Policy Datafest: a multidisciplinary data mining challenge

The Master of Public Service (MPS) program is hosting Policy Datafest 2019, a two-day challenge in which graduate students will analyze data sets provided by government departments and agencies. Each student team is given a pressing question about Canadian social, economic, and environmental conditions, and it's up to them to analyze the data and develop insights and actions relevant to policymakers.

Along with students in the Master of Public Service program are graduate student teams from Economics, English, Global Governance, Psychology, and Sociology. The students will use open data sets from government agencies such as Environment and Climate Change Canada, Ontario Ministry of Transportation, and the Region of Waterloo. Analyzing these data, the 15 teams will present their insights to questions, including:

• How successful are Canadians in collaborating with foreign inventors to develop new inventions? 
• How have commuting patterns from and to the GTA changed over the past two decades?
• Are children in low income areas more likely to have lower language, cognitive development and communication skills?

• What is the relationship between unemployment and wages?

• Do people now use digital resources in public libraries more than print media?

In partnership with the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and Innovation, Science, and Economic Development (ISED) Canada, this is first policy datafest to be hosted by a Canadian university. Organized by the MPS program, the objective of Policy Datafest 2019 is to bring contemporary policy questions faced by different levels of government to the attention of graduate students skilled in data analytics and the ability to extract meaningful policy narratives from datasets.

#UWaterlooPolicyDatafest #tellingstorieswithdata 

Join the MPS program, faculty, staff, government and business representatives for the students' final presentations. Limited seating is available. If you are interested in attending please email Nena Gvozdenovic , MPS Program Assistant at ngvozdenovic@uwaterloo.ca.