GovEx Data Points

--- In this episode of Data Points, GovEx’s Meg Burke sits down with Tessa Cushman, the Food Access and Systems Coordinator in Adams County, Colorado and a Bloomberg American Health Initiative Fellow, to discuss Cushman’s experience putting the Food System Resilience Planning Guide, which GovEx created in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future in 2022, into action. 

--- Burke and Cushman review the importance of authentic engagement with local communities and the need to leverage existing resources, like local food policy councils, to enhance food resilience efforts. They also cover challenges, particularly the complexities of coordinating among multiple stakeholders to put a plan in place, and staying connected to a changing policy landscape. 

--- Partially as a result of supply chain disruptions during the COVID pandemic, more governments recognize the need to build and secure food systems, but this is a nascent research topic. The Food System Resilience Planning Guide is one of the few resources currently available to government leaders thinking about how climate change, natural disasters, and public health crises can affect their communities’ access to food. Cushman notes that creating a road map, as recommended in the guide, helped her conceive of what a plan could look like in growing suburban/urban Adams County.

--- Learn more about the Food System Resilience Toolkit here!

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--- In partnership with Results for America, GovEx helps empower communities to solve problems.

--- In the latest episode of Data Points, we get an overview of the Opportunity Accelerator, a recently completed program in support of place-based initiatives focused on economic mobility with the goal of specific, population-level outcomes. Place-based initiatives aim to improve quality of life and access to opportunity, particularly for people of color and families with low incomes who live in neighborhoods, cities, and rural communities experiencing disinvestment. The program was administered by Results for America in collaboration with a variety of organizations, including GovEx.

--- We’re joined by three GovEx Senior Advisors who were involved with Opportunity Accelerator engagements and discuss what makes place-based initiatives like these different from traditional technical assistance engagements. We also discuss the ways in which the coaches needed to adjust their approaches to meet the needs of the communities they were serving and develop new toolkits to bring the engagements to successful conclusions.

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--- The GovExperts is the new mini-series from GovEx Data Points spotlighting some of the top minds in public sector data. In our inaugural episode we discuss what generative AI is good at, how cities are interacting with it, and what it means for the workforce.

--- We’re chatting with Andrew Nicklin, Senior Research Data Manager at GovEx. Andrew takes us from his early days at the NYC parks department to his pivotal role in launching the NYC Open Data platform, and how this experience led him to GovEx at the invitation of founder Beth Blauer.

• Discover how cities are already using AI to power chatbots and manage documents, and why Andrew believes AI could help residents feel more comfortable accessing sensitive services like housing or food assistance. 
• Wondering if AI will replace public sector workers? Andrew says rather than take jobs, it will most likely transform them, freeing up public servants to tackle big challenges. 
• Plus, get an exclusive preview of GovEx’s new City Data Explorer, a tool that uses 1.7 million data points to track 40 key metrics across the 100 largest U.S. cities. 

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Iowa City and GovEx collaborate to solve a problem: How do you gather ridership data without fares?

--- In the latest episode of the Data Points podcast, GovEx and Iowa City staff about collaborative efforts to track bus ridership for a free-fare program aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Iowa City is a participant of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Data Track, a program aimed at connecting cities with coaches and data practitioners to build data skills and techniques to tackle complex challenges and improve residents’ quality of life.

---Iowa City bus ridership dropped precipitously during the pandemic and had not rebounded, leading the city to consider shifting to a free-fare program to increase ridership and help the city reach its goal of reduced carbon emissions. But, without fares to count, the city struggled to find a way to track ridership for a free-fare program to help it determine whether the increased ridership was having the desired impact. Rachel Bloom, the GovEx coach working with Iowa City, consulted GovEx data analyst Maeve Mulholland, who presented the city with a creative solution that leveraged data the city was already collecting.

--- Since moving forward with its free-fare program, the city has used data to show an increased bus ridership of 40% - compared with a 10% post-pandemic increase nationwide - and a reduction in tailpipe carbon emissions by approximately 284 metric tons. It is now using an analysis of timing and location data to gain further insight into the program and to increase equity in access to public transportation.

