NYC PIT Pop Up: CUNY Open Data Takeover Day Five

As part of NYC Open Data Week 2026, the CUNY Public Interest Technology (PIT) Lab will host a week-long Open Data Takeover of the NYC PIT Pop-Up at the Oculus / World Trade Center. The activation advances Open Data Week’s goals of accessibility, civic learning, and practical use of open data by bringing open data projects into a highly visible, public-facing space. Attendees can drop in at any time during the hours below for a demonstration of the tool and to speak with the presenter. Most of the demos will also be streamed live from the Pop-Up on its Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/cunypitlab). Inside the Oculus, the Pop-Up is located on the Main Floor C2, in the South Concourse, at Shop #53 (next to M.A.C. Cosmetics). View the full PIT Lab schedule. No RSVP needed, just stop by!

[2pm–6pm]
Mike Spade – DuBois Does Data
35 years after slavery, Du Bois set out to provide a definitive image of the Negro condition in the United States. His data efforts not only quantified economic parity or lack thereof, he also focused on where people lived, and how they lived. During the 1900 Paris Exposition, he shared his findings with the world. But how do those findings hold up 125 years later? What has changed? Has anything stayed the same? At Du Bois Does Data, engage with his visuals, portraits, and data in a multi-sensory experience. Scents derived from the life and experience of W.E.B. Playlists charting the course of Black American music from his birth to his death, a day before the “I Have A Dream Speech.” Books celebrating his work and a first edition copy of his completed passion project, Africana. Curated vintage stamps in his image, portraits, and his article in Africana will serve as activations for A/R experiences, bringing the nostalgia into the palm of your hand. In Du Bois Does Data, we also used Python to evaluate the condition of Black Americans 125 years after his exhibit using Census data in 6 Jupyter Notebooks.

Ray Brescia – Gamifying Know-Your-Rights Information
This presentation will explore the power of gamification and then describe one current work in progress, an online game, “Haunted Housing,” that is designed in partnership with community-based advocacy organizations in New York City to educate youth, particularly from immigrant communities, about housing rights.  Gamification can be utilized in many other contexts–from immigrants’ rights to school discipline–and I will describe our ground-up method for developing this tool and encourage others to explore similar initiatives in other contexts.

Merlin Valdez – VoteFeed.org
VoteFeed.org is a Twitter/Bluesky-like user experience that allows constituents to interact with their respective U.S. representative in congress by sharing their opinion on policies up for vote in the legislative agenda.