Using your powers for good: Data science in the social sector

Abstract: Just like every major corporation today, nonprofits and governments have more data than ever before. And just like those corporations, they are eager to tap into the power of their data. But the social sector doesn’t have the same resources to attract talent. Jeff Hammerbacher, Chief Scientist at Cloudera, put it best: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.” At DrivenData our goal is to make the world suck a little less by empowering impact organizations to get the most from their data. Peter Bull, co-founder at DrivenData, will speak on the ways in which statistics, computer science, and machine learning can be applied to the challenges in the social sector. The talk will address both the big-picture context of the data for good movement, and an in-depth case study of the methods which won DrivenData’s recent machine learning competition on smart school budgeting. It’s an exciting time for people who love data: methods are improving, computational costs are decreasing, storage and transport are cheaper, and the talent pool is growing. It’s up to the data geeks to use these powers for good.