Join us for Baltimore Data Day 2024!The 15th annual Baltimore Data Day is scheduled for July 19, 2024 from 8:30am to 4:00pm at the University of Baltimore. Baltimore Data Day, a free event hosted by the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance, is where residents community leaders, government representatives, and others learn how to move from data to stories to action.
Presentations and workshops at this event help communities expand their capacity to use data and technology. During Baltimore Data Day, presenters from across the city share their knowledge about data availability, accessibility, and how data can be actionable for communities.
The Vital Signs 22: State of the Neighborhoods Webinar Recording is available HERE
Welcome – Autumn Reed, Associate Provost, Faculty Affairs, University of Baltimore
Introduction to Baltimore Data Day 2024 – Amanda Phillips de Lucas, Ph.D., Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance-Jacob France Institute (BNIA-JFI)
Keynote Panel: How Youth Participation is Driving Research in Baltimore City
Young people in Baltimore are not only participating in research, they are driving projects that will result in new, rigorous, place-based knowledge. These projects center a fundamental idea; addressing challenges requires deep engagement with those most impacted by the problems a research project is trying to solve. In this keynote panel, we’ll learn from a group of youth researchers participating in urban greening projects and participatory work on mental health and environmental stewardship. Panelists will discuss how they got involved in these projects, the impact of their work, and provide suggestions for researchers or organizations looking to do participant engaged projects.
Panelists:
Kristen Mmari, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Michael Dorsey, Grow Home Baltimore
Shirley Suarez Lopez
Donnie Woods
Zaniya Watson
Lynde May Joseph
Research universities present unique partnership opportunities for public agencies and community advocates, especially in resource-strapped legacy cities like Baltimore. Morgan State University, Maryland’s premier urban research university, is working to develop close and productive partnerships with Baltimore community groups, city agencies, and even real estate developers to ensure the research conducted on its campus is in service to Baltimore’s community and commitment to roadway safety. Please join transportation researchers from Morgan’s National Transportation Center in conversation with Baltimore City and state agencies, developers, and advocates to explore how transportation researchers can partner with local agencies to collect, visualize, and parse data in support of safety interventions.”
Moderator: Brandy Savarese
Mansoureh Jeihani, PhD, National Transportation Center, Morgan State University
Erich Lange, West North Avenue Development Authority
Matt Hugel, Cross Street Partners
Violence is a global problem that affects people of all ages, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds. It can have devastating consequences for individuals, families, and communities. While there is no single solution to violence, data can play a vital role in understanding its causes and developing effective interventions. In this panel, we will explore how data is used to: identify the root causes of violence, develop targeted prevention programs, evaluate the effectiveness of violence reduction strategies, and advocate for policy changes that promote safety and well-being. We will be discussing these topics with local first responders to shine a focused lens on changing Baltimore’s demographics. By working together, we can use data to create a safer world for everyone. Join us for this important discussion and learn how you can make a difference.
Moderator: Sarah Wallace, For My Kidz, Inc.
Clyde Boatwright, President, Fraternal Order of Police
Ebony McClenney, Executive Director, Surviving Our Neighborhood, Inc.
Victoria Fox, Baltimore City EMT & Firefighter, BSW
Jerel Wilson, Executive Director, For My Kidz, Inc.
Join us for a dynamic workshop focused on community engagement and the establishment of the Community Research and Action Committee (C-RAC), a key governance structure of the Baltimore City Youth Data Hub. The Baltimore City Youth Data Hub is dedicated to fostering collaboration among communities, service providers, policymakers, and researchers to inform decisions and create equitable programs and policies benefiting Baltimore’s youth and families. In this session, we will delve into our community engagement efforts and the formation of the C-RAC. Learn about our collaborative approach to involving the community in the governance of the Youth Data Hub, including insights gleaned from community input and our process for selecting committee members. Discover effective strategies for recruiting community members to participate in data projects and hear compelling examples of how youth and families have been empowered to drive positive change through our initiatives.
Moderator: Tamirah Reaves, Community Research and Action Committee, Baltimore City Youth Data Hub managed by Baltimore’s Promise
Dr. Geri Peak, Two Gems Consulting, Baltimore’s Promise Data Equity Consultant
Kerra Dukes, Community Advisory Board, Baltimore’s Promise
Noell Lugay, Interim Assistant Deputy Mayor of Equity, Health, and Human Services, Baltimore City
Bridget Blount, Deputy, Chief Executive Officer, Baltimore’s Promise
Three University of Maryland, College Park journalism students and their professor describe a semester-long examination of the challenges small businesses face in Baltimore. What reporters found was unexpected: a deeper understanding of how small businesses contribute to the city’s social fabric.
