For 36 hours this April, Johns Hopkins students will race the clock to turn public data into real-world policy solutions.
Twenty-five students from the MA in Government, MA in Public Management, MS in Data Analytics and Policy and MS in Applied Economics programs will gather April 10-11 at the Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C,, for the programs’ first-ever hackathon, centered on the theme of “Civic Engagement, Institutional Trust, and Governmental Capacity.”
Working in teams, students will analyze publicly available datasets and use statistical programming, econometrics, and AI tools to prototype solutions to pressing challenges in five categories:
- Transparency in Government
- Energy and Climate Policy
- Social and Economic Justice
- Democracy and Misinformation
- Policy Evaluation and Public Trust
This Nexus Award-funded hackathon is organized by Collin Paschall and Chris Kromphardt of the MS in Data Analytics and Policy program, along with Alan Lujan from the MS in Applied Economics program. It is designed to fast-track creativity, networking, team-building, and innovative problem-solving within a limited timeframe.
“This event lets students apply what they’ve learned to complex, current issues in a fast-paced, collaborative setting,” said Paschall. “We’re excited to see how much they can accomplish using modern analytics and AI. We think it will be a rich and meaningful event because of the in-person interactions and cross-cutting connections that students will be able to build.”
Paschall, Kromphardt, and Lujan have organized a team of guest facilitators to support the event and mentor participants, including the Sheridan Library Data Services team and Data Analytics and Policy alumni. Special outside speakers will include Lula Chen, the research director of MIT’s GOV/LAB, and Robin Ghertner, a former Director of the Division of Data Technical Analysis with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Judges will include Jeff Allen, an analyst with the Federal Reserve Board and an instructor in the Data Analytics and Policy program, Sarah O’Byrne, the director of the Center for Data Analytics, Policy and Government, and Pete Damiano, former director of the University of Iowa Public Policy Center.
Each hackathon team will present its findings, datasets, and insights, with projects potentially serving as prototypes for future policy research. Teams will also share their work publicly on GitHub, an online data science platform.
“The questions we’re asking – about transparency, trust, and whether government can meet people’s needs – couldn’t be more relevant. The hackathon gives students a chance to tackle them head-on,” said Kromphardt, who shared that all participants will be engaging in discussions on a common text – Beth Simone Noveck’s Solving Public Problems: A Practical Guide to Fix our Government and Change our World – leading up to the event. “It has taken a lot of collaboration and financial support to pull it off, but it has been well worth it. We hope our students will agree.”
“While our curriculum is delivered online, we think this hackathon offers a unique, in-person, active-learning experience that will connect our students with the Hopkins community and center their experience in Washington, D.C.,” said Paschall. “It also aligns perfectly with the Bloomberg Center’s mission and vision to serve ‘as a nexus for trusted academic experts, global leaders, policymakers, and students to provide multidisciplinary expertise and objectivity to decision-makers while educating future civic leaders’.”