A ‘jamming’ session ahead of TN elections

A data jam on March 28 by OpenCity will have participants studying how the Assembly constituencies in and around Chennai are faring on a set of parameters

If data is a key factor for you to assess your constituency’s performance then this event is for you. OpenCity, a civic tech platform that makes data easy to find, access, share and analyse is hosting a data jam on March 28 at Bhumi in Alwarpet to gauge how the city fared in parameters such as health, education, public transport, civic engagement and performance of the MLAs in the 20 Assembly constituencies in and around Chennai.

Data jam is not new to Chennai. OpenCity (a programme of the Oorvani Foundation) has in the past conducted similar workshops to study urban heat, lakes and flooding, and this one is planned to give participants a better understanding of the performance of the different constituencies ahead of the Assembly elections.

Here people from diverse professional backgrounds work in groups to understand how data can be used to understand civic issues plaguing the city.

Data available in the public domain is shared with participants and they analyse, brainstorm to get a better understanding of the issues and also give solutions.

For example, data from www.dge.tn.gov.in provides information on the number of government schools in an area, students enrolled and the count of teachers.

“Participants correlate to find what is lacking in every constituencies,” says Vaidya R., programme lead, Data at Oorvani Foundation.