These young journalists for Capital News Service will discuss reporting on the revitalization of the Mondawmin Mall area, the business culture in BelAir-Edison, and an unusual alliance between a printing company and a battle rap promoter. All three articles were published in the Baltimore Banner, which served as a partner for the project, and on Capital News Service based at the University of Maryland, College Park.The journalists started by examining a dataset Vojislav “Max” Maksimovic and Liu Yang created at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. Maksimovic and Yang’s research, Seizing Opportunities: Small Businesses, Social Capital, and Banks, showed how small businesses with high social connections tend to thrive. The journalists filtered the data to find communities with lower income but higher measures of social connections. The panel will describe best practices in community journalism, data journalism and community engagement.
Moderator: Rob Wells, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland
Shaun Chornobroff, University of Maryland
Bridget Lang, University of Maryland
Robert Stewart, University of Maryland
Workshop Leaders: Ava Hoffman and Dexter Locke
Have you heard of “R”? It is a free, open-source programming language and suite of statistical packages used for all things data: data management, data cleaning, data augmentation, statistical analyses, spatial- and temporal-data analyses, data visualization, and much, much more. The purpose of this workshop is to introduce you to the basics of R and how to access US Census data – which is notoriously difficult to access. Participants can expect to leave feeling acquainted with some of the key concepts of how R works, with a knowledge of few basic commands, and with a reproducible pipeline for retrieving, analyzing and visualizing Census data. See materials for this workshop here: https://www.avahoffman.com/BDD24/.
Workshop Leaders: Nicole Bryant and Ebony McClenny
The “Stop the Bleed” workshop is a hands-on training program designed to empower participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively control bleeding in emergency situations. Led by certified instructors, the workshop covers essential topics such as recognizing life-threatening bleeding, applying pressure and tourniquets, and packing wounds to stop hemorrhage. Through interactive demonstrations, participants learn how to assess the severity of bleeding and implement appropriate interventions, equipping them to act confidently and decisively during emergencies. The workshop emphasizes the importance of quick action and effective communication in saving lives, providing practical strategies for bystander response. Participants engage in simulated scenarios to reinforce their learning and gain practical experience in applying bleeding control techniques. Additionally, the workshop addresses the importance of personal safety and the need for situational awareness in high-stress environments. By the end of the workshop, attendees emerge with the skills and confidence to intervene effectively in bleeding emergencies, potentially saving lives in their communities.
This session will include presentations from state, regional, and city partners showcasing how traffic crash data are used for planning and programming. Data analysis tools will be shared, with publicly available data, and infrastructure improvement projects around the city will be discussed. Attendees will walk away with links to crash data and an understanding of regional and city safety plans.
Moderator: Cindy Burch, Baltimore Metropolitan Council
Shanya Rose, Baltimore City Department of Transportation
Dylan Newport, Baltimore City Department of Transportation
Project VITAL (Vacant lot Improvement to Transform Adolescent Lives): While Baltimore City currently has over 18,000 vacant lots and 17,000 abandoned buildings, the City has developed a plan to ‘clean and green’ vacant lots in neighborhoods with large concentrations of vacancy. This provides us with a timely opportunity to explore the impact of vacant lot restoration on the health of adolescents living in disadvantaged neighborhoods, with findings that can be used to develop long-term strategies for improving adolescent health equity. VITAL’s data analysis team will discuss both the traditional on-the-ground, and experimental digital methods of site-observation they are using in this research.
Moderator: Kristen Mmari, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Rebecca Skinner, MSPH, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Dustin Fry, Ph.D., U.S. Forest Service, Philadelphia Field Station
Marina Jenkins, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Organizations in Baltimore and cities across the US are committed to the maintenance, preservation, and analysis of longitudinal and emerging datasets. In this panel, you will learn about the work done by the Baltimore Education Research Consortium, the Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center, the Baltimore Area Survey, and Hyphae Design Labs. This panel is an opportunity to learn about the work these organizations do, how they work with data, and how you can get involved. Topics discussed will include education data, long-term administrative data, recent survey tools, and using LiDar data at the neighborhood scale.
Moderator: Aliza Sollins, Annie E. Casey Foundation
Frankie Gamber, Baltimore Education Research Consortium
Bess Rose and Molly Abend, Maryland Longitudinal Data System Center
Michael Bader, Johns Hopkins University, 21st Century Cities Initiative
Merissa MacDonald, Hyphae Design Labs
The Baltimore Banner data team will demonstrate how it uses data analysis to uncover the important accountability stories hidden within large datasets. We will showcase specific examples from our most impactful reporting, including uncovering Baltimore’s unprecedented overdose crisis and demonstrating just how common large ships lose propulsion in Maryland waters. We will discuss the tools and methods we employ and explain our approach to prioritizing projects.
