[2024.07] Data Umbrella Newsletter: July 2024
We organize data science events for the community.
Data Umbrella is a non-profit global community for underrepresented persons in data science. We organize online data science events for the community. All levels are welcome. Our Code of Conduct applies to all of our spaces.
Announcements
Community News
PSF Board Elections
PSF Board elections are a chance for the community to choose representatives to help the PSF create a vision for and build the future of the Python community.
Voting start date: Tuesday, July 2nd, 2:00 pm UTC
Voting end date: Tuesday, July 16th, 2:00 pm UTC
NumFOCUS Board Elections
NF Board Elections process is ongoing. Follow the discussion in the elections GitHub repository.
CZI’s Essential Open Source Software for Science Cycle 6 Grantees
CZI has announced the grantees for the EOSS Cycle 6 funding. CZI’s Essential Open Source Software for Science program supports software maintenance, growth, development, and community engagement for open source tools critical to science.
Take a look at the full list of grantees.
New Posit IDE, Positron: A Next Generation Data Science IDE
What is Positron?
A next-generation data science IDE built by Posit PBC
An extensible, polyglot tool for writing code and exploring data
A familiar environment for reproducible authoring and publishing
NOTE: Positron is an early stage project under active development and may not yet be a good fit for you. If you are interested in experimenting with it, Posit welcomes your feedback!
Source: David Meza on LinkedIn: GitHub - posit-dev/positron: Positron, a next-generation data science IDE
NumPy 2.0: an evoluntionary milestone
NumPy has made its first major release since 2006!
With NumPy 2.0, significant breaking changes have been made for the first time in 18 years, bringing a much improved type system and a wide variety of other enhancements.
Source: Lucas Colley on LinkedIn: NumPy 2.0: an evolutionary milestone
The Stanford Internet Observatory is being dismantled
After five years of pioneering research into the abuse of social platforms, the Stanford Internet Observatory is winding down. Its founding director, Alex Stamos, left his position in November. Renee DiResta, its research director, left last week after her contract was not renewed. One other staff member's contract expired this month, while others have been told to look for jobs elsewhere, sources say.
Why Open Data is necessary for an Open Source AI
Tonny Callaway takes a deep dive on the importance of open data in open source AI and why we're at imminent risk of getting it wrong.
7 New Rules of Workplace Professionalism: Post-Pandemic Edition
The past few years, especially during and after the pandemic have forced us to rethink some of the ways we interact and behave in a professional setting. Nonprofitaf have put together some of the new rules of professionalism that might help us carry on with our work effectively.
How small claims court became Meta's customer service hotline
Endadget explores how Meta’s customers have turned to small claims court to get their Facebook accounts back. Read more to find out why issues that are expected to be handled by Meta’s customer service have been taken to small claims court and how the experience has been for customers who used the court option.
Funding Open Source Science Software
The open source science software landscape is vast and ecological. It consists of small, obscure tools that act as the connective tissue for other tools; it also contains ubiquitous pieces of critical infrastructure. In many ways, much of this is invisible to non-practitioners, making it difficult to see and understand the pain-points, and ultimately make good funding decisions.
In this article, Georgia Iacovou explore how the open source ecosystem is responding to the current funding models and what can be done to prevent to prevent the ecosystem from collapsing.
Transforming Engineering Education with Jupyter AI: Insights from PyCon Colombia 2024 Keynote
𝙹𝚞𝚙𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝙰𝙸 is a powerful tool, but it's not a replacement for pedagogical best practices.
Lorena A. Barba shares key insights from my recent keynote at PyCon Colombia 2024 in Medellin, where she presented her work on leveraging 𝙹𝚞𝚙𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝙰𝙸 to modernize engineering education.
Election Deepfakes make a Shallow Impact
The world braced for the worst — but so far, politicians are using generative AI in mostly conventional ways.
Note: This article requires a paid subscription.
Birbado: New project by CSCCE
Birdaro exists to provide training, resources, and community for individuals working to scale their open-source project, and in so-doing, grapple with figuring out how to sustain that scaling. The focus will be specifically on the individuals who take on leadership roles in these projects, whether they are named leaders or not.
