UPDATE: Some time after writing this post, I discovered a feature in Excel that broke my hear a little, so my love for Excel is slightly diminished Check out the post here. It feels a bit weird to write a post about MS Excel, but I feel compelled to and …
Photo Credit: Warenski The fine folks at Open Up recently published an open data set of recorded fire incidents in the City of Cape Town, South Africa. I found it quite interesting that such a data set was available, so I thought I’d explore the data a little to see …
UPDATE: 23 January 2022: So its been some time since I wrote this post, much has happened in the blockahin and crypto spaces and for me its pretty clear, buyer beware! For a great deep dive into the whole thing from bitcoin, to blockchain, NFts and DOA’s look no further …
The value of data has grown exponentially in the last few years. As people realise that good data and analysis leads to good decisions, there’s a virtuous cycle that calls for more and more data. In digital technology (e.g. cellphones or websites), it’s pretty easy to collect data at every …
A multi-million rand problem Illegal dumping is a major headache for cities, and one that costs hundreds of millions of Rand to deal with every year. In Cape Town, it’s costing R350m per year to clean up. In Johannesburg, R50m per year. In Durban, it costs R20m to R50m per year. …
This quote from the Open Data Handbook is a perfect way to introduce this post: Open data, especially open government data, is a tremendous resource that is as yet largely untapped. Before recently, I had never heard of Mpofana Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It’s a relativity small municipality in South …
Why gather Informal Sector data? The informal sector provides a valuable service to the South African recycling economy, saving municipalities up to R750m per year. Integrating them into the formal economy is an imperative in the upcoming Industry Waste Management Plans that the Paper & Packaging, Lighting and e-Waste sectors will be …
Lies, Damned Lies & Beautiful Statistics There’s a bit of a worrying trend developing around the world, and that is for people to dismiss data and statistics unless the information is “100% accurate”. Data and the resulting statistics are too easily cast aside when we don’t trust the source or its …
