CartoDB is constantly engaging with and supporting our community of mappers, developers, open data champions, development practitioners, students, educators, journalists, and innovative companies. We offer workshops and webinars to organizations, companies, and groups who want to learn how to harness the power of data by mastering our mapping platform.
In the past couple months we have given workshops to a diverse range of mappers, from Columbia University students, designers, architects, journalists at the Wall Street Journal, and Code For Newark (CFN). Recently, CartoDB sponsored The Staten Island Bus Hackathon, organized by the NYU Rudin Center, TransitCenter, and the MTA, as well as the HackNewark Hackathon. The results have been exceptionally positive!
To further foster CFN’s development and coding skills, CartoDB conducted a ground-up workshop covering the basic skills necessary to add a mapping component to an app the team was developing. Shortly after, CartoDB sponsored the HackNewark Hackathon held at Newark City Hall in New Jersey. Three teams participated in the hackathon and were given the challenge of addressing a social issue in Newark through the creation of an app.
Code for Newark created Newark Thrives!, an app which connects parents and their children to youth programs in their community. The app allows the user to filter programs by area of focus and also provides transportation information and other important location specific data. Ivan Quan, of Newark Thrives!, recently described his experience with CFN and leveraging technology to create change in his community.
“We all started participating in Code for Newark hack nights around the same time with very little experience in programming. Together we’re a cohort of average citizens. It’s really amazing nowadays the access we have to open source tools that can be customized to fit the needs of a local community. For us, this is proof that ordinary people can be a part of something that can directly improve the outcomes of their neighbors’ lives. This wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the collaborative environment that Code for Newark offers. For us, this is just the beginning!”
CartoDB and our Community team is eager to teach our software to many more groups, companies, government agencies, and organizations, no matter where you are in the world. Please contact Tyler Bird tbird@cartodb.com and Santiago Giraldo santiago@cartodb.com to inquire about requesting, planning or teaming up on a workshop, webinar, or hackathon!
Alternatively, if you think you already have the skills needed to start carrying out insightful and impactful mapping projects, but need some additional support, please see our Grants for Good Program!
Happy Data Mapping!