Year: 2016

The Launch of OpenGrid for Smart Cities

Smart Chicago

open-grid-for-smart-cities-logoToday our partner, Uturn Data Solutions, launched Open Grid for Smart Cities, with support from Smart Chicago.

Here’s a snip from Uturn’s press release:

Today, Uturn Data Solutions, a Chicago-based Amazon Web Services (AWS) Consulting Partner in the AWS Partner Network (APN), in partnership with Smart Chicago Collaborative, launched a new civic tech product in AWS Marketplace: OpenGrid for Smart Cities. Based on an open source project by the City of Chicago, Uturn has optimized and packaged OpenGrid as an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) making it easy for any city to adopt the platform for its own use and quickly deploy it on the AWS Cloud.

OpenGrid AMI on the AWS Marketplace is an interactive, map-based platform to explore publicly-available open data sets in an easy-to-use-interface. OpenGrid enables municipalities to offer residents, businesses and communities a better way to interact with public data. Users can perform advanced queries to filter data and search within custom boundaries or based on the user’s location.

For a monthly subscription fee of $750.00, and by following these setup instructions, you can have a fully-functional map-best website in your city.

Here’s Uturn’s description of this product offering and more information on Open Grid for Smart Cities:

OpenGrid enables municipalities to offer residents, businesses, and communities a better way to explore and interact with publicly-available data about their city or region. It was originally developed for internal use by the City of Chicago as a way to gain situational awareness by viewing information from different city agencies on a single map.

In January 2016, Uturn and Smart Chicago created opengrid.io, the first publicly-accessible version of OpenGrid with data from Chicago’s Open Data Portal. “We wanted to create a new model for open data and civic technology that can be replicated in other cities and organizations,” said Dan O’Neil, Executive Director at Smart Chicago Collaborative, a civic organization devoted to improving residents’ lives in Chicago through technology. “Now, instead of forking code and paying developers for custom implementations, people can just complete a form and put existing software to work immediately.” Funding for the development of opengrid.io was provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and through Smart Chicago’s Developer Resources Program, with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

“The code for OpenGrid is available online but adopting open-source solutions still requires in-house expertise and infrastructure to host the application,” said Tom Schenk, Chief Data Officer for the City of Chicago. “The OpenGrid AMI enables any city to start using the platform with a click from AWS Marketplace so they can quickly deploy on a low-cost infrastructure. We hope to move the needle from producing open source software to thinking about how it can be easier to adopt and reuse.”

Increasingly, governments, public institutions, and commercial organizations are looking for ways to be more agile as well as save money. “The AWS Marketplace 1-Click® deployment model gives both commercial and public sector customers the ability to use software running on the cloud, without having to make large capital acquisitions”, said Adam Dillman, Founder and Managing Partner at Uturn Data Solutions. “Uturn Data Solutions will provide technical support including the latest updates and releases to OpenGrid customers as part of their paid subscription. Uturn also offers consulting services to help organizations get the most out of OpenGrid and further expand their data capabilities.”

Opengrid-AMI-page

Moving Civic Tech from Code to Products: AWS Marketplace is the New Github

Smart Chicago

Smart Chicago has been in civic tech since our inception. No other civic tech outfit in the country has done more to support the Chicago ecosystem, (funds, meeting space, contracts, hackathons, office space, server space) influence the field nationally (CUTGroup, support for the Code for America Brigade, a focus on justice and economic development for all) and produce our own tech (Chicago Works For You, Chicago Health Atlas, Foodborne Chicago, and more).

A focus on all, not just the most technical people

As we’ve grown, we’ve moved away from a focus on the highest-capacity tech people in the space. That move was pretty well-covered here in Civicist: The Real Heart of Civic Tech Isn’t Code. We simply think there is more good to be had by focusing on minting new tech workers in programs like Smart Health Centers, Documenters, and Youth-Led Tech.

An unprecedented technical infrastructure program

Yet we continue to quietly serve the needs of developers— in the footer, without fanfare, for free. Again, no other organization— local or national— has anything like this program. Some of the best developers in the city—Chris Gansen and Scott Robbin— have run it for us over the years, and we’ve been helpful to dozens of local developers.

