Join our Hack-and-Learn, Online, Aug 27 - Sep 3, Oxford GO Lab, Georgetown Beeck Center, INDIGO: International Network for Data on Impact and Government Outcomes

Interested in social policy and/or open data? Familiar with python and open source tools such as Gephi or Plotly? Want to join a volunteer peer learning network and co-author a technical and learning report? Do you live anywhere on planet earth?

If yes, please register now for our upcoming “Hack-and-Learn” and participate in “INDIGO’ – the International Network for Data on Impact and Government Outcomes.

The University of Oxford’s [Government Outcomes Lab (GO Lab) and the Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation are hosting an online Hack-and-Learn as follows. (All sessions will be online.)

  • August 27 at 3pm BST:** Kick-Off with Coder and Policymaker Dialogue
  • August 27 through September 3:** Collaboration and hacking with Support from the GO Lab.
  • September 3 at 3pm BST:** Coder Show-and-Tell followed by an online social (Third Day of the Social Outcomes Conference)
  • September 24 at 3pm. BST:** Coder and Policymaker Reflections including comments on draft report (INDIGO Peer Learning Group Meeting)

We invite you to help advance the use of data on social outcomes around the world. As researchers, we have realised that funders and providers of social services are, like us, hungry for better data on cross-sector collaborations to address social issues. Impact bonds seem like a good place to start. There are about 190 impact bonds for various social purposes around the world and each involve at least three organisations – a payer, a provider, and a social investor – plus service users.

What you will do: You will learn about the basic elements of an impact bond, hear common questions from policy makers, and be introduced to our new database and definitions. Joining a team of fellow coders distributed around the globe, you will use open source tools, and open data to explore one of our challenge areas:

  • Organisations: Can you help us visualise the super network of public, private, and third sector organisations involved in impact bonds?
  • Outcomes: Can you help us explore outcomes using categories such as the Sustainable Development Goals?
  • Social Investment: Can you help describe what social investors or intermediaries may bring to the table?

You will code with your team members and complete a shared team journal to document your learning. On September 3, your team will present your prototype products and/or what you have learned in our INDIGO session. After the session, you and your team will join us for an online social. On September 24, you will meet with peers online to discuss the draft INDIGO Hack-and-Learn 2020 and define next steps help to shape INDIGO.

What GO Lab is doing: We are providing a structured dataset on impact bonds (V2), data definitions, and open source code for the database and visualisations on the GO Lab website and INDIGO account on GitHub. (This will all be launched on August 27.) From August 27 to September 3, we will support a Alack implementation and provide technical support office hours. We will host an online show-and-tell session on September 3 at our Social Outcomes Conference and an online social afterwards. We will collate the lessons learned into a shared INDIGO Hack-and-Learn 2020 Technical and Learning Report of which you will be a co-author.

What we will co-produce: Outcomes from the Hack-and-Learn will include open source visualisations of impact bonds to be published on the GO Lab website and the INDIGO GitHub account. We will co-produce the INDIGO Hack-and-Learn 2020 Technical and Learning Report on how to access, makes sense of and use data on organisations, outcomes, public procurement, and social investment in impact bonds and other types of cross sector partnerships.

Why? INDIGO is a community of peers with an interest in sharing data about the design, implementation and evaluation of cross-sector collaborations to address complex social problems. We are interested in fostering a culture of transparency, learning, and capacity development across public, private, and third sectors. In addition to publishing open data and open source code, we want to explore and highlight opportunities to join-up various open data standards initiatives. (We are collaborating and borrowing wheels – not reinventing the wheels.)

Interested? Register now for the Hack-and-Lean here.

Email indigo@bsg.ox.ac.uk to join our email list.

Thanks!

The GO Lab team.