As we head into 2019, the Wellington open data meetup organisers (including Open Data NZ) been thinking and hearing lots about what the meetup* series could look like / aim to achieve this year.
Wellington open data meetup - next meetup 21 February
Here’s what we’re thinking so far.
We’re going to widen out the formats of the meetups. They’ll include:
catchups and kōrero
talks and presentations
training / shared learning sessions
shared working sessions, where people come together to work on projects
games sessions – Datopolis , Creative Commons Release ’ Em Poker , and other relevant games people bring along or want to try
anything else participants would like.
If you’ve got ideas for what you’d like to hear about, learn about or work on, please do let us know.
Creative Commons Release ’Em Poker (Tohatoa Aotearoa Commons)
We’re going to organise monthly, rather than quarterly, meetups.
Our first meetup for the year is on 21 February
We believe this will help encourage momentum and interest. It’s also a better way to make sure we can properly cover all the formats above, in a way that’s as useful and engaging as possible.
We’re in the process of making a rough schedule, but please get in touch with your preferences for timing, and how often each format happens.
We’re also in the process of sorting out a regular venue. If you or organisation would like to host one or more meetups, we’d love to hear from you, too. It’s a great opportunity to show support for – and showcase yourselves to – the open data community.
The international Open Data Day hackathon is happening this year on 2 March. We’ll definitely be doing something in Wellington – stay tuned for details!
It would be great to see it happen in more venues across the country – please tell us if you’re interested in holding one (possibly in conjunction with an open data meetup…).
Open Data Day 2019 (international site)
We've also started work on an Open data meetups inna** box resource – an informal, community-editable set of steps and suggestions for starting your own open data meetup.
We'll be sharing it publicly soon. In the meantime, we'd love your thoughts on anything (points / topics / detailed info) the resource should include.
Would it be useful to have a shared space for ongoing conversations about open data meetup-related topics?
If so, we want to know what sort of space you’d like. Forums, instant messaging (for example Rocket.Chat, the open source version of Slack), the existing Meetup pages or something else?
It’s going to be a fantastic year, and we can’t wait to work together with you all.
We love hearing from you, so please don’t feel shy. You can share your thoughts and feedback by:
commenting below
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* There are open data meetups across New Zealand - new members always welcome.
** Some us read a lot of Terry Pratchett when we were younger.