Moderator: Ryan Little, The Baltimore Banner
Nick Thieme, The Baltimore Banner
Greg Morton, The Baltimore Banner
Ramsey Archibald, The Baltimore Banner
Traditional economic development creates a singular focus on scaling small businesses into companies and corporations, with data collection limited to jobs created and revenue. These metrics paint an incomplete picture and are ripe for a refresh. A new subset of businesses are starting to emerge with a focus on building with intention and generating a positive impact in the community. For many, their ultimate goal is not to scale the business, but to define success through quality, longevity, and generating community wealth. This panel will explore how economic development can evolve to capture the impact and value of small businesses in our community. What other data & metrics can we track? How do these metrics show that businesses create positive economic growth for the community even when they’re not scaling? How are entrepreneurial support organizations using data to capture new and actionable measures, including those that they can influence directly?
Moderator: Michelle Geiss, Impact Hub
Brennan Murray, Baltimore Development Corporation
Charlotte Clark – Economic Recovery Corps
Andy Cook – Made in Baltimore
This session will be led by four Baltimore Workforce Development Board Youth Committee’s Youth Leader Interns. They welcome you to explore and learn about the challenges that current youth in Baltimore City face today, backed with data and personal experiences from Baltimore City youth. They will focus on three critical issues that young people face in Baltimore: mental health, transition to adulthood and employment. This session is not one to miss as our current youth are our future leaders!
Moderator: Sarah Cooper, Annie E. Casey Foundation
Lawrence Evans
Jazmine Green
Sela Powell
Nibria Roberts
Homeownership declined in Baltimore during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Baltimore, from 2019 to 2021, the percentage of owner occupied homes fell from 55% to 53%, while the Black homeownership rate (43%) remained 18 percentage points lower than the white homeownership rate. This session will feature presentations that outline the scope and drivers of Baltimore’s homeownership decline. Presenters will discuss their approaches to increase and maintain homeownership at the national and local level.
Moderator: Justin Williams, Deputy Mayor for Community and Economic Development
Claudia Wilson Randall, Executive Director, Community Development Network of Maryland
Bob Pipik, Executive Director, Healthy Neighborhoods
Laurie Benner, Associate Vice President of Housing & Community Development, National Fair Housing Alliance
Toni Davis Spivey, Assistant Vice President, Mortgage Community Mortgage Specialist, Truist
Organizations, agencies, and researchers across Baltimore use data to improve environmental quality and public health within our neighborhoods. This panel features presentations from Baltimore Tree Trust, the Mayor’s Office of Performance and Innovation, and alumni of the University of Baltimore to discuss how environmental data informs action and interventions to address tree care, urban heat, and hydroponics.
Moderator: TBD
Kajall Hylton and Marcus Tuah, Baltimore Tree Trust
Selenea Gibson, Mayor’s Office of Performance and Innovation
Jonathan Cleary, University of Baltimore
This session will introduce and describe data, resources, and programs from the City of Baltimore that can improve quality of life for its residents. Baltimore was one of the first cities in the US to develop an open data portal, launching Open Baltimore in 2011. Learn more about the platform and ongoing work to make improvements. Water4All is a water billing discount program designed to provide more equitable access to financial assistance for eligible Baltimore City residents who need help paying their water bills.
Moderator: Cheryl Knott, Assistant Director, Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance-Jacob France Institute
Rosalind David, Data Fellow, Mayor’s Office of Performance and Innovation
Terrence Jennings, Utility Policy Manager, Department of Public Works
Baltimore Data Day is open to the public and there is no cost to attend. Space is limited and registration is required.
Baltimore Data Day is an annual workshop to help communities expand their capacity to use technology and data to advance their goals. At the 15th Annual Baltimore Data Day, community leaders, nonprofit organizations, governmental entities, and civic-minded “hackers” will come together to see the latest trends in community-based data, technology, and tools and learn how other groups are using data to support and advance constructive change. Baltimore Data Day is structured around a series of “how-to” interactive workshops in which people who work with data will explain what data is available, how to access data, and why data can be actionable for communities.
Archive of Past Data Day Presentations | Speaker Bios (2024)
Sponsorship opportunities are available to organizations or individuals who would like to support Baltimore Data Day. Event sponsorship supports the mission of BNIA‐JFI, guarantees the conference remains free and open to the public, and ensures that requests by community development corporations and other community‐based organizations will continue to be serviced free of charge. Visit our Donation page or email us at [email protected] for more information about sponsoring this event.
Baltimore Data Day 2024 is made possible by our sponsors:
