Steve “Spike” Spiker is a data inspired collaborator and leader with a focus on government transparency and public policy.
He is an applied social scientist with a past that covers civic hacking, spatial epidemiology, community development and criminology.
Spike is currently the Data Evangelist for Measures for Justice, a national research and transparency nonprofit seeking to publish metrics on the entire justice system. His role involves building relationships into partnerships, with solution providers, industry groups and allied organizations. He also provide technical leadership to our outreach team and provide on the ground data uspport to law enforcement agencies.
Prior to this, Spike was the co-founder and Executive Director of OpenOakland, a civic innovation and open government nonprofit. Through his breakthrough work bringing residents and government together to co-create knowledge he was recognized by the Obama White House as a Champion of Change. He has a chapter in the book Beyond Transparency.
He spent over a decade as the Director of Research & Technology with Urban Strategies Council, a social impact nonprofit based in Oakland. He speaks nationally on data driven decision making in public policy, community development and applied social research. He managed the development of open source technology, spatial analysis projects and mapping systems.
He has served on the executive committee of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership and has successfully advocated for open data policies in Oakland and Alameda County. He became a US citizen in 2012, was part of the Next American City’s Vanguard class of 2012. He also runs Stealing Beauty Photography.
Press
- There’s an App for that, San Francisco Business Times
- Cracking Oakland’s Code, East Bay Express cover
- Oakland’s Public Participation Route to Open Data Legislation, Sunlight Foundation
- New, One-stop site bridges knowledge gap, Urban Strategies Council
- San Leandro looks at gaps in serving poor, East Bay Times
- Investor purchases of forecloses intensify housing crisis?, East Bay Times
- Analysis disputes Quan’s 100 block Oakland plan, SF Chronicle
Writings
- Oakland and the search for the Open City, Beyond Transparency
- Does the world really need another PDF report?, Data Smart Harvard
- Textricator, Data Extraction Made Simple, OpenSource.com
Awards
- Innovation in Crime Mapping, National Institutes of Justice, 2011
- White House Champion of Change, 2013
- OpenSource Innovator, Innovate Oakland, 2010
- Most Innovative Activist Group, Best of the East Bay Awards, East Bay Express, 2013
Events
- CityCamp Oakland 2012, 2013 & 2015.
- Code for Oakland, 2011, 2012
- ReWrite Oakland 2013
- Open Data Day Oakland, 2012, 2013
Connect
Papers and Presentations
- Machine Learning and Criminal History Research, 2019, IJIS Symposium, Virginia
- Open Data in the Criminal Justice sector, 2018, Google Civil Rights Law Group, San Francisco, CA
- Community Data Stories, 2016 (Keynote), Mile High Data Day, Denver, CO
- Community Power + Data, 2016, Open Society Foundations, San Diego, CA
- Data Driven Change, 2015, Collective Impact Forum, NOLA
- Policy & Practice Limitations of Open Data, 2015, California Data Summit, Sacramento, CA
- Measuring Impact, 2014, NNIP Denver Conference
- Data Driven Cities: An Oakland Experience, 2013, International Forum of the Urban Affairs Association, San Francisco
- How GIS Supports Data-Driven Decision Making, 2012, CalGIS Conference, Sacramento, CA
- Innovation with Civic Information, 2012, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia: Reinventing Older Communities Conference, Philadelphia, PA
- Storytelling with Data, 2012, OakX Speaker Series, Oakland, CA
- The Data Driven City, 2012, OakX Speaker Series, Oakland, CA
- Measuring Impact, 2012, Federal Reserve Bank of SF: CRA Conference, Seattle
- Open Data Supporting Neighborhood Stabilization, (Keynote) 2011, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond: Strategic Data-Use to Stabilize Neighborhoods Conference, Baltimore, MD
- All Your Data belong To Us: Open Geospatial Data, 2011, ESRI UC, San Diego
- Keeping it real (Secure), 2011, Nonprofit Technology Conference, Washington, D.C.
- The Future of the Map, 2011, Nonprofit Technology Conference, Washington, D.C.
- Advanced Data Analysis and Segmentation, 2011, Promise Neighborhoods Institute, Washington, D.C.
- Chronic Absence in Oakland Public Schools, 2010, NNIP Equity Conference, Oakland, CA
- Democratizing Data, 2010, ESRI User Conference, San Diego
- Democratizing Data & Empowering Communities, 2009, UC Berkeley GIS Day, Berkeley, California
- Social Justice goes Geospatial, 2009, ESRI User Conference, San Diego