Data + Donuts LA presents...
School of Data 2019!

Thursday, January 31st - Friday, February 1st

Los Angeles, CA

Applications are full, but you can still add yourself to the waitlist. We'll also add you to the newsletter so you hear about future events.

Join The Waitlist!


We are committed to creating a harassment-free experience for all attendees.
Read about our Code of Conduct policies here.

What is School of Data?

We’ve been hinting at it for so long and working so hard to make it happen - we’re super excited to announce that applications are now open for School of Data LA! Applications help us make sure we represent a diverse audience of as many agencies and departments as possible as we only have 100 seats available.

Data + Donuts’ School of Data LA is a two-day conference and training event happening Thursday and Friday, January 31 and February 1, 2019 at SCAG in Downtown LA. School of Data LA brings together government data analysts, systems analysts, and project managers to address their biggest needs: to improve analytical skills, and to learn from peers across the Southern California region. The School of Data LA programming is driven by community feedback and includes keynotes, workshops, and lightning talks moderated and led by regional government employees who work with data. We believe that building a community of data literacy leads to better service in government.

Our inaugural School of Data LA conference is designed to support civil servants who’d like to improve their data-related work. School of Data LA covers the skills and vocabulary needed to confidently navigate the world of data – everything from documenting metadata, to navigating systems, to managing predictive analytics projects.

Attendence is FREE with breakfast and lunch provided by our wonderful sponsors!


Three tracks for attendees to choose from:



Analyst


Analysts use Excel to deliver reports to management. Explore how to automate your work using tools and workflows such as Shiny Dashboard, Tableau, and Power BI. Attendees will learn or practice using R to generate reproducible research and reporting on their desktops.

Systems


Systems users have large databases. Explore how to plan for future analyses with your data and how to build good data systems. Attendees may manage data in a SQL Data Warehouse or on an ArcGIS Server, deal with new large data sources, or manage data and data products at scale. Attendees will learn or practice using Python.

Manager/Electeds


Managers and Electeds are building teams that use data. Explore how to design and resource your data teams, hire for data skills, prioritize and budget for large data projects and initiatives, and navigate when to contract out for data work. No laptops or coding required.




Schedule

Take a look at our Draft Schedule Doc. We believe strongly in collaboration and invite you to add your speaker and session ideas directly to the doc. We will update this section with the details as each session is finalized. Please note - sessions are subject to change.


Day 1 - Thursday, January 31


Analyst Track Systems Track Managers/Electeds Track
Breakfast & Registration
8:00 - 9:00am
--- Breakfast & Registration ---
Welcome Remarks
9:00 - 9:15am
LA City Controller Ron Galperin
MC: Jon Neill, County of Los Angeles
Morning Session 1
9:15 - 10:45am
Introduction to Programming in R
(3 hours + 15 minute break)

- Kevin Kane, SCAG
How to Make Your Future Data Scientist Love You

- Sasha Laundy, Warby Parker
- Hunter Owens, City of Los Angeles
-- no class / room unavailable --
Break
10:45 - 11:00am
--- Break ---
Morning Session 2
11:00am - 12:30pm
Better Dev Environments for Free Using Containers

- Kegan Maher, City of Santa Monica
-- no class / room unavailable --
Lunch
12:30 - 1:00pm
Catering by Bánh Mì Chè Cali
Remarks
1:00 - 1:05pm
Dave Wesolik, County of Los Angeles Internal Services Department
Keynote
1:05 - 1:45pm
Data and Delivery in the Governmentv
Leah Bannon, USDS founder of Tech, Rebalanced
Break
1:45 - 2:00pm
--- Break ---
Afternoon Session 1
2:00 - 3:30pm
Geospatial Data: Intro to Data Types, QGIS, and Exploring Census Data in R

- Andy Rutkowski, USC
- Kate Vavra-Musser, USC
To and From the ESRIverse: Using Geospatial Data Inside and Outside of the ESRIverse

- John Gravois, ESRI
Demystifying Data Science 101

- Hunter Owens, City of Los Angeles
- Kegan Maher, City of Santa Monica
Break
3:30 - 3:45pm
--- Break ---
Afternoon Session 2
3:45 - 5:15pm
Sharing and Versioning Your Work with Github, Git and the Command Line

- Nathan Danielsen, Farmers Insurance
- Patricia Realini, GitHub
Consuming and Using APIs; Building ETL Pipelines

- Dave Marulli + Chris Tull, California Data Collaborative / ARGO
Hiring Data Skills

