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Web Map Basics Presentation from DENstartup Week

October 6, 2015

What a week! Last week was the fourth annual Denver Startup Week. Denver has a thriving entrepreneurial community and is quickly becoming one of the best places in the U.S. to start, build and operate a business. #DENstartupweek showed me how strong the community of tech, marketing and startups are in my city.

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Kyle Tolle (@kyletolle) and I had the opportunity to present during the jam-packed week. Kyle explained webhooks and how Fulcrum takes advantage of real time data delivery. You can view his great presentation here.

I presented with Mamata Akella (from @cartoDB) on the basics of web maps. Mamata (@mamataakella) and I walked through the three components of a web map: (1) map (2) functionality to interact with the map (3) the user interface. Then, we demonstrated the easiest way to go from no-data to a functional web map using Fulcrum and CARTO.

Originally, we had wanted to map the location of startups throughout Denver. We quickly realized that mapping startups is difficult. We ran into challenges, like which companies are considered a startup? So, we decided to map co-working spaces in Denver. These places are often areas many startups work and network out of. Plus, it is useful to know which co-working spaces have good locations.

I collected co-working spaces and brewery locations using Fulcrum. We gathered neighborhood polygons and transportation stops (B-cycle stations, bus stops and light rail stations) from online. Mamata used SQL queries to count the number of amenities per neighborhood and styled the map accordingly. View the finished product:

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Take a look at our presentation and try building a map like we did: http://mappingkat.github.io/mappy-hour/#/.