A Recap of Open Data Week 2026

This year marked the 10th anniversary of Open Data Week, and our goal as organizers was for this year’s festival to be the most engaging yet. The community came through with record numbers of proposals for both Open Data Week sessions and Data Through Design projects. Ultimately, we celebrated by hosting over 90 events that celebrated NYC Open Data and the people who use it.

Open Data Week 2026 featured the most in-person events since before the pandemic (38), more artistic and creative sessions than ever, and a record number of events hosted by NYC academic institutions, including our first-ever festival keynote with author and professor Rahul Bhargava at the CUNY Graduate Center.

This year was also the debut of a documentary film series: DataDocs, organized by Nathan Storey from the Office of Data Analytics and DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema. The program included four films that overlap with NYC Open Data followed by panel discussions with filmmakers, advocates, and City staff to tease out more of those data connections.

School of Data 2026, the festival’s culminating conference hosted by civic tech nonprofit BetaNYC, took place over two days, with 46 scheduled sessions on Day 1 and an unconference on Day 2. On Saturday, Associate Commissioner Tayyab Walker presented Open Data Week co-founders Adrienne Schmoeker and Noel Hidalgo with a mayoral proclamation celebrating 10 years of Open Data Week!

Check out the related news below to see more highlights from Open Data 2026.