrating NFIP claims data with NYC’s 311 street flooding complaints to identify areas of vulnerability?

The ultimate goal is to equip participants with the skills to use Python, SQL, and DuckDB for analyzing NFIP data, while also providing a deep understanding of NYC's flood risk.

The primary takeaway is how insights from FEMA’s NFIP claims data can drive urban policy decisions, improve flood risk management, and help stakeholders make data-driven choices.

Who should attend? This session is designed for individuals with beginner-level proficiency in data analysis, as well as those interested in flood insurance and urban flood risk. Prior experience with the following will be helpful but is not required:
- Interest in FEMA NFIP data and the OpenFEMA API
- Learning about urban flood risk and data-driven risk analysis
- Basic Python or SQL programming and working with geospatial data

The GitHub repo and presentation website will be launched the day before the event.

Speakers

Mark Bauer

Data Scientist

Tiffany Cousins

Spatial Data Scientist and Researcher, Cousins Analytics LLC

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
3-201

Presentation or Talk

12:15pm EDT

Best of the MTA Open Data Challenge

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT

2-119

In the fall of 2024, the MTA launched its first ever Open Data Challenge, calling on members of the public to build something cool and interesting with an open dataset on data.ny.gov. The datasets used and a description of each project is available in this blog post. In a lightning round of presentations, you'll hear for all finalists in the challenge who explored MTA open data and used it in creative ways!

The presenters in this hour include:
- Are NYC Subway Stops Ready for Every Student? – Huda Ayaz, Olivia Fratangelo, and Taseen Islam
- The Museum of Transversal Art – Bianca Ng
- Lately on the MTA – Noah Gunther
- If you Give a Rat a MetroCard – Will Meyers
- Subway Stories – Jediah Katz and Marc Zitelli

Speakers

Lisa Mae Fiedler

Open Data Manager, www.mta.info

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
2-119

Presentation or Talk

12:15pm EDT

Good Cause Eviction Screener: A data-driven approach to bolster tenant rights in NYC

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT

2-116

In April 2024, Good Cause Eviction Protections were signed into law in New York State after years of organizing by tenants. However, the answer to "Do I qualify for Good Cause?" is not always straightforward for tenants in NYC. JustFix, in collaboration with Housing Justice For All, created a tool for tenants in NYC to easily check their Good Cause coverage. In this session, we will discuss the product development process of the Good Cause Eviction Screener and in particular, how the rich open data ecosystem in NYC has allowed us to create a simple, easy-to-use product for all tenants.

Speakers

Corey Brown

Design Lead, Just Fix

Ki Wan Sim

Senior Software Engineer, JustFix

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
2-116

Presentation or Talk

12:15pm EDT

Learning about the NYC Urban Forest through the Latest High-Resolution Tree Canopy Data

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT

3-302

Tree canopy covers over a fifth of the land area in New York City, offering a wide variety of benefits to people and biodiversity while supporting resilience in the face of a changing climate. The Nature Conservancy, with collaboration and review by NYC Parks, recently released data on tree canopy in NYC as of 2021 – an update to datasets released by the City for 2010 and 2017. Come learn about the data, some initial findings about tree canopy in NYC and how it is changing, and how you can start working with the data yourself in open source software (QGIS) from Mike Treglia (Lead Scientist of the NY Cities Program at The Nature Conservancy) and Uma Bhandaram (Deputy Chief of Environment & Planning at NYC Parks). If you are interested in trees in NYC or the environment more broadly, urban planning, or spatial data and GIS, this session might be for you!

Speakers

Uma Bhandaram

Deputy Chief, NYC Parks & Recreation

Mike Treglia

Lead Scientist, NY Cities Program, The Nature Conservancy

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
3-302

Presentation or Talk

12:15pm EDT

OSCUR: A Platform for Understanding Urban Data - Demonstration and Introduction

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT

2-112

OSCUR brings together data science (visualization, data management, analytics, modeling, HCI), policy, and engineering (sustainable & resilient urban infrastructure, network science) to tackle important scientific questions and help urban data analytics efforts around the world. We will discuss the platform and demo two example applications.
UTK: Using the Urban Toolkit (UTK) we will provide and interactive tutorial demonstration that shows how eight different datasets from NYC Open Data portal (including crime and noise reports; restaurants, parks, and subway locations; sky exposure; school quality reports and taxi pickups) can be used to create an integrated map-based visualization to help us to better understand the uniqueness of different neighborhoods. We will provide preprocessed datasets and shapefiles, and walk participants through the creation of "knots" that attach data from each of the loaded datasets to a neighborhood in the interactive map. (https://urbantk.org/utk/)

