What if I told you something that could empower our third sector and activists to enhance their capacity? From gathering evidence for funding tenders to campaigning for crucial social issues and much more? It's called open data, yet many in social action remain unaware of it. Primarily shaped by corporate entities, open data seems tailored only for technologists, alienating the third sector. But in reality, it's a powerful tool for social change, bolstering civil society, and creating resilient communities. This book argues a simple point: if open data and the digital aspects that support it aren't accessible to all, then what is the point of it? In an age where technology should be seen as a fundamental human right, it's time to rethink outreach. Deeply rooted in grassroots social activism, this book explores a journey that led to collaborations with governments globally, based on real hands-on work, aiming to democratize open data. Through narrative storytelling, we share insights, best practices, procedures, and community-driven approaches. Regardless of your skill set or organization size, from grassroots workers to third-sector professionals and government officers, join us to reshape the perception of open data, fostering change in neighborhoods. Open Data for Everybody: Using Open Data for Social Good is a love letter to open data's transformative power. To create solutions, understanding the problem is crucial. This book seeks to return control to the real experts—those living and working within our communities.

Python for Everybody is designed to introduce students to programming and software development through the lens of exploring data. You can think of the Python programming language as your tool to solve data problems that are beyond the capability of a spreadsheet.Python is an easy to use and easy to learn programming language that is freely available on Macintosh, Windows, or Linux computers. So once you learn Python you can use it for the rest of your career without needing to purchase any software.This book uses the Python 3 language. The earlier Python 2 version of this book is titled "Python for Informatics: Exploring Information".There are free downloadable electronic copies of this book in various formats and supporting materials for the book at www.pythonlearn.com. The course materials are available to you under a Creative Commons License so you can adapt them to teach your own Python course.

Do you know what happens to your personal data when you are browsing, buying, or using apps? Discover how your data is harvested and exploited, and what you can do to access, delete, and monetize it. Data for All empowers everyone—from tech experts to the general public—to control how third parties use personal data. Read this eye-opening book to learn: The types of data you generate with every action, every day Where your data is stored, who controls it, and how much money they make from it How you can manage access and monetization of your own data Restricting data access to only companies and organizations you want to support The history of how we think about data, and why that is changing The new data ecosystem being built right now for your benefit The data you generate every day is the lifeblood of many large companies—and they make billions of dollars using it. In Data for All, bestselling author John K. Thompson outlines how this one-sided data economy is about to undergo a dramatic change. Thompson pulls back the curtain to reveal the true nature of data ownership, and how you can turn your data from a revenue stream for companies into a financial asset for your benefit. Foreword by Thomas H. Davenport. About the Technology Do you know what happens to your personal data when you’re browsing and buying? New global laws are turning the tide on companies who make billions from your clicks, searches, and likes. This eye-opening book provides an inspiring vision of how you can take back control of the data you generate every day. About the Book Data for All gives you a step-by-step plan to transform your relationship with data and start earning a “data dividend”—hundreds or thousands of dollars paid out simply for your online activities. You’ll learn how to oversee who accesses your data, how much different types of data are worth, and how to keep private details private. What’s Inside The types of data you generate with every action, every day How you can manage access and monetization of your own data The history of how we think about data, and why that is changing The new data ecosystem being built right now for your benefit About the Reader For anyone who is curious or concerned about how their data is used. No technical knowledge required. About the Author John K. Thompson is an international technology executive with over 37 years of experience in the fields of data, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence. Table of Contents 1 A history of data 2 How data works today 3 You and your data 4 Trust 5 Privacy 6 Moving from Open Data to Our Data 7 Derived data, synthetic data, and analytics 8 Looking forward: What’s next for our data?

Its been ten years since open data first broke onto the global stage. Over the past decade, thousands of programmes and projects around the world have worked to open data and use it to address a myriad of social and economic challenges. Meanwhile, issues related to data rights and privacy have moved to the centre of public and political discourse. As the open data movement enters a new phase in its evolution, shifting to target real-world problems and embed open data thinking into other existing or emerging communities of practice, big questions still remain. How will open data initiatives respond to new concerns about privacy, inclusion, and artificial intelligence? And what can we learn from the last decade in order to deliver impact where it is most needed? The State of Open Data brings together over 60 authors from around the world to address these questions and to take stock of the real progress made to date across sectors and around the world, uncovering the issues that will shape the future of open data in the years to come.

Get a comprehensive, in-depth introduction to the core Python language with this hands-on book. Based on author Mark Lutz’s popular training course, this updated fifth edition will help you quickly write efficient, high-quality code with Python. It’s an ideal way to begin, whether you’re new to programming or a professional developer versed in other languages. Complete with quizzes, exercises, and helpful illustrations, this easy-to-follow, self-paced tutorial gets you started with both Python 2.7 and 3.3— the latest releases in the 3.X and 2.X lines—plus all other releases in common use today. You’ll also learn some advanced language features that recently have become more common in Python code. Explore Python’s major built-in object types such as numbers, lists, and dictionaries Create and process objects with Python statements, and learn Python’s general syntax model Use functions to avoid code redundancy and package code for reuse Organize statements, functions, and other tools into larger components with modules Dive into classes: Python’s object-oriented programming tool for structuring code Write large programs with Python’s exception-handling model and development tools Learn advanced Python tools, including decorators, descriptors, metaclasses, and Unicode processing

A long-time chief data scientist at Amazon shows how open data can make everyone, not just corporations, richer Every time we Google something, Facebook someone, Uber somewhere, or even just turn on a light, we create data that businesses collect and use to make decisions about us. In many ways this has improved our lives, yet, we as individuals do not benefit from this wealth of data as much as we could. Moreover, whether it is a bank evaluating our credit worthiness, an insurance company determining our risk level, or a potential employer deciding whether we get a job, it is likely that this data will be used against us rather than for us. In Data for the People, Andreas Weigend draws on his years as a consultant for commerce, education, healthcare, travel and finance companies to outline how Big Data can work better for all of us. As of today, how much we benefit from Big Data depends on how closely the interests of big companies align with our own. Too often, outdated standards of control and privacy force us into unfair contracts with data companies, but it doesn't have to be this way. Weigend makes a powerful argument that we need to take control of how our data is used to actually make it work for us. Only then can we the people get back more from Big Data than we give it. Big Data is here to stay. Now is the time to find out how we can be empowered by it.