Tech Matters: Using tech for positive social change

Guest Beneblog by Megan Price New York City has many attractions – people often visit Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, among many other sights. Me? I go to New York City to spend the weekend staring at my computer screen. Data Without Border’s kickoff Data Dive is what tempted me across the country, and after a much longer than expected day of travel I found myself surrounded by fellow nerds (data scientists, as this particular group prefers to be called). The group included statisticians, epidemiologists, computer scientists, engineers, political scientists, journalists, and ‘data wranglers.’ We were all there thanks to the efforts of Drew Conway, Jake Porway, and Craig Barowsky (Data without Borders’s founders) who had the crazy idea of bringing together well-intentioned data analysts and non-profits with data in need of analysis. This particular weekend we divided into teams and tackled projects from the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (N...

We are pleased to announce the publication of the data and the accompanying data dictionary from the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The statistical dataset is available on our website. All of personal information has been removed from the published dataset to protect the identities of the victims and statement givers. The dataset can be used to replicate the analysis presented in our report, "Descriptive Statistics From Statements to the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission," and for extended analysis of statistical patterns of human rights violations reported to the TRC. The Benetech team worked closely with the team at the Liberian TRC, who did an incredible job of collecting data about human rights violations during Liberia's civil conflict. We are excited about the commitment to transparency and science demonstrated by this data release.