Adam Hill: Research, Software Engineering & Data Science for Social Good with DataKind
Channel: Society of Research Software Engineering
Date: 2024-02-28

A talk from the RSE Outside Universities session at RSECon23 at Swansea University, on 2023-09-07.

Full title: Research, Software Engineering & Data Science for Social Good with DataKind: Lessons from the frontline

Programme link: https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/#/event/4430/submission/73
Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1EokqSOTCd83RtsH0mnCFKj8oTNPZN3gQH3wQGBCRVyY/edit?usp=sharing

Abstract:
DataKind UK are a charity that connects researchers, software engineers and data scientists from academia and industry with social change organisations like charities, letting them volunteer their time to research how the data an organisation holds can be used to transform their impact. This includes long-term engagement in DataCorps projects, as well as weekend-long DataDive hackathons. Volunteers search for patterns, and build pipelines and platforms to help answer questions the partners have. Volunteers can achieve serious real-world impact in a short time by applying their research and software engineering skills in a field with both a serious lack of, and need for, them.

In this talk, we will present an example of the lessons we’ve learned and the impact we’ve had from working with UK non-profits for 10 years. We will focus on one project in particular, working with a food bank to predict dependence on their services. The food bank struggled with how to best support people that came back 5 or 10 times to get food packages. These individuals weren't getting the support they needed from other services, and their problems weren't going away. The food bank had one support worker on hand to provide extra support - but they didn't know how to prioritise this support among the many people who came to the food bank daily. We helped with this, to ensure that those most in need got support the fastest. That might not sound like much - but for a small charity, that's big news!