DataRescue Boston at MIT

DataRescue at MIT is a hackathon focused on identifying, downloading, processing, and mirroring federal research data at risk of being taken down or obscured by the current administration. The event is part of a larger DataRescue Boston movement, which includes events and collaborators at Harvard, Tufts, and Northeastern, which is in turn part of a larger national DataRescue movement organized by the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative and UPenn's Program in the Environmental Humanities.

People with all levels of technical background are welcome! There's a wide array of tasks including:

• Browsing websites to identify data sets
• Developing scripts and tools to scrape data
• Processing and verifying data integrity
• Uploading data to mirrors
• Visualizing and documenting our efforts

Guaranteed attendance/food/swag is limited to the first 100 registrants. Overflow tickets will be available, but we may have to turn people away if we exceed fire code capacity (sorry!). We will send out information to all attendees (including overflow) on how to contribute remotely or after the event.

We will also need volunteers to help run the event! In particular, we need people who have experience in scraping data, working with and ensuring the integrity of large data sets, and/or are comfortable leading groups. Sign up to volunteer here! (Volunteers should still register for a ticket)