--- Learn more about Iowa City’s Fare Free Pilot Program

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--- GovEx Executive Director Amy Holmes introduces highlights from the organization’s recent event marking the DATA Act’s 10th anniversary

--- In the latest episode of GovEx Data Points from the Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence, GovEx Executive Director Amy Holmes, a key figure in the passage and implementation of the 2014 DATA Act, reflects on the organization’s recent event marking the law’s 10th anniversary at the new Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, DC. The DATA Act, the nation’s first open data law, standardized data for more than $6 trillion in annual spending and enabled taxpayers to monitor how federal funds are allocated and trace those funds to direct investments in their community. It became a model for open data laws around the country and around the world.

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--- The Data Track at Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative helps leaders to the see the people behind city-level data.

--- Today, we’re throwing a spotlight on the Data track of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, a collaboration between Bloomberg Philanthropies, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Business School, and GovEx. Launched in 2017, the Initiative has worked with 539 mayors and 2500+ senior city officials in 560 cities worldwide, and has also advanced research and developed new curriculum and teaching tools to help city leaders solve real-world problems. Latricia Boone, GovEx’s Senior Director of Partnerships, talks to Sari Ladin-Sienne, the Initiative’s program director and former Chief Data Officer of the City of Los Angeles, about the program’s history and goals, what the experience is like for mayors, and how the Data track teaches mayors how to leverage data to address challenges and realize their vision.

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--- In this episode, we celebrate Women’s History Month by talking to some of the women who made history by leading the development of the Coronavirus Resource Center, or “CRC.” Launched in January 2020, the CRC became the indispensable source for data about COVID-19 for government officials, academics, journalists, and the public, surpassing 2.5 billion website views before winding down last year.

--- Our history-making guests include:

• Dr. Lauren Gardner, Alton and Sandra Cleveland Professor in the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering at Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering,
• Beth Blauer, Associate Vice Provost for Public Sector Innovation at Johns Hopkins University and founder of GovEx,
• Dr. Sara Bertran de Lis, Director of Research and Analytics at GovEx, and
• Mary Conway Vaughan, Deputy Director of Research and Analytics at GovEx.

--- We discuss the origins and ongoing relevance of public-facing data dashboards like the CRC, look at some of the challenges involved in capturing and reporting public data, and unpack if and how the fact that women led most facets of this project impacted the project. We will also hear about how these women balanced their essential work with the uncertainty and chaos that COVID-19 brought to all of our lives.

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--- In this episode, we discuss City AI Connect, a global learning community and digital platform for cities to trial and advance the usage of generative artificial intelligence to improve public services.

--- Generative AI, powered by advanced machine learning algorithms, has the potential to analyze vast amounts of data to predict trends, helping cities improve emergency response, mitigate severe weather events, and target resources for infrastructure enhancements. The technologies might also be harnessed to design creative solutions that could transform government delivery by reducing processing delays, eliminating cumbersome paperwork, and expanding multi-language access to reach many more residents with vital, public services.

--- To maximize the potential and expand the availability of generative artificial intelligence learning for local governments, City AI Connect might offer locals officials a single destination to ideate, develop, and test new utilizations with peers across cities. Through social networking features, digital forums, virtual events, and a repository of blueprints and resources, city leaders might have the opportunity to exchange strategies and work with data and technology experts brought together by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University to accelerate implementation in their city halls.

--- We're joined by Beth Blauer, Associate Vice Provost for Public Sector Innovation at Johns Hopkins University and the founder of GovEx; Mary Conway Vaughan, Deputy Director of Research and Analytics at GovEx; and Denise Reidl, the Chief Innovation Officer for the City of South Bend, Indiana.

--- City AI Connect

--- "Gen AI: Get Ready!" Webinar (City AI Connect Members Only)

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In the latest Data Points Podcast from the Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University (“GovEx”), GovEx Chief of Staff Dr. Rudy de Leon Dinglas talks to Amy Edwards Holmes, who recently completed her first year as the center’s Executive Director. Amy came to GovEx with years of public service experience in both the non-profit and government sector. In this podcast, Amy explains the origin of her passion for helping cities use data to improve people’s lives. She and Rudy also review the past year of GovEx programming and discuss future engagements with partner cities across the Americas, including those engaged with the center’s flagship program, the Bloomberg Philanthropies City Data Alliance.

