From: Data Lab <data@...>
Date: February 2, 2015 at 9:58:15 AM EAT
To: Brian Monyi <monyibrian@...>, wilmartea@..., matt.lowes@..., Emily Kumpel <emily.kumpel@...>, Andrew Mutua <mutua.andrew@...>, James Maringa <jmsmaringa@...>, david@..., adolphus lwova <alwova@...>, Elvis Bando <elvisbando@...>, Matthew Hoover <matthew.a.hoover@...>, matthew.hoover@..., Stephen Mwega <smwega@...>, Sebastian Mitchell <sebastian@...>, admin@..., Ishuah Kariuki <ishuah91@...>, Odanga Madung <odanga@...>, Alex Orenge <alex@...>, John Ombagi <jayombagi@...>, Sidney Ochieng <sidney@...>, Chalenge Masekera <chalenge@...>, Laban Okune <laban.okune@...>, macharia@..., Jay Taneja <jay.taneja@...>, Millie Wachira <milliewachira.mw@...>, Linus Ombette <lombette@...>, techytimo@..., Victor Ombonya <ombonya@...>, Eric Cobain <ericobain@...>, gitunamartin@..., james ratemo <jratemo@...>, Solomon Mwendwa <solomonmwendwa@...>, Colle Owino <Colleowino@...>, abu Okari <abuokari@...>, Mike Mike <mmnyams@...>, matthewahoover@..., Angela Oduor Lungati <angela@...>, philip@...
Subject: February Data Science Meetup

Since mid-2014, our Data Science Lab has been honoured to host local data scientists at informal monthly meet-ups. These have been fantastic ways for us to get to know the exciting projects going on in the community, provided new opportunities to do more work in this field and network with other data scientists. We would like to thank those of you who have been able to make it a successful community event.

This year, the monthly Nairobi Data Science Meet-ups are back starting from next month, February, and we can't wait to share more community stories with you. If you would like to talk about your work or cool data science projects at any of thesemeet-ups, just drop us a line at data@....

The first data meet-up this year will be held at iHub Research, at 5pm on 6th of February 2015. The HDX Data Lab Nairobi together with Concern Worldwide Kenya and ScraperWiki, are helping us kick things off. Sign up to attend here. 

The topic of discussion will be:Building Resilience in East Africa with Connected Humanitarian Systems

HDX will be sharing a fascinating examination of data and humanitarian response.  Brief presentations from HDX, Concern, and ScraperWiki will show how today’s front line humanitarian responders save lives and reduce suffering through connected data. The event will share a vision of the humanitarian data revolution, showcase exciting data projects and spark a discussion on connecting data for humanitarian action.

Participants can expect to: Connect with data driven people working in the humanitarian, development, government, academic and private sectors over drinks and food; meet the HDX, Concern and ScraperWiki teams; get a first hand appreciation of the opportunities and challenges in increasing the data capacity and connectedness of the humanitarian community in East Africa.

The mainspeakers at this event are as follows:

Moses Sitati

Moses is a Socio Economist with 10yrs experience across the public and private sectors. He has broad technology industry experience across Sub Saharan Africa is interested in the use of information and communication technologies for development. He has worked in the past as regional lead for Nokia/Microsoft developer evangelism and support, economist/R&D specialist at Nokia Research Centre, and as a researcher at the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis. With strengths in cross-sector partnerships, business development, ecosystem building, and innovations management, he currently leads community building and outreach for the HDX Data Lab Nairobi.

Jay Chaudhuri

Jay Chaudhuri is Technical Advisor at Concern Worldwide Kenya. His main role is to lead an operational research initiative to develop a monitoring framework for slow-onset urban emergencies. Previous experience includes working on real-time monitoring at UNICEF, and evaluation of government social programs in India. Passionate about mobile technology, impact evaluation, and open data.

Aidan Mcguire

Aidan McGuire is a long time advocate for open standards and interoperability. He has managed and participated in open source and open data projects for over 10 years. In 2009, he and Dr Julian Todd created high-tech start-up ScraperWiki and they raised VC funding in 2012. Since 2014 he has been the Operations Director for the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX) whose role is to make humanitarian data easy to find and use for analysis. Aidan’s role at HDX is to coordinate the technical effort to meet the objectives of the project using agile methodology and as set by the Project Director. Aidan studied History and Economics at Trinity College Dublin.