Uturn Data Solutions has been maintaining the Developer Resources program for the last year or so. Amazon introduced us to Uturn because we were the largest customer in their government division— that’s no small measure of impact. Uturn continues to help us grow the program, as the Illinois Sunshine project from the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform is coming on board this month, adding more tech to our infrastructure.

We can’t ignore the lack of impact for civic tech tools

15335045039_c4477de0c0_kBut I have watched with growing concern the lack of impact of pure tech. The tools we’ve made in civic tech have, frankly, not amounted to much. There are no break-out successes with millions of users. There is very slow uptake and re-use of new tools. And yet we still code.

I think there are a number of modes of operation that preclude big impact— holding our events on the high floors of expensive downtown real estate, for instance. This keeps us far away from people in need.

Another reason is the way we propagate our work product.

Civic tech people love code. They love making code, they love talking about code amongst themselves, and they love publishing code on Github. The culture, since the inception of our movement, has been focused on code and tech rather than functionality and need.

This means that in order for a non-technical person to duplicate the functionality they see in a new “fork our code!” website, they have to hire a developer to do so. There’s just too much friction here— we have to fix it.

Amazon’s AWS Marketplace is better than Github for deploying civic tech websites

At Smart Chicago, we think we have a part of the answer: create and deploy Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) of civic tech functionality and sell it in Amazon’s AWS Marketplace. Here’s how Amazon describes an AMI:

An Amazon Machine Image (AMI) contains all the information necessary to boot an Amazon EC2 instance with your software. An AMI is like a template of a computer’s root volume. For example, an AMI might contain the software to act as a web server (Linux, Apache, and your web site) or it might contain the software to act as a Hadoop node (Linux, Hadoop, and a custom application)

From our perspective, an AMI is just a Github bucket that delivers on the promise of the raw code. We can conflate the two separate tasks we’ve been supporting for years (helping developers create code and helping organizations host their sites) into one simple experience.

AWS Marketplace is an online store that helps customers find, buy, and immediately start using the software and services they need. To date, it has been used mainly for pieces of functionality that corporations need to run an IT infrastructure— security, business processes, Sharepoint, whatever.

But when I look at the AWS Marketplace, I see a new way to get the great work we’ve done in civic tech in the hands of the people who need it most. With a software product listed in the AWS Marketplace, anyone can set up their own site by providing a credit card and filling out a form.

This week, Uturn Data Solutions, in partnership with Smart Chicago, will be launching their first civic tech AMI in the AWS marketplace. It will be the first, but hopefully not last, civic tech product of this kind to be packaged and distributed this way. A change for the better, stay tuned for more!”

Resident Engagement with the Internet of Things: The Case of Aberdeen

Denise Linn

At Smart Chicago, we’re developing methods for resident engagement with the Internet of Things. This year, I will be leading a series of activities and events that will bridge the current gap between the urban sensors measuring our city and the people who live in the city. We believe that ‘smart city’ technology should benefit and be informed by the public and that we should work towards a smart city that truly works for everyone.

Fortunately, there is a framework in place to build on from the UK. On April 28, 2016, Professor Pete Edwards and Caitlin Cottrill from the University of Aberdeen presented at the University of Chicago Convening on Urban Data Science. Their project in Aberdeen is called “Trusted Things & Communities: Understanding & Enabling A Trusted IoT Ecosystem.” The goal of the project is to create a community-based approach to building trust into the Internet of Things (think: networked sensors gathering data).

At the 2016 Convening on Urban Data Science at the University of Chicago, Dr. Cottrill from the University of Aberdeen discussed privacy and the Internet of Things

Presenters from Aberdeen emphasized the importance of authentic engagement to a trusted ‘smart city.’ The text from the slide above is an excerpt from “The Internet of Things: Making the Most of the Second Digital Revolution” by the UK Government Office for Science and created context for the conversation:

“There are more connected objects than people on the planet. The networks and data that flow from them will support an extraordinary range of applications and economic opportunities. However, as with any new technology, there is the potential for significant challenges, too. In the case of the Internet of Things, breaches of security and privacy have the greatest potential for causing them.”

