Aberdeen Python User Group June 2022

Open Data Scotland - Crowdsourcing and aggregating open datasets across the country Open Data Scotland is an open-source, collaborative, and volunteer-run project which helps people locate and understand Open Data in Scotland better. The project which emerged from a weekend hack event at Code The City 23 has now been in operation for 1 year and involves pulling data from various data sources. Until CTC26 in May 2022 this was a manual process but this is almost entirely automated now using Github actions, triggering API calls and custom Python scrapers); cleaning, processing and collating the data into a standardised store; then publishing the data to an interactive frontend, along with hosted data visualisations. All of this, is to help the public understand what Open Data is available in Scotland

Jack, Karen, and Rob will walk through how python and github were used for different parts of the project and open up about the challenges they faced along the way. 

Bios

Jack Gilmore

Jack is a full stack software developer with experience of working in the public sector and academia. He graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Computing Science and Spanish from the University of Stirling in 2019. As an advocate of free and open-source software, many of the projects he has worked on either consume or produce open data. Most recently, making use of his skillset with GIS datasets Jack helped create OpenWasteMap, a web application which uses data from OpenStreetMap to display recycling centre locations, their accepted materials and opening hours.

Karen Jewell

Karen is a Data Scientist with a background in Business Management and Analytics, having spent the last 12 years designing, building, and testing data products which help people make decisions. She studied a BA in Business Management and a MSc in Data Science at Robert Gordon University, and is currently studying, again, for a BSc in Mathematics and Statistics at the Open University. In her spare time, Karen also serves on the board of trustees for CodeTheCity, works on the Open Data Scotland (www.opendata.scot) project, runs half-marathon races, and maintains a 630+ day streak on Duolingo learning Scottish Gaelic.

Rob MacWilliam to be added

This event is orgnanised by a charity - Code The City. CTC suggests a small donation to help with charity admin costs, but if this is a barrier please just change the ticket price to what you can afford.

We're now back to planning physical events backed up with an online option.

If you select a physical ticket and it happens that we can not meet physically you will have to attend the Zoom session. If you choose a physical ticket and it goes ahead you will have to comply with any conditions of attendance (eg masks or social distancing) that the venue operators demand at the time.

Those attending the physical space meetup should attend at 6pm for pizza and drinks.

The coding session (for online attendees) will be from 6.30pm