Ticket
Paid event
Time
 -  (GMT)
Location
113-115 Fonthill Road London N4 3HH - 113-115 Fonthill Rd, Finsbury Park, London N4 3HH, UK

Organised by Outlandish

Learn how coding skills can be used to optimise and map the organisation of meal deliveries for homeless and vulnerable people.

About this event
Technology has facilitated the development of powerful mapping and optimisation tools fueling the rise of the delivery-driven gig economy (e.g. Walmart, Amazon, Uber, Deliveroo, Gorillas, and other similar companies). This amazing example of human ingenuity has resulted in increased inequality, worker rights issues such as anti-union policies and zero hour contracts among other problems. In this three part masterclass series, we reimagine how these tools can be used to assist collective action to support those most vulnerable in our communities.
Over the three sessions, we will explore how these skills can be used to help a charity delivering meals to local homeless and vulnerable people. We will break the solution down into three smaller problems which will be explored in each session. Each session will be independent but it is highly recommended to come to all three.
Join us for this second session, where we will look at how we can use python to divide up the deliveries in an efficient way to reduce wasted volunteer time, reduce emissions and reduce workload of the coordinator.
The other sessions are:
January 30th, 6-8pm - Automating and Preparing Data
April 3rd , 6-8pm - Interactive Maps
Prequisites
None - just a curiosity in how technology can be used for social good. But please bring a laptop if you have one. Otherwise when you register there is an option to tell us that you will need us to provide one.

What We Will Do
We will start by recapping how the meal delivery service is usually run and discussing how we could improve the efficiency using technology and break this down into a series of tasks.
The second task will be the optimisation of the deliveries. We will talk about why optimising deliveries manually is such a difficult task and see how python can be used to automate this task by doing some examples.
We will explore how coding helps with this process by looking at how things fit together at a high level without getting bogged down too much in the technical details. We will have a go at running some python code to make this work though!

What You Will Learn
  • The fundamentals of delivery optimisation, how technology has been used to tackle this problem and its impacts on society
  • Introduction to the vehicle routing problem, why it is such a difficult talk to tackle manually and how python can be used to find a solution
  • Introduction to some fundamental geospatial concepts

Your Workshop Leader
Tim Minshall is a full-stack developer specialising in using data science and mapping tools to support community projects. Examples of his work include developing a map of all community energy projects in London, and a tool for optimising meal deliveries for homeless and vulnerable people in Hackney. Before this, he was working in the offshore wind industry as an engineer/data scientist.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/talminshall/

SPACE4 Masterclasses
SPACE4 is part of Outlandish, a co-op that builds websites and digital tools for social good. We are interested in tech for good, progressive economics, and left-leaning politics. We provide co-working, meeting, and events space, primarily to social enterprises and digital activists. We also organise and host a range of events, workshops, and meetups around these topics.
This workshop is part of an ongoing programme of masterclasses to increase employability in our borough and beyond. We are funded by Islington Council.
Don’t hesitate to get in touch or visit us.
The £5 charge on this event is a deposit that will be refunded if you attend. The reason behind this is to assure bums on the seats as we spend a lot of time prepping for these events and workshops. If you’re unable to pay contact natasha@outlandish.com for free registration.
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Organisers

 -  (GMT)
Beginners Coding for Community Organising: Optimisation113-115 Fonthill Rd, Finsbury Park, London N4 3HH, UK