It's a wrap - concluding the first edition of the DAT/Artathon

We are so thrilled to have hosted our inaugural Risk & Resilience DAT/Artathon from July 20 through August 7, 2020! Originally, the DAT/Artathon was an in-person event at Understanding Risk 2020. Community is one thing we felt we desparately needed during this time of social isolation and global separation, so we decided to move the event to a virtual platform. The DAT/Artathon then took shape as a free three week virtual workshop for 5-10 early career individuals who work on data visualization using disaster risk and resilience data.

What we set out to do

We set out to create an event to help selected DAT/Artathon Fellows (aka DAT/Artists) to finish individual visualization projects, document risk visualization best practices, and build a burgeoning cohort of close friends & experienced risk visualizers.

Co-learn new skills and best practices

To help co-learn new skills and share best practices, the first week of the DAT/Artathon was filled with exciting mini-lessons from each of the DAT/Artists. These 15 minute lessons helped shape and set the tone for the rest of the event.

Create community

We wanted to build a virtual space that could foster lasting friendships. We developed new icebreakers specifically tailored to the virtual experience, such as a scavenger hunt bingo board. We look forward to sharing some of these resources in future blog posts!

Make progress on individual projects

In the first week, fellows shared their project idea and data sets, and we developed those ideas with constructive feedback in small groups. In the second week, DAT/Artists brought their prototypes to the table and went through another round of feedback. In the third and final week, we all shared each of our projects with the whole cohort. We’ll be adding these projects to the gallery soon!

Documenting the process behind building an effective data visualization was also a central part of the workshop. We’re also excited to share the data viz process from start to finish in future blog posts.

Meet our DAT/Artists

The success of this event was made possible by the fantastic and fantastically talented cohort of DAT/Artists! Meet them here

See you next time!

We’re looking forward to planning DAT/Artathon 2021. Have ideas or questions? Let us know!