Datajam North east

What is the purpose of DataJam?

DataJam North East creates opportunities for people passionate about the North East to come together, connecting and building a community, to explore how we can use data to improve the lives of people in our region. Focusing on the major economic, social and environmental challenges we face, we try to do this with our collective skills and data through practical action.

Who are we?

We're a community of people from all sectors, areas and interests with a passion for making things better through practical action.

Inspired and united by One Team Government principles, we share the mission of changing the way we work together to improve people’s lives.

Our focus is bringing data and service design together.

The backstory

In September 2018, we held the first DataJam conference with 200 people from 50 organisations coming together in Newcastle to connect, collaborate and learn with each other.

Five months earlier Celine McLoughlin and Ryan Dunn met to talk about what One Team Government (OneTeamGov) meant to them. They had followed the movement since it started in June 2017, were inspired by the principles and mission and wanted to bring it to life in the North East.

They believe better outcomes can be achieved by bringing data and service design together. So they got a team together from different organisations, disciplines and backgrounds.

The team put an infrastructure in place to allow people to demonstrate the potential of collaboration and embody practical action. They provided space to talk about shared problems and goals and to break down barriers.

We hoped for Ambition, Curiosity and Legacy. We called it DataJam.