Resources
NASA Open Science: Transform to Open Science Training (free)
Develop practical skills to elevate your work. Learn how to…
Use tools like Git/GitHub, Python, Matplotlib, Jupyter Notebooks, and Zenodo
Make research accessible, transparent, and reproducible
Understand concepts, such as FAIR and CARE
Draft Open Science and Data Management plans (required for ROSES solicitations)
Registration link: https://www.opensciencetraining.org/#training-register
Reactive Web Dashboards with Shiny Course
Check out this free Shiny for Python course. You should be able to complete it in 2-3 hours and it covers everything you need to build a full-featured Shiny app.
New Posit IDE, Positron: A Next Generation Data Science IDE
What is Positron?
A next-generation data science IDE built by Posit PBC
An extensible, polyglot tool for writing code and exploring data
A familiar environment for reproducible authoring and publishing
NOTE: Positron is an early stage project under active development and may not yet be a good fit for you. If you are interested in experimenting with it, Posit welcomes your feedback!
Source: David Meza on LinkedIn: GitHub - posit-dev/positron: Positron, a next-generation data science IDE
Timestamps
CONTRIBUTE TO TIMESTAMPS: We still have about a dozen videos which need timestamps. We have instructions on how you can contribute to this project on GitHub. Help us help the community. Pick a video and get started.
Call for Suggestions
Do you have suggestions for future webinar topics or speakers? Would you like to speak on a topic? For these and any other suggestions, please complete our Online Suggestion Box or email us at info@dataumbrella.org.
Call for Speakers
We are looking for speakers on the following topics:
Data Privacy
Data Engineering
Generative AI
Software engineering
Code quality
Email us if you are interested in speaking or have a speaker or topic suggestion: info@dataumbrella.org
Upcoming Events (free & online webinars)
Visualizing Energy Transitions (Exploring Climate Change)
July 16, 2024
This presentation will be a demo of how data visualizations and storytelling can enhance understanding and communication about sustainable energy and climate change.
Videos
In case you missed our recent events, the videos have been posted. Subscribe to our Data Umbrella YouTube to receive notifications when the videos premiere.
Build Your First Database Web App with (open source) Tiki Trackers
This presentation will be a demo of how a power user can create a database web application using Tiki Trackers. Tiki Trackers is the database creation tool of Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware. It started as a bug tracker and evolved over the years to become a general purpose database creation tool with over 40 field types. Combined with Tiki's other features, it becomes a no-code/low-code platform. Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware is the Free/Libre/Open Source Web Application with the most built-in features. The community philosophy is to collaborate on features, and not fragment efforts in various plugins. Over 400 people (some representing organizations) have contributed source code to Tiki since 2002. Tiki is the largest component of WikiSuite. While Wikipedia is the broadest unified body of knowledge, WikiSuite is the most comprehensive and integrated Open Source enterprise solution.
Navigating Ethical Data Science: GDPR, EU AI Act & Responsible Practice
This session explores the impact of GDPR and the upcoming EU AI Act on data science practices through the lens of the social sciences and philosophy. We examine ethical considerations like balancing innovation with privacy, mitigating bias, and ensuring model transparency. Gain knowledge on promoting responsible AI development, data quality, and inclusivity. Leave empowered with frameworks, resources, and guides to navigate the evolving regulatory landscape and become an ethical AI leader.
Featured Resources
Video Playlists
Data Umbrella Resources
Visit our blog site: blog.dataumbrella.org, and see articles written by our community members on their experience in recent sprints.
We have a Job Board. You can post jobs (for free)
Our Data Umbrella YouTube is growing! Subscribe to our channel to receive notifications of when our event videos are posted.
Accessibility Corner
Accessibility Update: Closed Captioning
Our webinars have closed captioning available! This feature makes our live events more accessible to those with hearing needs and for folks in general who like to see the transcript live during presentation to fully process information.
Connect with Us
Meetup: Data Umbrella & Data Umbrella Africa (*upcoming events*)
YouTube (*past recorded talks*)