Curio: Using Curio we will demonstrate how to conduct a micro-scale environmental analysis, using Milan as a test case. We will first show how weather data are loaded into Curio and create a spatial join to link the data to the neighborhoods of Milan. We will then show how to calculate the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI), and create linked visualizations to highlight neighborhoods with high UTCI and a large population of older adults. This example will be used to show how the Curio framework supports collaborative urban visual analytics more generally. (https://urbantk.org/curio/)

Other OSCUR related projects include:
· Project Sidewalk (https://makeabilitylab.cs.washington.edu/project/sidewalk/)
Our NYC research has been featured in NY Times:
· Mapping the Shadows of New York City: Every Building, Every Block (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/21/upshot/Mapping-the-Shadows-of-New-York-City.html)
· The Coronavirus Quieted City Noise. Listen to What’s Left. (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/22/upshot/coronavirus-quiet-city-noise.html)

Speakers

Graham Dove

Assistant Professor, New York University

I am a design focused Human-Computer Interaction researcher with a focus on participatory approaches to working with machine learning, and personal or open data

Fabio Miranda

Assistant Professor, University of Illinois Chicago

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
2-112

Presentation or Talk

12:15pm EDT

Data Comics Workshop

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT

2-109

With NYC open data as your raw material, join Kelly Dinneen of the BetaNYC Associate Board to learn practical techniques for drafting nonfiction comics and join a collaborative experiment in using sequential art to engage with civic data.

We'll begin by exploring a few NYC open datasets ripe for narrative and visual interpretation. Then we will discuss comic works that clarify complex systems, give voice to competing perspectives, and create unique pairings of the concrete and abstract. During the hands-on portion of the workshop, we will move through a series of iterative activities with our chosen datasets—data exploration, visual inspiration, free writing, and doodling—where visual, textual, and analytical elements inform one another. You will leave with the draft of a mini comic, and the tools and inspiration to continue developing your project.

Speakers

Kelly Dinneen

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
2-109

Workshop or Training

12:15pm EDT

Learn NYC Zoning with Open Data, Paper Models, and Augmented Reality!

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT

3-113

Learning about Zoning can be intimidating-- let's use open data to make it more approachable, literally! In 1916, New York City became the first city in the United States to adopt a comprehensive zoning resolution. New York City's zoning is unique because it uses a rich tapestry of zoning districts and regulations to address specific conditions in different areas.

What if we could make this tapestry visible from the street? How should it look?

The team from inCitu AR and NYC zoning expert Pablo Sepúlveda from Urban analytics platform Zlvas are collaborating to host this interactive design challenge. No prior zoning, crafting, or coding experience required!
Participants will:

- Learn NYC Zoning 101
- Use craft materials to make handmade zoning envelopes
- Scan and view them outside in life-sized augmented reality!
- Discuss how to help more people understand zoning, and best visualize it in the era of spatial computing

Speakers

Lizzy Chiappin

Nick Kaufmann

Community Manager, inCitu

augmented reality, immersive media, civic engagement, participatory planning

Ziv Schneider

Founder & CEO, inCitu

Ziv Schneider is the Head of Design at inCitu.

Pablo Sepúlveda

Founder / Zoning Lead, zlvas

Sydney Upchurch

Saturday March 29, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
3-113

Workshop or Training

1:15pm EDT

Lunch - Second Floor

Saturday March 29, 2025 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT

2-300 - Cafe

Saturday March 29, 2025 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
2-300 - Cafe

Food

1:15pm EDT

Lunch - Third Floor

Saturday March 29, 2025 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT

3-115 and 3-116 - Commons

Saturday March 29, 2025 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
3-115 and 3-116 - Commons

Food

2:30pm EDT

NYC Public Space: Building a mobile map of 3,000 public spaces in New York City

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT

2-116

New York City is filled with hidden plazas, pocket parks, and vibrant gathering spots—not all of which show up the same way on google maps? NYC Public Space is a mobile app for iOS and Android that aggregates open government data to present a comprehensive guide to the city’s public spaces.

