InkHouse & HUBweek 2016

InkHouse Partners with HUBweek 2016 on Spectacular Second Year

InkHouse was proud to partner last month with HUBweek, which celebrates innovation at the intersection of art, science, and technology. In fact we share the festival of the future’s goal of using collaboration to accelerate innovation and creativity in the Boston area.

Case in point: InkHouse thought it would be a great idea to bring together experts in journalism, data science and social justice for HUBWeek’s first-ever hackathon, to produce new insights about all three fields. We co-hosted the event "Data Science, Journalism & The Future of Justice" with Northeastern University’s Journalism School. The hackathon included a panel with Todd Wallack, an award-winning data journalist with the Boston Globe; and professors Dan O’Brien, an urban data scientist at Northeastern and research director of the Boston Area Research Initiative; Michelle Borkin, a computer scientist and data visualization expert at Northeastern’s College of Computer and Information Science; and John Wihbey of Northeastern’s School of Journalism.

Tina Cassidy, InkHouse EVP and former journalist, kicked off the hackathon, where students, professors and professionals worked together to manipulate large public databases to find new insights about Boston’s criminal justice system, a concept that fit within this year’s HUBWeek theme of inclusive innovation. Over the course of several hours journalists learned how to crunch and layer information and data scientists learned how to make numbers become important stories. The number of reporters using data has gone up, even as the number of journalists has gone down. We all left feeling surprised and hopeful about the future of journalism as well as Greater Boston -- a hotbed for data science. (The Huntington News wrote a comprehensive recap of the event.)

At InkHouse, we’re also looking at ways that data science can help us tell better stories for our clients. More on that to come.

But back to HUBWeek. The hackathon was not the only event we participated in. InkHouse CEO Beth Monaghan was an enthusiastic Uber Mentor to three “rides.” And Beth was also a judge on DemoDay, a showcase of more than 100 of the highest impact startups and companies in Greater Boston’s innovation ecosystem.

Finally, HUBweek closed the week with its signature Brew the Charles event - where six Boston breweries battled to make the best tasting beer - brewed from Charles river water. The event was attended by thousands, was covered by CNN and was a true melding of art, science and technology.