Data science and social network analysis – Whakapakari ake i te waka kia pae ki uta

Organisation

Te Arawa Lakes Trust

Location

Rotorua

Project description

Te Arawa Lakes Trust (TALT) represents hapū and iwi in the ownership of the lake beds of 14 Te Arawa Lakes, including Lake Rotorua, as described in Te Arawa Lakes Settlement Act 2006. TALT will facilitate iwi and hapū leadership in the environmental governance enabled by the 2006 treaty settlement. To achieve this over the coming generation, TALT has established Te Tūāpapa o ngā wai o Te Arawa – the Cultural Values Framework for Te Arawa. This internship will use data science to assist Te Arawa in two key aspects of the Framework.

First, effort will be made to use social network APIs such as LinkedIn and Facebook to obtain more information about the Trusts 19,548 registered beneficiaries, how they are interrelated, and what hidden capacity (identified by degrees and work experience) can be attracted to work toward collective responsibility. Second, the dataset will be used to assess whether the $600-800k per annum invested in educational initiatives by the trust and associated corporations has been effective in capacity building via educational attainment, based on named lists of participants versus control groups.

The intern will work with TALT CEO Karen Vercoe, Environment Manager Nicki Douglas and TPM Principal Investigator Troy Baisden.

Skills required

Ideally, the intern will:

  • be comfortable and genuinely interested in undertaking data science in a kaupapa Māori and bi-cultural environment
  • have skills including scripting in R or python and table or database manipulation
  • possess good writing skills to apply for access to social network APIs and/or develop survey questions
  • have the ability to prioritise and work independently
  • have their own laptop.