Data for Good

On Saturday, June 1st, more than 60 data scientists will gather together in Waterloo Region to work towards a common goal – to help the House of Friendship better understand and expand its volunteer base. It's all part of a datathon being organized by Data for Good – an organization that provides data scientists with opportunities to use their expertise to help not-for-profits come up with solutions to problems using data.

House of Friendship helps more than 42,000 individuals each year who are in need of food, housing, community resources or addiction treatment. Jennifer Scott is the Volunteer Manager at House of Friendship, and says their programs and services wouldn't exist without their volunteers. “We work with over 1500 volunteers each year,” she says, “We want to make sure they all have a great experience, and want to find out how they can serve them better.”

The Waterloo chapter of Data for Good was started in the summer of 2018 by Nadia Novikova, Jeffrey Baer and Harisah Mehmood (who was succeeded by Jawahar Rajan). An official kick-off event was held in November 2018 at the Communitech Data Hub, and current membership has surpassed 350 data scientists. “Waterloo Region is a great fit for Data for Good because of the technology talent in our region ,” says Nadia Novikova. “So many of our members are interested in making a positive social impact using the data science skills they've spent their lives honing.” 

The two organizations first connected in Toronto at an Association of Fundraising Professionals meeting. John Neufeld, Executive Director of House of Friendship, met up with representatives from Data for Good and a connection was made. The event on June 1st will be the the local chapter's inaugural datathon.

“It's a great opportunity to be able to use (Data for Good's) skills to come up with information that we'd never be able to put together in house,” says Amy Weber, House of Friendship's Human Resources Director. “Most not-for-profits would never have access to those skills.” 

Saturday's datathon takes place at Terminal in downtown Kitchener (Terminal is also a title sponsor for the event). It gets underway at 9 a.m. with a presentation by House of Friendship, and then teams of 3-5 data scientists will begin working together on House of Friendship's challenge statements. The teams will perform data analytics, discover insights, and present their findings to House of Friendship by the end of the day. In all, the datathon is expected to last about 12 hours. And while they're not really sure what they will find out at the end of the event, the House of Friendship team is excited to see the end results.

“We use evidence informed decision making in all of our other programming,” says Amy Weber, “so this is just a great way to use data and evidence based information to make decisions regarding our volunteers.”

“We're interested to watch the process too, and watch how they put everything together,” says Jennifer Scott. “What we do here when we collect data is pretty basic.”

Even though the purpose of the datathon is to provide House of Friendship with much needed data regarding its volunteers, both Weber and Scott realize there are also other mutual benefits to this collaboration. “We're receiving the data, but we're also providing an opportunity for these data scientists to volunteer and give back to their community,” says Weber. “We often hear from the tech sector that they don't know how to use their skills and the knowledge that they have to support not for profits. So we think this is a perfect way to build that bridge.” 

It's also an opportunity to share what House of Friendship does with the data scientists who will be participating in the datathon. “Anytime we can share what goes on here, who we're serving and what we're doing in the community it's great,” says Jennifer Scott. “Some of the volunteers from Data for Good may never have heard of us. And Saturday we have the opportunity to talk to more than 60 people about what we do.”

While this is the first datathon for the local Data for Good chapter, the group's Community & Partnerships Lead, Nadia Novikova, says it certainly won't be its last. “We are all looking forward to the datathon and we are so lucky to have House of Friendship as a client for this engagement,” she says. “We are always interested in growing our membership, as well as speaking with potential clients or partners. We invite anyone interested in a deeper conversation to contact us directly.”

As for House of Friendship, they feel it's important for the community to know about the volunteer work Data for Good is doing. “There are over 60 data scientists who want to give up their Saturday to volunteer,” says Scott. “They live in this community, and they care about this community. This is their way of giving back.”

Data for Good Datathon
Saturday, June 1st at Terminal in Kitchener
https://waterloo.dataforgood.ca/ 
https://www.houseoffriendship.org/