Greetings, West Hub community!

TODAY is the last day for Early Bird Registration — save your seat now for our 3rd Open Annual All Hands Meeting, in scenic Boise, Idaho (recently featured in the New York Times)!

Reminder: Early Career innovators can apply for travel support by Aug 21 and the code WestHubEarlyCareer will remain active for 25% all tickets until the Eventbrite closes.

Wondering how we've fit everything in one day this year? For those arriving early, we'll host an informal night-before welcome Wednesday Sept. 19.  We also encourage you to join the Boise State University free Software Carpentry Workshop Friday Sept. 21 or have smaller gatherings after our Thursday event.
 

Your leadership and participation Sept. 20 will strengthen our community as we embark on the next phase of #BDHubs. Don't miss out on the full agenda including:

• An amazing group of featured panelists from the California Governor's Office, Moore Sloan Data Science Environments, The Carpentries, startup companies, universities, and more
• A spotlight on exciting flagship initiatives and new opportunities to collaborate, like the Safe Drinking Water Data Challenge, Global Data Ethics Pledge, Women in Data Science (WiDS) Datathon, and Undergraduate Data Science Pedagogy & Practice efforts
• The Future of the Big Data Hubs Programs with our Program Officer Beth Plale
• Updates from the newly-funded PAWR program: the first phase of $100M in wireless research investment for city-scale testbeds
• Community-Led Deep Dives with hands-on facilitated 'collaboration sprints' for road-mapping current and future projects. (Yes, there will be a talented graphic facilitator to help us visualized a shared, collaborative trajectory and create a tangible take-home #WestData18 souvenir!)

New this year: 'Pay It Forward' Registration options to support Early Career community members who might not otherwise be able to join, and an open Call for Posters, Demos, and Lightning Talks that closes Sept. 1.  

Help spread the word:

• Retweet (#WestData18)
• Find our new account on Instagram
• Share/like the announcement on Facebook 

Global Climate Action Summit and the #CAWaterDataChallenge

Save the Date October 18 to join the California Safe Drinking Water Data Challenge Summit & Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles. We'll celebrate teams who have been working on open data projects, and highlight commitments from all sectors (there's still time to add yours here). 

From the recent National Day of Civic Hacking (thanks, OpenOakland for focusing on our Challenge!) to the upcoming Global Climate Action Summit Water Pavilion and open-to-all Hackathon at UC Berkeley, we're excited about the progress
and encourage all interested to learn more, share the video and Media Kit, and submit an entry. The competition is open to individuals and teams outside of California; regional comparisons and collaborations are especially welcome. 
 

As always, we greatly appreciate your help spreading the word to increase participation across each West Region state (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming). To help us grow our community, please forward this note widely and tell your colleagues to join our mailing list!

On behalf of the WBDIH leadership team and our growing network of collaborators, thank you for your continued interest, support, and enthusiasm. Hope to see you or hear from you soon!

Best,

Meredith

Meredith M. Lee, Ph.D. | Executive Director, West Big Data Innovation Hub | mmlee@berkeley.edu