Archive for May, 2012
Schools Data Day project – report (pt1)
A while ago, I mentioned that I wanted to get some school pupils together with some data analysts to see if we could organise a ‘data day’.
The good news is that (with the kind help of Deloittes and the London Borough of Barnet) we did it a few months ago (it was picked up by The Evening Standard here.
Over the next few weeks, I’d like to share everything that we learned doing this, but today, I’m going to start with the transcript of an interview that I did (partly by email) with Adrian Tan – one of Deloitte’s team. I think this captures what we set out to do quite well, and I hope it’s worth reading. Read the rest of this entry »
Where Geeks can contribute to democracy
After attending the Westminster Skeptics ‘Geek Manifesto‘ event the other night, I’m now leafing through my shiny signed copy of Mark Henderson’s new book.
This isn’t a review (I’ve not finished reading it yet!) but the book carries a powerful case for rationalism in politics. The author tends towards a sort of post politics-ism that I’d not go along with, but this is a quibble for another time.
The discussion among the Skeptics was interesting though, and I wanted to capture one issue:
How can Geeks engage in politics? Should they stand for election? Few do. Should they continue sticking up for their own – defending Simon Singh with The Quacklash or fighting cuts to research funding- that they sometimes do so well? Read the rest of this entry »