Join Chris Whong - urbanist, mapmaker, and data junkie - for an inside look at how the app was created, from leveraging NYC’s open data resources to designing an intuitive, user-friendly map experience using the Mapbox Maps SDK for Flutter. We’ll explore the challenges of working with government datasets, our approach to crowdsourcing updates, and how you can use the app to discover new places to relax, work, or socialize. Whether you're a city explorer, an urbanist, or a developer interested in civic tech, this session will show you how open data can transform the way we experience public space.

Speakers

Chris Whong

Civic Hacker O.G.

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
2-116

Exhibition

2:30pm EDT

A Conversation with MTA Data & Analytics

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT

2-119

In this panel, data engineers and data scientists on MTA's Data & Analytics team will answer your burning questions about the MTA, Data, and Analytics! Curious about how the open data MTA publishes makes it way to data.ny.gov? Interested in how bus speeds are calculated? Or maybe you just want to know more about what's it's like to work with data at America's largest transit agency? The session will be facilitated by Hannah Spierer, Senior Manager Policy & Coordination.

Speakers

Lisa Mae Fiedler

Open Data Manager, www.mta.info

Hannah Spierer

Senior Manager, Policy & Coordination, Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
2-119

Panel Discussion

2:30pm EDT

Defending Affordable & Stable Housing: Progress and Problems

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT

2-116

In this multi-specialist panel, doctoral students from the CUNY Graduate Center will discuss how access to, and the experience of, long-term housing in NYC has changed as a result of open data sources available in the city.

This will include a presentation by Sam O'Hana, doctoral candidate in English and Advising Fellow in Data Analysis and Visualization, who will discuss the publicly-available repositories of information (DHCR, HPD, DOB, DOF) that are necessary to challenge illegal deregulation of rent stabilized apartments in the city. He will share updates from a pending lawsuit against his landlord in the NYS Supreme Court.

We will also hear from Ian Williams, MSW, a doctoral student in Social Work with a background as a social worker involved in issues surrounding tenancy, governance structures and open source digital resources.

The third panelist will be Holden Taylor, doctoral candidate in English and Organizer for the Brooklyn Eviction Defense Tenant Union, who will present work relevant to his dissertation on the issue of housing, including the use of open data for tenant organizing.

Speakers

Ian G. WIlliams

Doctoral Student, PhD Program in Social Welfare, CUNY Graduate Center

Ian G. Williams, LMSW is a student in the Ph.D. Program in Social Welfare at the CUNY Graduate Center, Ian is a Program Social Media Fellow with the Graduate Center Digital Initiatives and was a HASTAC Scholar from 2022-2024. Ian researches the intersections of technology, human service... Read More →

Sam O'Hana

Holden Taylor

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
2-116

Panel Discussion

2:30pm EDT

Beyond the Dataset: NYC Council and You

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT

2-301 - Auditorium

Join the NYC Council Data & Web Team for a dive into three new powerful public datasets that reveal the Council’s biggest roles in shaping the city. This session will explore how these datasets drive transparency and empower constituents.

Datasets being discussed are:
- Legislation (1998 to Present)
- Participatory Budgeting Ideas, Proposals and Funded Projects
- Council Connect: District Office Visits, Calls, and Emails (to be published)

Through lightning talks from the people who run key Council programs and build the tools that make them accessible, you'll get a behind-the-scenes look at how NYC Council data is created and the challenges of creating relevant, interpretable data. Whether you're a policymaker, researcher, or engaged New Yorker, this is your chance to see data in action!

Speakers

Anne Driscoll

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
2-301 - Auditorium

Presentation or Talk

2:30pm EDT

FloodNet - Event based flood data for climate resilience

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT

3-301-A/B Combined

FloodNet's mission is to develop tools for real-time urban flood monitoring, implement these tools to measure flooding in New York City, and make flood data and monitoring tools available in a manner that is accessible and useful to stakeholders including residents, community-based organizations, government agencies, and researchers.

The FloodNet team is composed of researchers and practitioners at New York University, the City University of New York, and New York City government agencies working in collaboration with stakeholders to collect and share data that contribute toward flood risk mitigation and building community flood resilience. FloodNet is deploying 500 realtime flood depth sensors at flood prone locations across NYC's five boroughs. The flood sensors are typically mounted to street signposts, measuring water levels directly beneath. As of March 2025, we have installed over 250 sensors and collected flood data for over 2100 flood events.

