The Data Science for Social Good Fellowship is a full-time summer program to train aspiring data scientists to work on machine learning, data science, and AI projects with social impact in a fair and equitable manner. Working closely with governments and nonprofits, fellows take on real-world problems in education, health, criminal justice, sustainability, public safety, workforce development, human services, transportation, economic development, international development, and more. For three months they learn, hone, and apply their data science, analytical, and coding skills, collaborate in a fast-paced atmosphere, and learn from full-time mentors coming from industry and academia.

The 2018 program brought 24 aspiring data scientists from across the world to Chicago and 15 to Lisbon. They were current (or recent) graduate and undergraduate students from quantitative and computational fields – from computer science and machine learning, to statistics, math, physical sciences and engineering, to social sciences, public health and public policy. From May 28th to August 17th, they worked in teams of 3-4 on data science projects in partnership with nonprofits and government agencies, to tackle data-intensive high impact problems in education, public health, public safety, criminal justice, environmental issues, city operations, and social services, learning from full-time experienced mentors and project managers.