To learn more about GovEx, Amy, or any of our programming, please visit us at govex.jhu.edu. We would also love to hear from you! Fill out our listener survey at https://forms.fillout.com/t/tvfZVqXrqXus

In the latest Data Points podcast from the Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University (GovEx), GovEx Research Manager Jacquie Greif talks to Justin Elszasz, Chief Data Officer for Baltimore City. Elszasz describes the city’s long-standing partnership with GovEx, including the collaborative development of the ground-breaking Baltimore Data Academy, which is providing city staff in every department with the opportunity to learn about data and use it to improve their work and, ultimately, the lives of Baltimore residents. In a wide-ranging discussion, Elszasz also touched on the role of the CDO, how to incentivize good data practices in cities, and how AI is already shaping the way cities work.

To learn more about our work, visit us at govex.jhu.edu

Among the lessons many cities learned from the COVID-19 pandemic was that local governments need to be better prepared for disruptions to the food system caused by public health crises and other natural and man-made disasters. To help local leaders address this need, the Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence (GovEx) and Johns Hopkins’ Center for a Livable Future (CLF) developed a new tool, Food System Resilience: A Planning Guide for Local Governments, in collaboration with five cities: Austin, Texas; Baltimore, Maryland; Denver, Colorado; Moorhead, Minnesota; and Orlando, Florida. In this episode, two authors of the planning guide, Meg Burke, a Researcher with GovEx, and Elsie Moore, a PhD candidate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, discuss their approach to researching the guide, the data about food resiliency, and the ways different cities can and should support resilient food systems. To learn more, visit govex.jhu.edu

The past several years have revealed a major shift in the way we relate to our jobs, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing political and civil unrest. Increasingly, the roles of social and emotional wellbeing in the workplace have taken center stage as we negotiate our return to the office. This changing paradigm about our relationship to our work has prompted employers to re-evaluate the workplaces they create for their workforces, and cities are no exception to this phenomenon.

Today, we’re joined by Mykella Auld, an instructional designer for GovEx and Co-author of The Social Emotional Learning Handbook: Practical Applications for Trauma-Informed and Anti-Racist Social Emotional Learning in Educational and Communal Settings, to explore this topic more deeply.

To learn more, visit govex.jhu.edu

Place-based partnerships can serve a major role in supporting governments’ commitment to serving and improving the lives of residents. But partnerships on a city-wide scale rely on good data governance practices in order to be successful, data-driven, and self-sustaining. In particular, collaboration between government and non-government organizations (NGO’s) poses an extra layer of complexity, and successful service delivery through these partnerships demands robust data governance and open communication between all participants.

Today, we’re joined by Jenelle Zito, Director of Continuous Improvement for the Racine, WI Unified School District, Geoff Zimmerman, a consultant with StriveTogether, a nation-wide network of cradle-to-career place-based partnerships, and Ben Taft, Data Impact Manager of Higher Expectations, a collective impact organization local to Racine and member organization of Strive Together. We’ll explore the needs of the Racine Unified School District and how collaboration with Higher Expectations and StriveTogether to address these issues was made possible through a shared responsibility for data governance and communication by all three organizations.

If you’d like to learn more, come visit us at govex.jhu.edu.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how unprepared our public data reporting practices were to handle such an event. Incomplete, poorly-formatted, or irregularly-released datasets were a norm, and drawing useful insights from these data presented a major challenge for governments seeking to mitigate the effects of the pandemic.

While working on the Coronavirus Resource Center, GovEx analysts took note of the many data governance problems they encountered. These thoughts were given voice through the Pandemic Data Initiative, a component of the Coronavirus Resource Center aimed at driving the national and international conversations on public data, how to best respond to the COVID-19 pandemic data issues, and how to prepare for the next public health crisis through modernized data systems.