In this demonstration we will introduce the project and walk through our soon to be released dataset on the NYC Open Data platform. The dataset consists of flood events captured by our sensor network over its 4+ years of operation and includes: start/end times, peak depth, time-series depth measurements and associated sensor metadata. We will also present how the data has been used to verify a hydrological model of the Midland Beach neighborhood of Staten Island adjacent to the New Creek Bluebelt flood mitigation development.

To find out more about the FloodNet project, please visit our website at: floodnet.nyc

Speakers

Charlie Mydlarz

Research Associate Professor, NYU CUSP

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
3-301-A/B Combined

Presentation or Talk

2:30pm EDT

How Crosswalk Labs Maps Nationwide Neighborhood-Level CO2 Emissions Data and Benchmarks to NYC Building Energy and Water Data

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT

3-201

Crosswalk Labs tracks greenhouse gas emissions over time with unprecedented resolution — scouring hundreds of data sources, running constrained optimization protocols on billions of data points, and bench-marking the results against atmospheric measurements. With support from the Data Foundation, Crosswalk Labs launched an open data portal at open.crosswalk.io, providing free access to neighborhood-level emissions data from 2010-2023.

Director of Solutions Architecture, Danny Sheehan, will present with a member of the Crosswalk Labs climate science team. Individuals and organizations interested in greenhouse gas emissions, energy, and climate science should attend.

We'll present some information on how we source, model and share emissions data, how anyone can access Crosswalk Labs data, and how they can use Crosswalk Labs Open Inventory data. Additionally, since there is some modeled emissions data for some sectors, Crosswalk Labs uses national open data as well as local NYC open data such as NYC Building Energy and Water Data Disclosure for Local Law 84 from NYC Open Data. We will also present how Crosswalk Labs modeled energy and emissions data compare and benchmark against this useful open data provided by NYC.

Speakers

Danny Sheehan

Director of Solutions Architecture, Crosswalk Labs

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
3-201

Presentation or Talk

2:30pm EDT

Open Data in Action: Tracking New York City’s Progress Toward Closing Rikers Island

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT

2-109

Join us for an in-depth presentation on the New York City Jail Population Tracker — a cutting-edge, open-source dashboard that brings real-time data to life. This powerful tool monitors the city’s jail population, provides forward-looking projections, and offers crucial context on New York City’s plan to close Rikers Island. Designed as a one-stop resource, the dashboard delivers daily insights that help public officials, advocates, researchers, and the public track the city’s progress — or lack thereof — in fulfilling its commitment to closing the jails on Rikers Island.

In this session, you’ll explore:

The Story Behind the Numbers: Background on Rikers Island, the #CloseRikers campaign, and ongoing efforts for reform and decarceration.
Building the Dashboard: A behind-the-scenes look at how NYC’s Open Data API, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Python, and Streamlit came together to create this user-friendly, data-driven tool.
Data in Action: An interactive demonstration of the dashboard, with insights into the current and projected state of NYC’s jail population — including breakdowns by race, gender, and mental health service needs.

Speakers include Elizabeth Johnson, Data Scientist and lead creator of the dashboard; Tao (Richie) Lin, Data Manager and dashboard co-developer, Data Collaborative for Justice; Sarita Daftary, Co-Director, Freedom Agenda; and Michael Rempel, Director, Data Collaborative for Justice.

Whether you’re a policymaker, data enthusiast, or advocate for criminal justice reform, this session offers a unique opportunity to see how open data and technology can drive transparency and change. Don’t miss this chance to learn, engage, and be part of the conversation.

➡️ Explore the Dashboard: https://nyc-jail-population-tracker.datacollaborativeforjustice.org/
➡️ Read DCJ Director Michael Rempel’s latest Op-Ed on research-backed solutions to empower officials to meet the closure deadline: https://lnkd.in/eMhAR7DV

Speakers

Sarita Daftary

Co-Director, Freedom Agenda

Elizabeth Johnson

Data Scientist

Tao (Richie) Lin

Michael Rempel

Executive Director, Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
2-109

Presentation or Talk

2:30pm EDT

Where does NYC Garbage Go? It is now possible to know!

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT

2-112

In July 2024, the NYC Department of Sanitation added several new datasets to Open data that help tell the story of where garbage goes. These datasets provide data on the annual tons of refuse sent to each of the transfer stations used by DSNY, as well as details on the landfills and WTE combustors that receive those tons go after they leave the transfer station. The data presented in three tables that can be linked to show the quantities of NYC trash that flow through transfer stations and on to different disposal locations. The tables also show information on costs, travel distances, and modes of transportation.

