Last updated: August 2021
Founders and history
The Lisbon Data Science Academy (“The Academy” or “LDSA”) is a not-for-profit organization.
It was started in June 2017 by a group of volunteers who love data science. This organization currently runs the Lisbon Data Science Starters Academy, a course for python programmers who wish to enter Data Science, and offers a Data Science Prep Course.
Mission
The Lisbon Data Science Academy exists to create and maintain a community of excellence, with the teaching and learning of Data Science at its core.
Let’s break down each part of the mission to explore what it means as well as it’s implications.
- “create and maintain a community”
- We are building a community and this is the first step. However, after it is built, our job is not done! Expanding and maintaining a engaged community is an ongoing process and we must continue to nurture our community even after the initial building is done. The decisions that we make in all steps of the creation process will be a part of the organization after it is “built”.
- “community of excellence”
- Everything that the community does must be excellent. Every single person that is a part of the organization must be proud because the community is excellent per se. Through excellence in all areas, we will connect and develop relationships that will attract excellent people and expand the community while upholding its purpose.
- Excellence does not mean exclusive and the creation of a community isn’t limited to Data Science. All needed talents are welcome to benefit our community, since there are many roles to be filled in order to create greatness. If you are not a Data Scientist but have excellent work and ideas to contribute, there is a place for you. that our Data Science community needs, you are more than welcome.
- Our commitment to excellence will also help guide us when things get hard. When faced with hard decisions that tempt us to choose the easiest solution - such making exceptions in learning units that fall below standards or graduating students that haven’t invested as required - a commitment to excellence should make clear what the right thing to do is.
- “with the teaching and learning of Data Science at its core”
- This is what everything else revolves around. This is what binds everyone in the community together is a commitment to teaching and learning about Data Science.
- Everyone in the community should strive to be both a teacher and student of Data Science. Just being a passive learner is not enough. A know-it-all that doesn’t think they have anything to learn either does not embrace this mission or does not understand that in our community we shall learn from the experience of others, through positive and constructive debate.
Values and Key Principles
- Independent (not owned or influenced by any company)
- Collaborative
- Nonprofit
- Open-source
- Inclusive (hence open)
- Geeky
Organization Structure
The Assembly
The assembly consists of all members and the main responsibility is to hold elections of the leadership structure every 2 years unless the Assembly General calls one sooner. The Assembly must also vote on yearly budgets. Both votes require a simple majority with 75% quorum.
Assembly Membership
Since assembly membership includes the right to an equally-weighted vote, membership requirements will be based upon participation under the assumption that participation is what gives the required context to enable informed voting.
In light of this, any person may become a member by:
- Actively participating in at least one discussion per month for 3 months
- Putting in 30 hours of work for the Academy in any capacity in the previous 6 months from the current time.
- Requesting to become a member of the academy.
The Leadership
The leadership structure is divided into 3 branches:
- Assembly Admin
- Finance
- Executive
Each of these branches contains a head and two secretaries. The responsibility of the head is to ensure that the duties of the branch are carried out. The secretaries are responsible to advise the head of their branch while assisting in execution of its duties.
Assembly Admin
It is the responsibility of the Assembly Admin to ensure that the leadership votes are held as well as presiding over the votes when they occur. It is the duty of the Assembly Admin to hold emergency leadership votes in the case they are petitioned to do so by a simple majority of the Assembly or at his or her pleasure. Leadership and budget votes must be announced 20 days in advance.
Finance
The Finance branch is responsible for bringing a fiscally responsible and legal budget to the yearly vote of the Assembly. It must regularly review the expenditures and balance sheet of the Academy to ensure legal compliance of the yearly budget, activities which require expenditure of money, and treasurer.
Executive
The most important role of the executive is to ensure that they, the academy as a whole, and the individuals that make up are always acting in accordance with the mission, values, and key principles defined in this charter by providing clear and thoughtful leadership and guidance.
The executive is responsible for appointing or removing the primary enablers of each area of responsibility by ⅔ majority. The executive must also create, remove, or modify the specification of areas of responsibility as new needs arise. In addition to this, it has final decision making power over all disputes in areas that are not already explicitly assigned to any other branch or role within the academy. The executive is responsible for ensuring that areas of responsibility are done according to specification.
As per Portuguese law, one of the secretaries must be designated the Treasurer and this Treasurer may NOT serve as the head of the Finance branch.
Areas of Responsibility
Areas of Responsibility (AOR) are the mechanism by which the Academy ensures that work can be distributed amongst members and completed with clear accountability and ownership. Each area of responsibility will have at the very least a description, primary responsibilities, and a primary enabler but may include more as the executive or primary enablers see fit.
AOR Description
An AOR description is a subjective and short paragraph describing why it exists and the general type of problem it is supposed to solve.
AOR Primary Responsibilities
This is a non-subjective and specific list of responsibilities that fall under this AORs purview. This should be a relatively small list of the most important things that have been identified as critical to the pursuit of the Academy’s mission. This list should not attempt to be exhaustive so as not to confuse tasks of minor import with those that are mission critical.
AOR Primary Enabler
An AOR Primary Enabler is a single person who is responsible for ensuring that the duties of an AOR are executed. Note that this does not mean that this person must execute all of the duties themselves and the Primary Enabler is encouraged to recruit as needed in order to assist in creating a path to success for their AOR.
Creation and Scheduling of Courses and Batches
The mission outlined in this charter is quite broad and thus provides an enormous amount of flexibility in the pursuit of fulfilling it. However, the academy is and should be expected to create and deliver learning material in the form of courses which are to be grouped first by courses and then batches. We can take the Starters Academy as an example which is a course that is delivered in 6-month batches.
The responsibility to create, schedule, and deliver courses and batches is assigned to the 9 member leadership team. The creation of courses is done by proposing and ratifying a charter with a ⅔ majority. Any amendments to a course charter also requires a ⅔ majority amongst the Leadership. Scheduling of batches within the courses may be proposed by any member of the leadership and must be ratified by a ⅔ majority.
Community and Brand Management
The teaching and learning portion of the mission is delegated to the creation of courses and batches but the community portion also needs to be directly addressed in this charter. The need for this arises from the need for continuity amongst the courses and batches. Although different courses have a different set of students, instructors, curricula, etc. they are all part of the same community of excellence.
The executive may write and modify AOR Descriptions for Community and Brand managers and appoint Primary Enablers with a ⅔ majority. Note that this AOR is not at the course level as most of the others but rather at the level of the parent organization.
Reward Structures
Since the Academy is volunteer-run and should only provide monetary compensation directly to individuals in extreme cases, it is left up to the course charter to decide how Academy funds may be used to reward the volunteers in a way that is consistent with the charter mission and the LDSA values.
Final Notes
All members and the leadership team are expected to act on a good faith basis. It is expected that all matters that are brought to a vote are to be discussed in the appropriate forum before the vote occurs in order to provide and encourage a chance for healthy debate.
This page refers to the LDSA Charter as of August 2021 (original document here). This document is to be held as supplementary material to the articles of incorporation and is mainly meant to define processes and organizational structure that changes more often than the articles of incorporation.