We’re joined by Dr. Joshua Porterfield, Content Lead for the Pandemic Data Initiative, to discuss the origins of the initiative and explore the practices that presented the greatest challenges.

You can find the Pandemic Data Initiative at http://coronavirus.jhu.edu/pandemic-data-initiative. To learn more about our work at the Johns Hopkins Center for Government Excellence, please visit http://govex.jhu.edu.

Innovation is about solving problems. Every problem and crisis a city encounters can unlock new opportunities to innovate and create better results for residents. In this episode, Amanda Daflos, the new Executive Director of the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins, shares her thoughts on the role of innovation in government, the data and innovation connection, and how the early success of i-teams in cities like Los Angeles paved the way for the a Center and better results for the more than 200 million individuals impacted by its work today.

When tackling society’s big challenges, we often find ourselves collaborating with other departments or organizations external to our own. But as any siloed government employee will tell you, building the relationships needed to rise to the occasion, and sustaining those relationships, is often no easy task.

Today, we’re joined by two individuals familiar with this reality: Ryun Jackson, Special Assistant to Mayor Strickland in Memphis, TN, and Sagar Desai, Managing Director of Innovation at Strive Together. We’ll explore situations where they have faced this challenge and discuss strategies they have relied on to keep collaborative relationships healthy and active.

If you’d like to learn more, please visit us at govex.jhu.edu.

Governments are often on the hook for some of society’s most pressing challenges. How can city leaders find novel and flexible solutions to address these issues and improve the lives of residents? In a world filled with ever more complex technology, leaders are looking to data science as the answer for previously unsolvable problems.

Today, we’re joined by Richard Todd, Enterprise Data Lead for the City of Boulder, CO. We’d discuss what data science is, how data science paradigms can be applied to various challenges, and explore a few examples of how data science has been used to solve problems in US cities. We’ll also discuss some tips to keep in mind as you launch a data science project in your city.

To learn more about GovEx and our Academy Fellows, please visit us at govex.jhu.edu

How can cities and their partners help families start saving money for their children’s future college or career training expenses? Since 2013, Lansing, Michigan has been tackling this innovative opportunity with the Lansing SAVE Initiative, a program providing all incoming Lansing School District kindergarten students with a savings account. In this episode, we discuss GovEx’s performance management engagement with the City of Lansing to help Lansing SAVE evolve and thrive. We walk through the performance management process, discuss the successful partnership involved in the work, and recap how to navigate program improvements and investments during a global pandemic.

We're joined by Amber Paxton, Director of the City of Lansing’s Office of Financial Empowerment; Brian Rakovitis, Manager of Financial Empowerment Initiatives at The Community Economic Development Association of Michigan; and Erin Thiemann, Senior Program Manager at Prosperity Now.

Accountable, transparent government is something we all strive for in public service. But how do we make this aspiration a reality? It's not enough to simply collect results from the programs and initiatives we launch - we need to turn these results into meaningful insights about the efficacy of these efforts.

Today, we're joined by GovEx Academy Instructional Fellow Richard Williams to discuss the Results Framework approach to meeting this need. If you'd like to learn more about Richard and his work with GovEx Academy, come visit us at govexacademy.jhu.edu

Today, we're joined by the Economic Mobility Forum's Policy Fellows as they wrap up a year of research and discussion at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Applied Public Research. The Policy Forum is a community of practice focused on connecting forum members with vetted policy fellows: experts and practitioners who are working on economic mobility initiatives in their cities. Members interact with fellows through round-table discussion, research projects, and webinar lectures. We'll discuss the takeaways gleaned from the last year of collaboration, and specifically how the COVID-19 pandemic revealed and exacerbated already existing economic mobility disparities across the nation.

To learn more about our Policy Fellows, the Policy Forum, or the Center for Applied Public Research, come visit us at https://appliedresearch.jhu.edu/

The Center for Applied Public Research is a part of the Johns Hopkins University Centers for Civic Impact. To learn more, visit us at https://civicimpact.jhu.edu/