Access to open data is growing in Detroit

I find the notion that there can be a "broad mentality of data transparency" very encouraging. Culture is definitely one of the biggest obstacles to effective utilisation of data.

In my experience managing physical assets, a little bit of broad knowledge (SQL, relation databases, statistics) has greatly improved my own capabilities: I can speak the language of the IT folks who shepherd my data, and I can keep a skeptical eye on the quantitative risk folks. I can stand by my analyses because I trust the ingredients and can enumerate/quantify the risks.

Conversely though, without being bit of a data jack-of-all-trades, it's harder to see the cool potential in our existing datasets. Especially if the environment/culture doesn't contain the right people to share this knowledge.

I'm hoping that some sort of data-basic-training becomes standard in undergrad engineering courses in the future.

For Detroit locals here's a few groups to check out:

Detroit Civic Tech Meetup https://www.meetup.com/Detroit-Civic-Technology-Meetup/

Maptime Detroit https://detroitography.com/maptime/

Disco Tech Detroit - Primarily community groups using tech to effect social change. Few of these people are programmers but their causes would be greatly helped if programmers volunteered to help them. They have Saturday all day events around the city. I've really enjoyed attending their events. https://www.alliedmedia.org/ddjc/discotech