Bluebonnet Data

In our third installment of Bluebonnet Data: Bluebonnets in the (Progressive) Field we sat down with Bluebonnet Fellow Elijah Appelson. Elijah is the 1st data professional the ACLU of Louisiana hired. Elijah produced a groundbreaking project the visualizes police violence in Louisiana. This project is the first of its kind in Louisiana, and provides crucial insight to other advocacy groups and is even referred to in legislative sessions and legal proceedings. https://lnkd.in/eAq_S_zF

Congrats to Bluebonent alum Cody Braun who is starting a new role as Data Director with Movement Labs! After supporting Ashwin Ramaswami for State Senate in Georgia with very innovative data projects, Cody is taking his leap into political data full-time. Cody will be data director for Movment Labs' incubator program building prototype pipelines, datasets, and dashboards for experimental projects to reach and persuade voters and otherwise enable progressive organizers. Cody will also help assess the performance of those projects and, if they're successful, productionize them for the 2024 election and beyond.

In our second installment of Bluebonnet Data: Bluebonnets in the (Progressive) Field we sat down with Bluebonnet Fellow Miranda Benfer. She shared her career transition to political tech after teaching across the Middle East for 12 years 🌍 https://lnkd.in/e-z5W-xY

Congrats to Bluebonnet alum Annelies Quinton on her new Fellow role with Blue Labs!

Congratulations to Bluebonnet fellow & project lead Asher Labovich on launching 24cast! Asher, only a rising junior at Brown University, founded 24cast and successfully led a team of 13 other students to build a dynamic predicative modeling tool. We are excited to follow the 24cast.org journey 🌟

We're starting a new series at Bluebonnet Data: Bluebonnets in the (Progressive) Field So many of our fellows go on to have great impact in the progressive space and we want to highlight those stories. We are going to follow up with fellows about where they are now and how Bluebonnet Data shaped their work. First up is Bear Jordan who is now an Analytics Engineer for the Biden Campaign. He was a Bluebonnet Data fellow in the summer of 2023. He shares his story of transitioning from geology to data analytics for political and civic engagement. https://lnkd.in/eqBsD-3i

We're so excited to see the work of Bluebonnet alumni across our country doing vital work for the progressive movement. Elijah has gone on to do incredible work with the ACLU of Louisiana.

Great to see the work of our fellows in action - helping a great local advocacy group in Birmingham, Alabama. And shoutout to Gabriel Cabán Cubero for being such a star with People's Budget Birmingham and such a great partner to work with!

I’ve been a Bluebonnet Data Admissions Committee member for the last three months, and I’ve really enjoyed dipping my toe into admissions work! The people I interviewed along the way were amazing. Check out my comments below for what the experience was like! What’s not mentioned below though are the candidates I met: • highschoolers who found time to learn data and volunteer in politics • college students in undergrad and masters data programs looking to explore politics, as activism and a career prospect • data engineers, scientists, and analysts with years of experience • PhDs who happened to like data and turned it into a career • business owners looking for a career change • and people with a decade of political who were picking up data more intensely through courses What was consistent between all of them though was that they could all see that the United States needs a push in the right direction, a progressive direction. And they wanted to pick up the torch to do that work! The energy coming off the candidates was electric some days. We’re wrapping up this admissions committee, but I’m honored to have been able to play a part in it. I’m staying on for the next admissions team, but wanted to put a bow on this experience with a post to reflect back on what this work was like the first time around. Huge shoutout to the team at Bluebonnet (Mariam Ahmed for leading us) and the other fellows who were in the thick of the work with me!

A note from our Interim Executive Director on seeing the deep impact Bluebonnet has had and continues to have in North Carolina.