Episode 26 - Open Data And Civic Hacking with Jason Norwood-Young

In this episode we explore the local world of open data and civic hacking.Kenneth, Kevin and Len are joined by Jason Norwood-Young (@j_norwood_young) from Code4SA (@Code4SA). Jason was a tech journalist in a previous life and "converted to the dark side" to become a developer. He's currently working with Code4SA on various open data and civic hacking initiatives and took us for a whirlwind tour of the space.We touch on a range of topics, from acquiring data from government and civil society, to the tools used to clean and interview the data, to publishing the data and building impacting projects that better the lives of people on the ground. We wrap up with some ways curious folks can get involved in the civic hacking movement, chatting local and global efforts to disseminate information and empower people.Follow Jason (https://twitter.com/j_norwood_young) and Code4SA (https://twitter.com/Code4SA) on Twitter. Code4SA has an exhaustive list of projects on GitHub (https://github.com/Code4SA), and can be found online at http://code4sa.orgThis show was packed with a lot of resources, all listed below:* What is open data? - http://opendatahandbook.org/guide/en/what-is-open-data/* Section 32: Access to information - http://www.acts.co.za/constitution-of-the-republic-of-south-africa-act-1996/index.html?32_access_to_information.phpNon-exhaustive list of sources:* STATS SA Data - http://www.statssa.gov.za/?page_id=1417* IEC Elections API - https://api.elections.org.za* Code4SA data repository - https://data.code4sa.org* City of Cape Town Open Data Portal - https://web1.capetown.gov.za/web1/OpenDataPortal/* Municipal Demarcation Board - http://www.demarcation.org.za/index.php/downloads/boundary-data* Code4SA Maps API - http://maps.code4sa.org* Parliamentary Monitoring Group - https://pmg.org.zaA few tools of the trade:* IPython - http://ipython.org* Requests - http://docs.python-requests.org* lxml - http://lxml.de/* Beautiful Soup - http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/* cheerio - https://github.com/cheeriojs/cheerio* Google Spreadsheets - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets* OpenRefine - http://openrefine.org* Infogr.am - https://infogr.am/* Mapbox - https://www.mapbox.com* Datawrapper - https://datawrapper.de* DocumentCloud - https://www.documentcloud.orgSpotlight on Code4SA:* Data quests - http://scibraai.co.za/join-the-data-quest-to-tell-science-stories-with-sa-data/* Naked Data Newsletter - http://code4sa.org/newsletter/* Wazimap - http://wazimap.co.za* Know your 'hood - http://mg.co.za/page/know-your-hood* South Africa's Protest Map - http://protest-map.code4sa.org/* Hospital ratings - http://hospitals.code4sa.org* Medicine Price Index - http://mpr.code4sa.org* Living on the edge - http://livingwage.code4sa.org* Open By-laws - http://openbylaws.org.za* Black Sash MAVC - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdi2kDt4Ieo & http://www.blacksash.org.za/index.php/sash-in-action/stories-from-the-field/1657-mavc-dialogue-with-tshedza-development-project* Data Journalism School - http://code4sa.org/school/* Code4SA on GitHub - https://github.com/Code4SAOther, non-affiliated, code* groups:* Code for Africa - http://www.codeforafrica.org* Code for America - http://www.codeforamerica.org* HackHackers - http://hackshackers.com* HackHackers Johannesburg - http://www.meetup.com/HacksHackersAfrica/Our spot in the global arena* Open Data Index - http://index.okfn.org* South Africa's ranking - http://index.okfn.org/place/south-africa/After we stopped recording we also chatted about Adrian Frith's Dotmap - http://dotmap.adrianfrith.com/And finally, our picks:Kenneth:* Bounce - http://bounceinc.co.za* The Revenant - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoebZZ8K5N0Len:* WolfenGo - https://github.com/gdm85/wolfengoJason:* Wolfenstein 1-DKevin:* Pocket - https://getpocket.com

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