NYU seeks to advance data collaboration in cities

New York University’s GovLab is calling for applicants for its new Data Re-Use in Cities course which will take place from April 24 until the end of June.

Run through the Open Data Policy Lab, the eight-week training course is open to representatives globally from cities and the private sector, and participants will focus on developing a data re-use strategy for their city or cities they work with. Twenty places are available and participation is free, with support from Microsoft.

The organisers say the course blends the best of the City Incubator Program run in 2022 with the Data Stewards Academy Executive Education course, which is now in its fourth iteration.

Opportunity

Stefaan Verhulst, Co-Founder and Chief Research and Development Officer at The GovLab, told Cities Today: “The key focus of the course is on how to make data collaboration within the context of a city more systematic, sustainable and responsible. One of the big lessons learned from our work on open data, including open data in cities, is that ultimately it’s really about facilitating re-use.”

This could include cities accessing privately held data to better understand mobility or using new sensor data to improve tourism. In other cases, cities hold the data that others require.

“City governments are the unique holders of specific types of data that can really benefit a variety of other stakeholders,” said Adrienne Schmoeker, Senior Fellow at The GovLab, noting that she received regular requests from individuals and businesses when she was the Deputy Chief Analytics Officer for the City of New York.

One example is inventory data, according to Schmoeker. In New York, she received a request for information on publicly available defibrillators from a resident whose relative had died of a heart attack.

“That’s a really powerful use case to be presented with,” said Schmoeker.

It turned out that the city government didn’t have the data but tried to “broker conversations” with those that did.

“There’s still so much opportunity for the public and a lot of other stakeholders to better understand who owns what, and then figure out how to make that information available, and open data is a very powerful first step towards answering a lot of those questions,” Schmoeker said.

Challenges

Cities and companies are sometimes wary about sharing data, due to practical, commercial or legal concerns.

“We want to professionalise the way you establish those data collaboratives because it turns out that it is not easy,” said Verhulst. “There are a whole range of questions and challenges.”

The course will address issues such as defining data questions and requirements, minimum viable data points, responsible and sustainable sharing, and measuring impact.

“Establishing a data collaborative within a city requires a new kind of function,” Verhulst said, calling it a “reimagined data stewardship function”.

He added: “Too often, it’s been left to the data scientists to figure this out.”

Applications close on April 5. Participants will be invited to join the Data Stewards Society network upon completion of the course.

The initiative comes as cities are increasingly stressing the need for both public and private datasets to achieve their goals.

Through a newly formed Industry Data for Society Partnership, seven companies – GitHub, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Northumbrian Water Group, R2 Factory and UK Power Networks – recently committed to making their data more open to help solve pressing societal challenges.