Introducing our 2018 Data Fellowship

Delta Analytics is a SF Bay Area based 501(c)3 nonprofit which seeks to use Data for Good through our nonprofit data service grant and education programs. You can learn more about our programs here. If you are interested in supporting our programs we accept financial contributions here. Please direct all other inquiries to inquiry@deltanalytics.org.

2018 Fellows hard at work during our January Kickoff Event @ USF

2018 is an exciting year for our Data Fellowship. In January, we welcomed our largest yet Fellowship cohort of 40 talented data professionals who have been hard at work for the past two months across 10 nonprofit partner projects.

Beyond an increase in the number of projects, our projects this year also span the globe from nonprofits that support those in need in our own SF Bay Area backyard such as Mission Economic Development Agency to organizations such as Medic Mobile which are deploying healthcare technologies across the world. We are also tackling a wider range of technical and project domain challenges from applying natural language processing techniques to enable local civic participation with the Open Media Foundation, building recommender systems for easier discovery of resources for the underserved with One Degree, to developing insights on the risk factors associated with health outcomes with Medic Mobile’s patient data.

If you’re interested in learning more about our 2018 projects, read on!

BBC Media Action

Team: Carson Taylor (Fellow), María José Corella (Project Lead), Kiana Ocean (Fellow) Jiten Oswal (Fellow)

BBC Media Action is an independent arm of the BBC with the mission of utilizing the power of media and communication to reduce poverty and empower people around the world. The Delta team is working to analyze BBC Media Action’s social media data for insights across audience, content, and engagement patterns. The team will also provide recommendations on improving BCC Media Action’s internal data accessibility for easier insights derivation after our project engagement is over.

CareerVillage

Team: Stephen Hsu (Fellow), Yiqing Yang (Fellow), Seema Mishra(Fellow), Sean McPherson (Project Lead)

CareerVillage (CV) is a San Francisco based nonprofit whose mission is to democratize access to career advice and guidance for underserved youth by building a platform that connects experienced professionals with students interested in pursuing that career. CV also provides additional services through their partners in especially underserved communities. The Delta team has been tasked with improving a machine learning powered tagging system through natural language processing techniques to better match students’ questions with professionals who are best positioned to answer.

Farmerline

Team: Karla Leibowitz (Fellow), Clemens Pilgram (Fellow), Mengjie Ding (Fellow), Funmilayo Ilesanmi (Fellow), Garth Johnson(Project Lead)

Farmerline is a Ghana based social impact organization dedicated to providing small farmholders with the resources needed for them to become successful entrepreneurs. Farmerline provides SMS text based services that provide farmers with access to agriculture education and connects them to larger markets for their products. The Delta team has partnered with Farmerline to develop a model for optimizing how and when messages are delivered to their clients to maximize farmers’ utilization of the information provided.

IDEO STEPS

Team: Robert Hean (Fellow), Erik Burd (Project Lead), Krishnan Chandra (Fellow), Will Glad (Fellow)

IDEO.org is the nonprofit arm of IDEO with the mission of leveraging human centered design to build and support products with the aim of impacting their focus areas. IDEO.org’s STEPS program provides clients with self-service resources and access to other financial services to provide support to those who are having trouble making ends meet. The Delta team is deep diving into IDEO STEPS data to build metrics and data tools for assessing the impact that these have on clients utilizing IDEO’s services.

Medic Mobile

Team: Jennifer Hobart (Project Lead), Courtney Ng (Fellow), Veena Kumar (Fellow), Sudha Subramanian (Fellow)

Medic Mobile is a San Francisco based nonprofit which designs, delivers, and supports the development of software for health workers providing care in hard to reach communities. Our Delta team is working with Medic Mobile to research the risk factors that contribute to poor outcomes for children under 5 suffering from pneumonia, diarrhea, and malaria based on data collected on Medic Mobile’s platform from patients in Mali.

MindRight

Team: Caleb Lam (Fellow), JC Sander(Project Lead), Anisha Desai (Fellow), Rasiga Gowrisankar (Fellow)

MindRight is a Washington DC based nonprofit that provides mental health coaching services through their SMS text platform which connects underserved youth to trained coaches. The Delta team has partnered with MindRight to build the foundation for their analytics capabilities through dashboarding key metrics on student engagement and mental health outcomes.

Mission Economic Development Agency

Team: Aniruddha Gupta (Project Lead), Vijay Duraipalam (Fellow), Deepshekhar Gupta (Fellow), Maria Ilie (Fellow)

Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) is a San Francisco based nonprofit focused on strengthening financial outcomes of low income Latino families living in the Mission. The Delta team is working with MEDA to develop a framework and methods to estimate the impact that MEDA’s programs have on their clients’ financial health.

One Degree

Team: Harrison Nguyen (Fellow), Kasia Rachuta (Fellow), Holly Xu (Fellow), Umesh Johari (Project Lead)

One Degree is a SF based nonprofit that helps low income families discover and access the resources they need to create a path out of poverty. The Delta team is working to improve One Degree’s recommendation engine and identify service gaps to enable users to more easily find the services they need and give service providers a better idea on how to deploy their resources.

Open Media Foundation

Team: Zong Huang (Fellow), Anna Bethke (Project Lead), Graham McAlister (Fellow), Sydney Wong (Fellow)

The Open Media Foundation (OMF) is a Denver based nonprofit which provides media resources and technology to nonprofits, governments, and individuals to empower everyone to engage in their community. OMF has created a public API with access to a database with the minutes and transcripts of government organization meetings. The Delta team is working with OMF to develop a natural language processing model to automatically categorize and tag these transcripts to allow the public to more easily engage on the topics they care about.

Technoserve

Team: Silva Tang (Fellow), Wesley Truong (Fellow), Kelvin Fok (Project Lead)

Technoserve is a Washington DC based development nonprofit which operates in 29 countries to provide entrepreneurs in the developing world with the skills, tools, and access to the markets they need to build successful businesses. The Delta team is working with Technoserve to build an impact benchmarking model which will be utilized to identify opportunities for investment and performance management.

Thanks to Our Volunteers and Supporters

None of these projects would be possible without the inspiring spirit of volunteerism that our project teams and program organizers bring to Delta. Our partners at the University of San Francisco Data Institute and Domino Data Lab have also generously contributed space and resources which enable our programs. We are excited to see what our teams are able to accomplish this year!