Watch: The Scott administration talked open data and digital equity at Baltimore Data Week 2021

Beyond expanding to a full five days of programming, Baltimore Data Week 2021, formerly known as the long-running Baltimore Data Day, marked another milestone: the first time a mayor presented at the series.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott along with members of his administration detailed the role of data and digital equity in his office and vision for the city.

The event felt like the virtual week’s crescendo; check out Technical.ly’s looks at presentations about the pandemic’s impact on Baltimore, how to use Jupyter and Python libraries to visualize your data, and two recently launched tools to find local entrepreneurship resources.

Half of the two hour-session was dedicated to speeches and a Q&A panel with executive leadership in the Scott administration, including Director of Broadband and Digital Equity Jason Hardebeck, Chief Equity Officer Dana Moore and Mayor’s Office of Performance and Innovation Director Dan Hymowitz. The other half was workshops on how to use community data tools such as Open Checkbook, Open Budget and Open Baltimore.

“It is now an expectation that data is apart of every conversation and every decision that we’re making in Baltimore City,” Scott said, “and that we’re fully transparent about where our residents’ hard-earned dollars are going.”

This administration has prioritized the use of open data in bringing information and services to Baltimoreans, including via its 100 Days of Action Tracker and the appointments of both Hardebeck and Justin Elszasz as chief data officer.

“It means a lot to the data community and a lot of the data experts in city government having [Scott as] someone that’s so committed to bringing data to bear on some of the city’s issues,” Elszasz noted to kick off the panel discussion.

Check out the full video session at BDW host Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance’s YouTube page:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49tc_Zvm9Zo]

Donte Kirby is a 2020-2022 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.