Everybody is talking about Big Data, but what could this idea mean for grassroots community organizations? As the processing of vast data sets becomes increasingly important these days, resource-lean nonprofits are often left out in the cold. Rahul Bhargava, Research Affiliate in the MIT Center for Civic Media, and Emily Bhargava, a public artist, are bringing together data analysis with one of the most time-honored public art forms — murals — through a series of collaborative workshops.
The goal is to teach community organizations how to mine raw data for powerful stories – to create narratives out of numbers. So far, the pair has worked with organizations like the Boys and Girls Club and Groundwork Somerville, an urban farm, to help people ferret out key insights from data. In harnessing the transformative power of data to the wonder of art, the Bhargavas hope to make information as accessible, meaningful and beautiful as possible.