- Maksim Pecherskiy, City of San Diego
- Phillip LeClair, City of Pasadena
- Behrang Abadi, City of Santa Monica

Day 2 - Friday, February 1


Analyst Track Systems Track Managers/Electeds Track
Breakfast & Registration
8:00 - 9:00am
--- Breakfast & Registration ---
Welcome Remarks
9:00 - 9:15am
Future Cities Framework - Kimberly Clark, SCAG
MC: Jon Neill, County of Los Angeles
Morning Session 1
9:15 - 10:45am
Data Cleaning

- Jon Schleuss, LA Times
Databases, Dashboards & Death to Paper

- Mateo Clarke, City of Austin
- John Clary, City of Austin
Dashboards in 90 Minutes

- Juan Vasquez, City of Los Angeles
Break
10:45 - 11:00am
--- Break ---
Morning Session 2
11:00am - 12:30pm
Reproducible Research and Reporting in R

- Lauren Steely, MWD
- Robert Mitchell, Skid Row Housing Trust
Data Lakes + Data Warehouse Analytics Datastores

- Jon Neill, County of Los Angeles
- Maksim Pecherskiy, City of San Diego
Governance and Stewardship of Public Data (Case Studies)

- Mark Greninger, County of Los Angeles
- Toki Sadralodabai, County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services
- Drew Atwater, MNWD
- Taylor Campbell, City of LA Controller's Office (Moderator)
Lunch
12:30 - 1:00pm
Catering by Chinese Laundry
Keynote Panel
1:00 - 1:45pm
Data Is Policy
Marcel Porras, City of Los Angeles
Dr. Veronica Barassi, Goldsmiths, University of London
Additional Panelists To Be Confirmed
Andrew Schrock (Moderator)
Lightning Talks
1:45 - 2:00pm
The "California Model" for Data Collaboratives - Patrick Atwater, California Data Collaborative / ARGO
DocNow - Andy Rutkowski
CalStreetLookup - John Hickok, County of Los Angeles
Afternoon Session 1
2:00 - 3:30pm
Automating Reports with Power BI So You Can Do More With Your Time

- Jessica Lam, City of Los Angeles
- Eric Lai, City of Los Angeles
Predictive Models in Production

- Will High, Joymode / DataKind
- Nishchal Chaudry, City of Long Beach
Critical Ambiguity: On the Impact of Bias in Data

- Patricia Realini, GitHub
- Leah Bannon, USDS / VA.gov
Break
3:30 - 3:45pm
--- Break ---
Afternoon Session 2
3:45 - 5:15pm
Shiny: Building interactive, shareable web apps in R

- Lauren Steely, MWD
- Robert Mitchell, Skid Row Housing Trust
Simple Machine Learning: Why Model?

- Ian Rose, Project Jupyter
Data Viz 101 with Felt Cutouts

- Alex Pudlin, City of Los Angeles
- Umi Hsu, City of Los Angeles

Venue


Location

Souther California Association of Governments Office
@ Wilshire Grand Center

900 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 1700
Los Angeles, CA, 90017

View on Google Maps

Getting There

By Bike - The Metro Bike Share dock is one block away at 7th & Flower. Bike parking racks available on 7th Street.

By Train - The 7th & Metro Station is 100ft across the intersection and is served by the Blue, Expo, Purple, and Red Lines.

By Bus - A and F DASH buses stop at this intersection, while the B DASH stop is two blocks away at 7th & Hope. Several Metro Bus lines stop here as well, including the Silver Line.

By Car Parking is available on-site in the garage for a fee. Parking validation for attendees will not be available.

Map

About Us

Data + Donuts is a monthly morning speaker series in downtown Los Angeles. Data + Donuts presentations feature the data-related work of civil servants across Los Angeles County. The events also facilitate informal connections between government agencies and promote data literacy. All government employees are welcome, and a small portion of seats are made open to the public. Representatives from the Office of LA Controller Ron Galperin, City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, and the Southern California Association of Governments plan each Data + Donuts event, with support from Compiler LA.

Notable accomplishments since our February 2017 launch:

  • Organized 19 lecture events at local venues.

  • Featured 20 speakers from government agencies within the City of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles, City of Riverside, and Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG).

  • Hosted 500+ unique attendees from dozens of government agencies and departments, universities, nonprofits, and private businesses.

  • Awarded the Los Angeles Excellence in Technology Award.


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Our Sponsors

Make School of Data LA possible. To learn more about becoming a sponsor
please email [email protected].



Our Partners