State & Local

San Francisco's Data Academy Develops a Data-Savvy Workforce

Data-Smart City Solutions: On a Wednesday morning, forty San Francisco city employees file into a room and find their seats. Over the next three hours, Joy Bonaguro, Chief Data Officer of the City and County of San Francisco, will walk them through the basics of information design. Matthew Drazba, an analyst from the Treasurer and Tax Collection department, is here because he wants to learn “a different way of communicating analysis.” It’s not that Matthew is poorly trained; four years at Harvard for his undergraduate degree and five and a half years in the Marine Corps taught him plenty about analysis, research, and writing. Yet in his new job he has found it difficult to translate tax codes and tax database relations in a manner others can easily understand. He heard about the information design class from a coworker and hopes it will help.

“Basics of Information Design” is part of Data Academy, a collection of tool- and skill-focused workshops designed for San Francisco employees. Started in early 2014 through a partnership between DataSF (San Francisco’s data office) and the Controller’s Office, Data Academy has grown from two courses to over thirteen. The number of students has also grown from 80 trained in FY2014, to 400 in FY2015, and over 600 in FY2016.

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