NYC PIT Pop Up: CUNY Open Data Takeover Day Three

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!

[10am-1pm]
Lauri Goldkind – Drop-in Data Discussions & AI Dialogs for Real World Solutions
This is a one-day in-person drop-in, office hours style session aimed at human services professionals and similar public sector staff to learn about ways that Open Data and AI might be used to help their organizations, and to share experiences and challenges they currently face. The session will include hands-on activities and demos, educational materials, informal one-on-one discussions, group Q+A’s, and design activities. The first hour will include interactive table demonstrations of open data resources; the second hour will focus on the potential of AI capabilities for documenting impacts and improving organizational performance; the third hour will offer human services and local government agency staff the change to bring their data questions to office hours, meeting with like-minded colleagues, academics with domain expertise in data and AI literacy and student assistants.

[2pm-6pm]
Kierstin Gray – MindHeart AI: Developing Healing Technologies and Consensual Data Practices in the World of AI
MindHeart AI is a liberatory technology company centering the neuroscience of well being as a catalyst for intergenerational planetary healing. We create trauma-informed technologies that allow individuals to cultivate the necessary awareness to design sustainable pathways to well-being across personal, social, professional and collective communities. Utilizing the Systems Based Awareness Map, the world’s first interactive map of human awareness, we are building a scalable, equitable platform combined with experiences that we call MindHeart Activations – in-person events that support collective healing through combining culturally relevant forms of somatics, contemplative practices, land-based rituals and retreats, music and art, all designed to create an infrastructure of care as a loving response to our awareness of the rising loneliness, stress, isolation and depression experienced across the world.

Sasha Richardson – Black Knowledge Erasure Dataset
The Black Knowledge Erasure Dataset (BKED) is a research archive designed to document how AI models like GPT-5 and Gemini distort Black history and culture through specific “hallucinations”. Rather than viewing these errors as random bugs, the project frames them as “epistemic erasure,” where algorithms invent authorities or omit key figures in ways that mirror historical discrimination. The dataset includes the original prompts, the incorrect AI responses, and human-verified annotations that identify exactly where the models failed against standard archival sources.

Alex Conner – ººSPARK**CIVIC
ºSPARK**AI × ºDO..OS form the intelligence and operating layer behind ºSPARK**CIVIC’s NYC Data Week session, demonstrating how NYC Open Data can move from published datasets to shared understanding and clear next steps. ºSPARK**AI helps interpret complex civic data and policy context into consistent, plain-language meaning, while ºDO..OS ensures that guidance carries forward as reusable actions, templates, and handoffs across committees, agencies, partners, and the public.