In conjunction with two additional datasets already existing on Open Data, it is possible to estimate the flow of refuse from an individual district through the transfer station and on to specific disposal sites outside the city. This is the closest New Yorkers have ever come to being able to follow their trash on an ongoing basis. Knowing this information puts fresh perspective on what it means to dispose of your trash; and how doing other things with it -- like recycling, composting, donating, reusing and reducing -- is a better option.

This presentation will tell the story of how these datasets were requested and ultimately put up on NYC Open Data, and will provide a "how to" primer on using and interpreting the information in maps and nonspatial analysis. This information is especially relevant to residents of disadvantaged communities in NYC where waste transfer stations cluster, and to activists in community composting, urban agriculture, and local reuse enterprise who see NYC's zero waste future as one in which materials are kept local to the extent possible, and risks are not exported to other communities.

Speakers

Matthew Eshed

Andrew Goh

Data Analyst

Samantha MacBride

Jane Wu

Shen Xin

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
2-112

Presentation or Talk

2:30pm EDT

Keeping your data safe in 2025 (and beyond!)

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT

3-302

If you're new to digital security, 2025 is your year! (And if you're a seasoned practitioner, 2025 is... also your year.)

The past 2.25 months have, if nothing else, showcased the vulnerability of public data as a stark contrast to the value of our personal data. After DECADES of shifting to online services, sometimes exclusively, there's a lot of personally identifiable information out there that it would be prudent to safeguard.

This session will be presented by Davis Erin Anderson, Senior Digital Security Trainer at Freedom of the Press Foundation. Since around 2016, Davis has been training journalists, librarians, and anyone else who will listen on how to enhance their privacy and security online. Her favorite topics are credential security, avoiding online scams, and how to use encryption everywhere possible.

Join this session to talk shop about various vulnerabilities and threats, from phishing scams to government surveillance, and what we might do about them. We each have the power to keep our data, ourselves, and one another safe this year and into the future.

Speakers

Davis Erin Anderson

Senior Digital Security Trainer, Freedom of the Press Foundation

Saturday March 29, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
3-302

Workshop or Training

3:45pm EDT

Urban Risk Index: a NYC Index for Urban Hazards

Saturday March 29, 2025 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT

2-109

New York City is a complex and dynamic home to over 8.6 million residents with high population density, aging building stock, and interconnected infrastructure. All these elements amplify the risk of the many hazards in the city. Due to these complexities, emergency managers and planners have struggled with how to prioritize planning for these hazards because there is no mechanism to determine if some risks should be prioritized over others and to compare risks for each hazard. The same challenge also applies to selecting mitigation investments by hazard. However, since there is limited funding, city planners need to know which projects will produce a higher return on mitigation investment.

In 2020, New York City Emergency Management (NYCEM) procured a vendor to build an Urban Risk Index (URI). This index aimed to allow users to visualize and understand risk through the geographic lens of New York City. The tool incorporated specific datasets unique to New York City, creating a more localized version of FEMA's National Risk Index (NRI). As well as an index, the tool allows the user to compare geospatial outputs and analyses for different hazards. The index aspect of the tool is directly complimented by its ability to present risks in the context of the New York City landscape. Following the completion of the contract, the contractor developed a rich repository of scripts and outputs that embellished the risk analysis aim of the original request.

In our presentation, Te Du and Ahmad Shaibani of NYCEM will deliver a demo for the public version of the Urban Risk Index tool. Then we will share the methodology of the index calculations including the open datasets incorporated and how they contributed to the overall index scores. We will also share a few technical details in making the tool with open source technologies and highlight how they made the tool more robust and maintainable for future iterations.

Speakers

Te Du

Risk Analysis Specialist, NYCEM

Previously Data & Policy at NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission, Housing & Economic Development at Department of City Planning. Anything urban data related!

Ahmad Shaibani

Risk Analysis and Resiliency Program Manager, NYC Emergency Management

Saturday March 29, 2025 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT
2-109

Presentation or Talk

3:45pm EDT

Let's Build a NYC Public Interest Tech Lab - A Visioning Game

Saturday March 29, 2025 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT

3-302

Imagine a publicly accessible lab space where we can come together to showcase projects aimed at unlocking the power of Open Data and digital tools to empower communities. We are committed to creating such a venue in NYC.

