Join us for DataPub, a virtual meetup for public dataset enthusiasts

Hear about community and Timescale team members' projects, learn ways to use public data to monitor situations (including COVID-19), rework inefficient queries, and more.

Side projects are my jam. I’m not a developer (well, I know some Rails and Swift) or a data scientist, but I love working on fun projects that stretch my abilities, test my patience, and grow my skills. Most recently, I’ve gotten really passionate about using public data and open datasets to gain insight into the world around me. More specifically, ingesting public data into Timescale Cloud and using Grafana to visualize the answers to various questions (you can read about my experience with public data around the COVID-19 pandemic, for example).

Most cities in the world have an “open data” project of some kind. In my hometown of San Francisco, the SF Open Data project includes comprehensive time-series datasets for health and safety, city services, and much more. Similar projects exist for cities all over the world, including New York, London, Los Angeles, various Government of India entities, and so many more. Beyond cities and municipalities, open data sets exist for weather, cryptocurrency, and the United States Census Bureau. Sites like Kaggle provide helpful indices for many other public datasets, from presidential debate Twitter sentiment to video game sales, as well as tutorials and competitions for the professional and amateur data scientist alike. And, good government organizations like BetaNYC and civic startups like datHere are looking for creative ways to surface public datasets and the energy around them.

Judging by the conversation on r/datasets, many others share my interest in discovering datasets and ways to use them to understand the world around us – and learn new technology along the way.

That’s why we’re starting DataPub: a Virtual Meetup for Public Data Enthusiasts. Over the coming months, we’ll feature guest speakers, including:

• People (or organizations) who demo projects they’ve assembled completely with public datasets or with a combination of public and private datasets
• Public dataset curators who share the data they collect and how/why you can use it in your projects
• Data scientists who explain the best way to analyze and use data to make predictions
• Technology companies who showcase new ways to ingest, store, visualize, or analyze information (no vendor pitches, just useful demos)

Join us on Tuesday, March 31st at 1pm PT/ 4pm ET/ 8pm GMT for the inaugural session. You’ll receive a recording and follow-up even if you’re unable to attend (we know things come up). Everyone’s welcome, so invite friends, family, colleagues, or your pets.

In our first meeting, we’ll have presentations from:

• Joel Natividad, founder of Dathere and open data advocate: "Flattening the Curve: if you can't measure it, you can track it"
• Jonan Scheffler, Developer Advocate at Timescale: "Common Query Inefficiencies (and ways to rework and improve query time)"
• TBA Community Guest - if you're interested in speaking or sharing a project, send a note to [email protected].
  

RSVP here - and we'll see you soon!