Join our 14,847 members on Slack and Meetup


RSVP
Click here to RSVP

September 24: Opening MTA’s Operating Budget: Flattening Hierarchies with Python’s Polars

RSVP BELOW!

Note the 7 PM start time.

Niki Keramat is joining us to discuss Polars and the MTA.

Thank you to NYU for hosting us.

After the talk we will give away two tickets to the upcoming R in Government Conference, taking place October 28-30 at Georgetown.

Everybody attending must RSVP through the registration form at nyhackr.org. There is a charge for in-person and virtual tickets are free. Space is extremely limited and in-person registration closes at 3 PM the day of the talk.

About the Talk:In Spring 2024, the MTA made its operating budget data available on the NYS Open Data platform. This process involved transforming a complex, hierarchical dataset into a flattened, tabular format using Python’s Polars library. This talk will explore both the technical aspects of this data transformation and the political challenges of making MTA’s operating budget accessible to the public on data.ny.gov. Join us to understand how we navigated these challenges to enhance transparency and public engagement.

About Niki:Niki is a senior data scientist on the Data & Analytics team at the MTA, where she builds data infrastructure to support the publication of open datasets. Her team is committed to the transparency, automation, and analysis of transportation data at the MTA. She has expertise in data analytics, engineering, and governance of operational and financial data from her time working at the MTA and Lyft. She is passionate about public transportation, urban planning, and bike lanes (that are not blocked by cars).

The venue doors open at 6:30 PM America/New_York where we will continue enjoying pizza together (we encourage the virtual audience to have pizza as well). The talk, and livestream, begins at 7:00 PM America/New_York.

Remember, register below!

Slack