DataJConf III

Last week we held the third edition of the European Data and Computational Journalism Conference in Malaga, Spain. This is the conference that Glyn, Bahareh and I run, which started in Dublin in 2017, had a second edition in Cardiff last year, and has now embarked upon a journey around the European mainland. It was a fantastic event, with around 100 attendees representing different organisations from across industry and academia, and from 14 different countries. As with last year we had a first day presenting a mix of industry and academic talks, and a second day with a focus on more practical workshops and tutorials.

When Bahareh initially pitched the idea of running a conference in this field one of the main drivers for us was to encourage a mix of industry and academia, as we think the conference can be more useful this way. It has been a great pleasure to see this happen over the last three years, with both academics and practitioners putting forward talk proposals, coming along to the conference, and starting what I hope are interesting and fruitful conversations. By not splitting the conference into ‘industry’ and ‘academic’ tracks we’re able to ensure that all involved in data and computational journalism get to see all sides of the field, and this is a really positive outcome for the community. I’m excited to see some collaborations starting to happen that may not have happened if people hadn’t got together at the conference, and I think this is really one of the key benefits of this conference as a venue.

There were some truly interesting talks on both days, and some very interesting practical workshops too. Our keynotes, Daniele Grasso and Meredith Broussard did fantastic jobs of opening and closing our first day of talks. Our local hosts did a spectacular job with the organisation. Bella and the team put together a local program that was welcoming and inclusive, and showed off Malaga to its fullest. We as organisers all agreed that the job the team had done was fantastic, and they’ve set the bar very high indeed for wherever the conference goes next.

The roundup video gives a really good overview of what the conference looked like: