Creating Solutions with Open Data at the Student Voice Codeathon

The Ministry of Education and the BC Principals and Vice-Principals Association teamed up to host the first ever BC student Codeathon on November 7th 2011 at the BC Principals and Vice Principals Office in Vancouver. The purpose of the event was to gain and collect data from different places and put them all together in a useful and organized way to help other students, teachers and our fellow citizens in making their everyday lives just a bit easier.

There are a vast majority of issues and problems which we as students want to influence which are meant to be heard by others. Throughout the day we tackled a small portion of these problems with teams and created four (4) different solutions to our daily road blocks. These projects were mostly focused on the High School Student life which included a School and Transit Map answering the question – how far do I have to carry my text books each morning and afternoon? A scholarship finder, helping the average Grade 12 student find more specific post-secondary entrance scholarships, bursaries and applications. A School, Crime and Transit map to keep us safe by informing us of which Vancouver transit stops are plagued by crime and finally the Map Your School project, helping new students, student-teachers, substitute teachers and parents navigate through a new unfamiliar school.

Throughout the day, I learned that the opportunities of open data and the opportunities which you can create are endless. However, we must not wait to perfect our project, but to rather start small, share your ideas, blog about them, tweet about them and gain ideas and insights from others. Surely, if you need help, there is someone out there who has the ability to help you move your project forward. We all have learned so much from the experience and we hope to share our thoughts and ideas within our schools and districts in the near future.

- Som Ghosh, Grade 12, Hugh McRoberts Secondary, Richmond, BC