Through a fun and interactive "visioning game," participants will collaborate to design a blueprint for a NYC Public Interest Technology Lab. We will be using an IRL game format and arts and crafts to engage participants. Our goal is to emerge from this workshop with a bold, shared vision of a collaborative hub that bridges sectors and communities: promoting digital equity, tech transparency, and community empowerment. The outcomes of this workshop will help guide our planning for the NYC PIT Pop-Up that we are going to be creating in Fall 2025 that will feature our collective work.

In this workshop, you’ll learn what public interest technology is and how it can be understood as part of community-driven data solutions. Working together in a gamified format, teams will map the lab’s potential priorities, generate focus areas, and identify resources to make the biggest impact. Using collaborative storytelling and creative exercises, we’ll synthesize your ideas into actionable next steps. Participants will have the opportunity to win prizes. Join us to help shape the future of public interest technology in NYC and make this vision a reality!

Anyone attending School of Data/Open Data week who are engaged in projects/orgs that promote digital equity, public access to data science, performance & protest art, public interest technologists, civic technologists, data practitioners and early career technologists are encouraged to attend. Student, community, academic and non-profit leaders welcome.

Speakers

Kathleen Cumiskey

Anthoni Garcia

Lab Manager, CUNY PIT Lab

Raj Korpan

Effie MacLachlan

Director of Grants & Research Programs, City University of New York

Ian G. WIlliams

Doctoral Student, PhD Program in Social Welfare, CUNY Graduate Center

Saturday March 29, 2025 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT
3-302

Workshop or Training

3:45pm EDT

NYC Urban Heat Portal: workshop to leverage data for heat resilience advocacy and planning

Saturday March 29, 2025 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT

3-301-A/B Combined

Our team will demonstrate how to use the NYC Urban Heat Portal for heat resilience advocacy. The NYC Urban Heat Portal maps and visualizes several outdoor heat exposure data layers. We will show users how to navigate the website, map, and data visualizations, understand weather station data, evaluate neighborhood profiles, and how to download data for further analysis. You will learn about the fundamentals of urban heat and about how to use data available through the NYC Urban Heat Portal.

If you are interested in heat resilience and the ways we can measure it, this workshop would be useful for you. You will learn about heat mitigation resources in different neighborhoods.

Participants will have the opportunity to work with the data, and download specific data layers. We suggest that participants bring a laptop for hands-on experience.

This portal is designed by Hunter College's Urban Policy and Planning department, BetaNYC, and Penn State University in collaboration with community partners such as WE ACT and Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice.

The speakers:

Ashley Louie, former Beta NYC CTO
Mehdi Heris, Assistant Professor at Hunter College City University of New York
Andrew Kittredge, Beta NYC - Civic Innovation Lab Director
Lun Hung, Beta NYC - Civic Innovation Lab Associate, Frontend Developer
Hailee Luong, former Beta NYC Civic Innovation Lab Associate, User Experience Designer
Zhi Keng He, Beta NYC - Software Engineer

Speakers

Mehdi Heris

Lun Hung

Front-end Developer Lab Associate, BetaNYC

Andrew Kittredge

Civic Innovation Lab Director, BetaNYC

Ashley Louie

Former Chief Technology Officer, formerly at BetaNYC

Hailee Luong

Saturday March 29, 2025 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT
3-301-A/B Combined

Workshop or Training

3:45pm EDT

Search Every Word on NYC Streets

Saturday March 29, 2025 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT

2-112

Join software engineer Yufeng Zhao for a session combining technical insights with hands-on practice in creating searchable collections of urban text. Yufeng will first share how they built "all text in nyc" (https://alltext.nyc) - a search engine that lets you find any text visible in New York City's streetscape, from shop signs to graffiti.

The session is split into two parts: First, there will be a demonstration of how to collect and process panoramic images, implemented OCR on curved text, and created a geographic search interface. Then, we'll roll up our sleeves for a hands-on workshop where you'll use an open-source library to create your own small collection of searchable street text.

This session is perfect for civic technologists, urban researchers, and anyone interested in discovering new ways to document and analyze our city's textual landscape. No advanced programming experience required - if you can run a Python script, you're ready to participate!

Speakers

Yufeng Zhao

Saturday March 29, 2025 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT
2-112

Workshop or Training

5:00pm EDT

Refreshments

Saturday March 29, 2025 5:00pm - 6:00pm EDT

2-300 - Cafe

Saturday March 29, 2025 5:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
2-300 - Cafe

Food