2023 is just around the corner. We take this moment to look back and quickly review our year. There have been changes, but one thing has remained the same: our commitment to fostering the use of data for a better world.

We want to share with you some of our achievements in 2022.

• The Datasketch team doubled in size. We are now 26 people spread across Colombia, Argentina, El Salvador, Spain, Mexico and Peru.
• We had 13 events at the #CasaDatasketch in Bogotá: fairs, talks, exhibitions and, of course, our traditional Datos y Guaros.
• We released a new collection of t-shirts with designs that show data in a different way on some of today’s social issues.
• We sent out a total of 43 newsletters! This includes three specials. In them, we cover our participation in America Abierta, we review the Truth Commission Report given its importance for historical memory in Colombia, and this issue, full of resources that marked our year in one way or another.

In addition, we have some incredible advances in Datasketch Apps that will see the light of day in 2023 that we will tell you in-depth very soon, so you should stay tuned to our networks.

We recommend you

2022 has been intense, full of projects in the field of data, culture and open government. We asked our directors the difficult question of choosing the one that has inspired them the most during the year.

Juan Pablo Marín, the CEO, did not hesitate to highlight A million covid-19 deaths from The Washington Post: “Normally, aggregated data is represented with dots, and it is very difficult to put a name to each one, but this media did it.” Verónica Toro, the director of Culture, chose A global guide to World War I from The Guardian for being an innovative audiovisual proposal of historical memory which uses unpublished images.

Eduard Martín-Borregón, the COO, and Laura Ortiz, the Marketing Director, went for more regional options. Edu highlighted América Abierta and Abrelatam-ConDatos, which allowed us to work and share again in person with the data community in the region. On the other hand, Lau highlighted the research Concentration and non-competitive contracts in mental health procurement in Latin America (es) of Red Palta, as it shows the importance of petition rights for access to information.

We also asked for the best project in these areas to OpenAi’s ChatGPT, the trained conversational model that is all the rage because of its answers. The result was not what we expected because it does not yet have the 2022 data, although the answer it gave us in English was quite a bit more complete than in Spanish. Our conclusion is Datasketch humans 1 - current artificial intelligence 0. 🏆💪🏽🎊

Our projects

We have done over 50 projects this year. Yes, we were impressed by the number too. They all have something we like, so choosing which ones to show here is almost mission impossible. This newsletter is about challenges. We bring to the table three that represent the versatility of Datasketch and that we would love to see replicated worldwide.

• We redesigned the Mexico City Open Data Portal. Many institutions already open their data, but it’s not enough if people don’t know how to access it. Improving the user experience is an urgent task in many platforms that can be achieved with quality data and clear and informative visualizations in the case of data portals.
• We made the notebook Bogotá from all angles (es). Talking about the spaces we inhabit from data is one of the most beautiful tributes we can make to our cities. This project gives visibility to the everyday life of Bogotá, home of our headquarters.
• We are developing “Visible Mining”. Mining has direct consequences on the lives of local communities, but it can also bring with it some benefits in the form of royalties. Information about these is often very technical, so it becomes a barrier. We work together with the people living in the territories to find the best way to make it understandable.

On the radar

We know, from experience, that behind every newsletter, there is a lot of effort and dedication: reviewing different sources, carefully choosing the content and writing it to make it interesting. That’s why we take advantage of this space to highlight and recognize the work of others.

• 🏦 If we talk about open government, we almost always mention the Open Government Partnership at some point. Their monthly newsletters come with an interview, several podcasts, a look at local governments, and success stories.
• ✊🏾 Digital security, data and infoactivism in Latin America and the Caribbean are important to SocialTIC. They give tools to protect you online. We’re already using several!
• 📊 FlowingData has a weekly selection of no more than ten data-driven projects in English. We often can’t resist seeing all the news reviewed or their own visualizations.
• 🎨 The art and technology projects recommended by Domestic Data Streamers blew our minds. Their issues are not available in the web version, so we redirect you to their home page.
• 🗃️ At Data Is Plural, Jeremy Singer-Vine sends out weekly compilations of databases on topics you wouldn’t imagine. He’s been up for 313 issues and has a table compiling all these databases.

It would be odd to recommend our own newsletter, but you can. Share this issue and give others the opportunity to enjoy its content.

Thanks to everyone who has worked with us and to those who have trusted in what we do. We are warming up for the projects coming up in 2023. See you in a couple of weeks!

Happy Holidays!