MCB Hack

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 III (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

Marianne Bouchard (HEI-DA): TBA

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.

Øystein Moseng (Highsoft): Visualizing data for readers who can't see

How can modern technology help your data visualizations reach as many users as possible? Estimates show that at least 15% of your readers experience some form of disability. How can you make your data messaging compelling without demanding too much from your users?

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 Washington Post winning the 2022 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal. The series of stories illustrate the importance of data to drive explanatory and public interest journalism.

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

Marco Maas shares data based insights from two smart home projects: The "sensor residence" collected various types of data based on movement-, co2- and other sensors, smart speakers and lightbulbs etc. - collected for over 6 months. The technical setup in this setup was quite complex - which was adressed in The "Smart Home Forensic Kit" - which allows Raspberry Pie-users to collect their own data within basically any wifi setup. It helps for example to answer questions like: "Does Alexa listen in all the time?

About the speakers

Maria Gargiulo

Maria is a statistician at the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), which was awarded the 2021 Rafto Prize. In her work, Maria uses statistical methods to bring clarity to human rights violations, especially in situations where data is incomplete, and trains other analysts in statistical methods and science communication. Her research focuses on missing data, record linkage, and hidden population estimation, and she has worked on projects in Colombia, Guatemala, and Syria. Maria also serves on the American Statistical Association’s Committee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights. She earned her bachelor’s degree in statistics and Spanish from Yale University and is currently a graduate student studying demography at the University of Oxford.

Marco Maas

Marco Maas works as a data journalist based in Hamburg. His company Datenfreunde works with ten people on developing prototypes for new ways of storytelling, data journalism and media distribution for smart speakers/displays. Their projects won several awards like LEAD-Awards, Grimme Online Awards, Malofiej Award, CNN Journalist Award, Online News Association Award. Before his time at Datenfreunde he was one of the first online journalists at NDR and Tagesschau and implemented the election software used in the Newsrooms of ARD and ZDF. He was one of the first data journalists in Germany and has a focus on GAFA, data security, IoT and media distribution.

Sergej Stoppel

Sergej is the Director of Research and Innovation at Wolftech Broadcast Solutions, where he is driving the innovation of a collaborative news and media production tool that is used by more than 11 thousand of users on a daily basis. Sergej holds a PhD in Computer Science in the field of Visualization from the University of Bergen, which was awarded with the EuroVis best PhD award in 2019. Sergej is working in areas of data science and analytics, deep learning and natural language processing.

Anders Norås

Anders is the Director of Software Engineering (CTO) at Avanade. Originally educated in arts and design, Anders has spent the last twenty years writing code. He has given numerous talks and keynotes at conferences such as JavaZone, NDC, J-Fall, Øredev and many more. Have given 100+ conference talks to a variety of audiences including media, design and hardcore computer science. Known for an energetic and highly engaging presentations.

Jenny Wiik

Jenny Wiik is an Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies at the University of Gothenburg, and Malmö University. Her research interest is professional journalism as an ideological construct as well as a democratic institution, focusing on journalistic identities in the intersection of technological, organizational and societal developments. She has had several leading positions within the academy and was the creator of the successful international MA in Investigative Journalism (MIJ) at the University of Gothenburg. Jenny is currently affiliated to the innovation hub Lindholmen Science Park in Gothenburg where she is running the research project ‘The automation of journalism. Innovation, collaboration and knowledge management when implementing AI in news organizations’. The project aims to understand how news organizations work to manage various competencies, work flows and (sometimes) conflicting goals in the process of automating journalism.

Øystein Moseng

Øystein is the Head of Accessibility for Highsoft, the company behind the leading data visualization technology Highcharts. He started computer programming at the young age of 8, and has since worked with companies across different sectors, including laboratory technology, medical equipment, and consumer products. As a happy resident of Vik i Sogn, Norway, he is quick to point out the appeal of the fjords and mountains after a day spent online.

Vegard Vaage

Vegard is the Head of Penetration Testing and Incident Response at Netsecurity AS. He has a background as a software developer for TV 2 AS and Vimond Media Solutions amongst others, but his real passion is in the offensive side of information security. He is a certified penetration tester and incident responder, and loves making computers do things they’re not supposed to be doing.

Espen Andersen

Espen Andersen has been working in journalism since the early nineties and is now development editor at Kommunal Rapport. His experience includes 12 years as a researcher and developer at NRK and a position as an editorial developer at Budstikka. He is the author of the book "Datastøttet Journalistikk" from 2013.

Anders Grimsrud Eriksen

Anders Grimsrud Eriksen works as a data journalist and investigative reporter in Bergens Tidende. He is passionate about sensor journalism, coding and using big data for journalism. He has received multiple national awards and diplomas for investigative projects using data journalism. Originally educated within TV journalism and documentary film making, he worked as reporter and project manager in TV 2 for 12 years before joining Bergens Tidende.

Lasse Lambrechts

Lasse Lambrechts, 43 years old and father of three. Data journalist and newsroom nerd at Bergens Tidende. Passionate about toilet paper orientation, guitar riffs and workflows. A living proof that 10.000 hours of practice does not make you an expert.

Sam Fulwood III

Sam Fulwood III is dean of American University’s School of Communication (SOC) and a prominent journalist, public policy analyst and author, whose work addresses key issues of media influences on American life. He has written and lectured extensively across the United States and internationally on U.S. race relations, data-driven journalism, and the intersections of media, technology and democracy. In addition to his work at SOC, Fulwood remains nonresident senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he was a senior fellow and vice president for race and equity programming prior to joining American University. He was also the former director and founder of American Progress’ Leadership Institute, a program to assist with the advancement of people of color in public policy. Fulwood is the author of two books: Waking from the Dream: My Life in the Black Middle Class (Anchor, 1996) and Full of It: Strong Words and Fresh Thinking for Cleveland (Gray & Company, 2004). Fulwood earned a Bachelor's in Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Complete the conference with an informal hackathon!

Join the MCB Hack Hackaton right after the conference ends! The hackathon is free to attend for all participants at MCB Hack, but registration is required. Read more and register here.

This event is a part of the Media City Bergen Future Week. 7 - 10 June. Four days filled with exciting events, that will be taking place inside the Media City Bergen building, Oslo and Stavanger - all focused on topics that challenge our common future as it is driven and shaped by technology.

Read more about Future Week HERE.

We have launched the Future Week App, for you to more easily be able to stay updated on the program and plan your schedule for the festival week. Download the app here:

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