Hi.  I’m Ben Wellington.

The open data movement in NYC has given citizens a first glimpse at the data that makes our city run.  While NYC is a true leader in open data, we are still far away from the ideal.

I Quant NY is meant to give a glimpse at the possibilities of a future with truly open data.  I’ve picked at the limited number of data sets that have become public, and have shown that opening up data leads to a world where government and citizens become partners in making our City better.

Along the way, it’s my hope that some of the work here can be a catalyst for better policy decisions in New York City.  However, this is not a left or right leaning political blog.  It’s a blog about transparency.   I do my very best to let the data tell its own story and get more people talking about data.   

I’m a Visiting Assistant Professor in the City & Regional Planning program at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, where I teach a statistics course.  But unlike other stats courses, this one is based on real NYC open data. That makes the class a lot more fun, both for our future urban planners and for me.  That class, and the great conversations I’d had with the students at Pratt, inspired this blog.  I hope you enjoy it.

I’m also a quantitative analyst at a tech company called Two Sigma, and I teach public speaking and job training skills through improv comedy with Cherub Improv. 

I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science (Natural Language Processing) from NYU and a B.S. in Math and Computer Science from Bucknell University (Go Bison!). 

Questions?   Drop me a tweet, post on facebook or of course email me at ben@iquant.nyc