Are you saving the world with R?

In a couple of weeks I’m going to give a talk called “How to Save the World with R.” It’s going to be at for DC useR Group and co-located at the Predictive Analytics World Conference, so if you’re nearby you should definitely check it out.

Ever since I saw this blog post from David Smith, inspired by Megan Price at Benetech, I’ve had the “save the world with R” idea lodged in my head and have been trying to unpack it, mainly because I’m a big fan of R and because I’d like to think that am (on my better days, with humility, in my small way, etc.) in the world-saving business.

If these words interest you also, I’d like to hear from you, especially if you use R in a way that could understood as saving the world. Please leave a comment or send me an email at michael.milton @ gmail.com. I’d like to collect as many ideas and stories as I can to show how people use R to improve the world.

For the purposes of the talk the idea of “saving the world” will have two characteristics.

Saving the world can:

1. Consist of small gestures (but it doesn’t have to). Does your work with R make a small dent in a big problem? Then you’re saving the world, and I want to hear how. An aggregate of small impacts is a big impact.
2. Encompass a wide range of values. Is your work with R meaningful and world-improving, even if not everyone understands why or how? Analytics is a sort of storytelling, and I’m collecting stories.

Actually, I’d say that these two characteristics apply not just for the talk, but for all cases of saving the world.

So please let me know if you have a perspective on how R can be or is being used to save the world, and please let me know if you yourself are a part of those efforts.

Are you saving the world using R?