On September 29, 2023, the City of Norfolk’s CivicLab hosted the second annual Hampton Roads Datathon at Slover Library. The Datathon was organized to enhance regional collaboration around data science in a service-driven environment. Teams of two to six participants competed to see who could create the most useful project or analysis based on the theme “Community Wellness: analyzing and promoting mental, financial, social, spiritual, occupational, physical, intellectual, and environmental wellness in Hampton Roads.”
Participants consisted of 12 teams, including City of Norfolk representatives, regional organizations, educational institutions, and private industries in Hampton Roads and beyond. Teams were provided with publicly available data sources, and given one week to complete their projects for presentation on the 29th.
Catheryn Whitesell, Norfolk Deputy City Manager, and Ken Pfeil, Chief Data Officer of the Commonwealth of Virginia, gave opening remarks prior to the poster-style presentations.
Each team had seven minutes to present their projects to the judges. Ken Pfeil, Dr. Vickie Carnegie, Old Dominion University Public Administration Graduate Program Director, and Heather Johnson, Norfolk Healthcare Consortium Wellness Program Coordinator, served as judges. Presentations were graded based on their data analysis, relevance to the community wellness theme, innovation, and ability to be used by local organizations after the event.
- Old Dominion University Business Analytics Club (1st Place)
- Virginia Modeling and Simulation Center (2nd Place)
- Old Dominion University - Data Bridges Global (3rd Place)
- Eastern Virginia Medical School - Research and Infrastructure Service Enterprise (RISE)
- Hampton Roads Planning District Commission
- Hampton Roads Sanitation District
- The Williams School (Four Teams)
- City of Norfolk Housing and Community Development
- City of Norfolk CivicLab Exhibition Team
Click here to read summaries of the projects created by the Datathon teams.
Click here to view a photo gallery of the second annual Datathon.
Watch the video below to learn more about the Datathon and see the event in action!
