Future Week 2022

MCB Hack is the conference for those who want to take a deep dive into the possibilities of data journalism.

About this event

After a successful conference last fall, we are happy to welcome you back to the MCB Hack for the second time this June.

MCB Hack is aimed at the data nerds in the newsroom, but open to everyone who wants to learn more. The conference focuses on the intersection between technology and journalism, where visualizing, coding, scraping, and sensors are all relevant keywords. We promise you a program with the industry's highest nerd factor!
Program (short version)
08:30-09:00: Registration

09:00: Welcome by Ketil Moland Olsen

Vegard Vaage (Netsecurity) – Using UK intelligence tools for fun and profit

Sergej Stoppel (Wolftech) – You don't need drugs to hallucinate, sometimes data is just enough

10:15-10:30: Break

Anders Grimsrud Eriksen & Lasse Lambrechts (Bergens Tidende): How not to fall on your face while working with data

Gaute Kokkvoll (Factiverse) & Ketil Moland Olsen (Media City Bergen): Stimulating Young People's News Consumption With Facts

Jenny Wiik (University of Gothenburg): Exploring the intersection of journalistic innovation, big data and collaborations – some current trends

11:45-12:45: Lunch

Anders Norås (Avanade): Marvels of Teenage Engineering

Maria Gargiulo (HRDAG): Missing data challenges in human rights research

Espen Andersen (Kommunal Rapport): Data supported journalism in practice

14:00-14:15: Break

Eirik Solheim (NRK Beta): This is how we verified videos from Ukraina

Sam Fulwood (American University School of Communication): Winning with Data: Tracking Insurrection to the Pulitzer Prize

Marco Maas (Datenfreunde / OpenDataCity): Sensor Residence - gathering data from Smart Homes

15:30 - Conference ends
Program (with description)
08:30 - 09:00 - Registration

09:00 - Welcome by Ketil Moland Olsen

Vegard Vaage (Netsecurity): Using UK intelligence tools for fun and profit

Tired of chaining yet another set of scripts to figure out some annoying data format? Need to convert from binary data to readable text but you don't know how to code? Have you found some data that _looks_ exciting but with no idea what it actually is? Do you need to base64-decode a dataset, ROT-13 decrypt and split the results by 希, with no time to hack together a tool? Get an introduction to an amazingly useful data analysis and processing tool from British Signals Intelligence (GCHQ).

Sergej Stoppel (Wolftech): You don't need drugs to hallucinate, sometimes data is just enough

Especially in recent years, we associate misinformation with fake news, but often misinformation arises from bad data communication. While data in itself appears to be objective and precise, its presentation, framing and comparisons can be used to spin different narratives, lead to different insights and thus decision making. Deliberately or not, even experts can fail when communicating their data. In this talk we will analyse historic examples of data miscommunication, identify some of the commonly made mistakes, and finally discuss a framework to help you avoid these mistakes.

10:15-10:30: Break

Anders Grimsrud Eriksen & Lasse Lambrechts (Bergens Tidende): How not to fall on your face while working with data

Do you really know how you ended up with those results after analyzing the data from a Public Source? How can you do the exact same analysis over and over again on different batches of data? How do you explain to curious readers and editors exactly how we ended up with those numbers or that graph? Anders and Lasse will teach you the way of keeping track of your data journalism using notebooks and project scaffolding.

Jenny Wiik (University of Gothenburg): Exploring the intersection of journalistic innovation, big data and collaborations – some current trends

The genres of data- and investigative journalism are constantly pushing the boundaries for what journalism can do and what it should be. While the core values seem to stay intact new methods arise, and new kinds of collaborations and tech solutions emerge. But will this development have an impact on news business in general, and in that case how? Taking off from her research on AI and journalism Jenny Wiik will pick up on some of the key tendencies in this area and discuss their relevance for the broader field of journalism.

11:45-12:45: Lunch

Anders Norås (Avanade): Marvels of Teenage Engineering

Since the dawn of the microcomputer era, kids have been wonderstruck by the amazing things computers can do. Some of these kids went on to write groundbreaking programs pushing their computers way beyond the limits of what their computers were designed for. In this talk Anders Norås tell the previously untold stories of these Marvels of Teenage Engineering. We’ll get to see vintage code on vintage computers using black magic programming tricks so advanced that they will amaze even the most seasoned developers.

Maria Gargiulo (HRDAG): Missing data challenges in human rights research

Collecting data on human rights violations in conflict settings is difficult and dangerous, and the data that results is often incomplete on multiple levels. Some victims’ stories are never recorded, and those whose stories are documented may still be missing critical information about the victim, the perpetrator, or other contextual details about the violation. Furthermore, the data that is documented may not be statistically representative of the victim population as a whole. Drawing population-level inferences from this data without correcting for the missingness risks incorrectly answering questions about patterns of violence. This talk will introduce three different families of statistical methods—record linkage, multiple imputation, and multiple systems estimation—which can be used to address the types of missing data commonly encountered in human rights research. When combined together, these methods can be used to draw population level inferences about patterns of violence that are statistically valid and include a measure of uncertainty.

Espen Andersen (Kommunal Rapport): Data supported journalism in practice

Who was the first person in history to use the computer to improve journalism? It happened earlier than you might think. In this presentation, we'll tour the history of data journalism and look closer at how computer programming enables us to create journalism that would otherwise have been impossible to do.

14:00 - Break

Eirik Solheim (NRK Beta): This is how we verified videos from Ukraina

Sam Fulwood III (American University School of Communication): Winning with Data: Tracking Insurrection to the Pulitzer Prize

Sam Fulwood III will share how a team of American University students created and maintained a data base to track the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol. Their efforts contributed to The Wash