R-Lab #3: A Shiny for the Milano Municipality Budget Data | Milan, May 27th

Hello R-Users!

We are ready for the third R-Lab, the monthly appointment where we co-work together on a real data science problem using R.

This time the R-Lab is promoted by nothing but the Assessorato alla Partecipazione, Cittadinanza Attiva e Open Data of the Comune di Milano!

They proposed us to access to their municipality budget data, and use one day of joint work for designing and realizing an R Shiny app that allows citizens to visualize and explore the city revenues and spending info. Since the task is so demanding, we decided to make this edition on a Saturday, to have an entire day of joint co-working.

This is the plan: the representatives from Assessorato alla Partecipazione, Cittadinanza Attiva e Open Data and Assessorato al Bilancio will introduce data and possible insight. Then we will discuss and design the app functionalities, and develop the dashboard together, working in teams.

As always, we will use R, the open source software and programming language for statistical analysis. In particular we’ll go through Shiny – the R specific framework for interactive visualization-, ggplot2, for building beautiful graphs, and maybe extra packages for special visualizations, as Sankey diagrams.
If you are unfamiliar with these tools, or even new to R, don’t worry: we’ll briefly explain their way of functioning, and then everyone can learn by doing and sharing knowledge with other users.

Here the detailed agenda:

10:00 – Presentations: The Comune di Milano budget data + Shiny, ggplot and viz tools

11:00 – Brainstorming and app design

11:45 – Code #1 12:45 – Collective check #1

13:00 – Lunch (offered!) & Break

14:00 – Code #2

15:30 – Collective check #2

16:00 – Code #3 and merge

17:30 – App publication <3 (hopefully)

18:00 – Bye bye and see you soon!

Registration

The R-Lab is free and open to everybody, but due to logistic reasons, the event is opened to a limited number of participants, and registration is needed.

If you want to know more or reserve a seat, please follow this link: https://www.meetup.com/R-Lab-Milano/events/239752859/.

FAQ

A bit more about the proposer - Comune di Milano
The Comune di Milano, well, does not need of explanations. The event is promoted by the Assessorato alla Partecipazione, Cittadinanza attiva e Open Data: if you want to know more about this peculiar office, here there’s an interesting article, written by the assessore Lipparini himself. We developed together the idea of this R-Lab, to satisfy the need of translating the city budget into an understandable and visual way: then they involved the Assessorato al bilancio, to have their insights, suggestions and field knowledge.

Who is this event for
Either you are an R expert, a basic user or just curious, you are welcome! The R-Lab is a space for learning and sharing knowledge, working together on a challenging goal.
If you are an expert of budget and budget planning, you are welcome as well! We appreciate your contribution about the meaning of what we are doing

What to bring
Be sure to bring your own computer, possibly with the latest version of RStudio. Don’t bring your tupperware: lunch is offered!

Where to go
We will be hosted by Mikamai and LinkMe in their location, in Via Giulio e Corrado Venini, 42 (very close to the Pasteur metro station).
The doorbell is Mikamai: when you enter, go straight, cross the inner courtyard of the building, you face a metal door with a sheet with Mikamai written. The office is the last (and only) floor.

See you soon!

For any additional info, please contact us via meetup: https://www.meetup.com/it-IT/R-Lab-Milano/

Looking forward to seeing you there!!!

If you still don't know the R-Lab project...

What is an R-Lab?

The R-Labs are evening kind of mini-hackathons where we work together with R on a real problem.

In short, this is what we do:

• A company/institution/university proposes a real problem, and teaches something about that issue
• We work together on the solution, possibly having fun
• Everything we do is released on Github, exactly here

Where can I join the group?

You can join the group on the Meetup platform here:

https://www.meetup.com/it-IT/R-Lab-Milano/