The “Trusted Things” Project in Aberdeen

IMG_7034 smallThe “Trusted Things” project in Aberdeen aims to inform and engage residents on the public value, governance, and privacy implications of a local Internet of Things project.  It focused primarily on the Tillydrone district of Aberdeen.

Here is a summary of the questions of interest and main goals of the “Trust Things” project from the original grant description:

What are the appropriate governance arrangements covering IoT deployments? How do we deliver meaningful accountability? How can we develop an understanding of the interplay between individuals and devices, and the wider relationship to social/cultural norms? What are the attitudes of citizens and communities to privacy and risk in an IoT context? How should risks and benefits be communicated? How do users make informed decisions to judge the trustworthiness of information?

Answers to these (and the many other questions that will certainly emerge) will lead us to develop prototype solutions that will be evaluated with members of the Tillydrone community. Our ambition is to create a means by which a user can review the characteristics of an IoT device in terms of its impact on their personal data, answering questions such as: What type of data is it capturing? For what purpose? Who sees it? What are the (potential) benefits and risks? They also should be able to exert a degree of control over their data, and be guided to assess its reliability and accuracy.

To find out what residents want from urban sensors, ask them

Professor Pete Edwards remarked how, when asked “Do you Trust the Internet of Things?”, the natural response of residents was, “What is the Internet of Things?”. The “Trusted Things” approach, therefore, checked assumptions about residents’ knowledge, opinions, and priorities by simply engaging with them — talking to real people about a complex, but important piece of urban technology.

From the experience of the “Trusted Things” project, here is an inventory of all of the information and control requested by the public from their local sensors:

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People want to know who is using data and for what end. They want to know who controls the devices and who controls the data. People want access to the data and potentially to interact with the resulting data. They feel they have the right to change the devices and data’s behavior. Residents also believe that the they deserve notice of changes in the sensors’ capabilities or data gathering processes.

An example of a resident connection with the Internet of Things? In Aberdeen, there are sensor-enabled bus stops that citizens can interact with on their mobile devices. The mobile app tells interested residents what the sensor is doing, what it’s measuring, and what that bus system data will become.

Privacy & the Internet of Things

IMG_7030 smallProfessor Caitlin Cottrill overviewed the privacy concerns and governance issues surrounding sensor devices in the Internet of Things.

Cotrill pointed out that the Internet of Things is inherently different than other forms of data collection residents might be familiar with. Why? Sensor data isn’t static like census data. Instead, it’s spatially and temporarily detailed. Becauses these devices collect data continuously and always in the same specific place, these data have the potential to point to more sophisticated information: habits, routines, and health indicators, for instance. If the sensors happen to be capable of collecting personally identifiable data, privacy is a potential public cost.

This threat is why “privacy by design” is embraced. “Privacy by design” simply means that personal privacy is considered throughout the development of an Internet of Things project. Privacy is an ongoing concern that shapes the planning, building, engagement, and deployment or an urban sensor. Privacy isn’t an afterthought.

Cotrill also explained that it was a best practice for the creators and collectors of data to write and share an official privacy policy. It is also customary to publish governance or administrative procedures that surround the collection and sharing of sensor data.

To read more about privacy principles surrounding smart city technologies, see “Privacy by Design: 7 Foundational Principles,” developed by Ann Cavoukian, the former Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada.

Chicagoans & the Internet of Things

ArrayofThingsLogo-smallLast week, the Chicago Tribune wrote two stories about the Array of Things project — an urban sensing project operated out the the University of Chicago Urban Center for Computation & Data and Argonne National Laboratory. Both stories raised issues of privacy and resident engagement.

The first, “Array of Things sensor network to be installed in the Loop this summer” overviewed the new timeline for deploying the sensors in the Loop this year. It also referenced the Array of Things privacy policy to be released in mid-May — a policy collaboratively created by the City of Chicago, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Smart Chicago, and several other partners. The second article, “Chicago seeking ‘smart city’ tech solutions to improve city life,” echoed privacy concerns:

But already the city’s nascent efforts to collect environmental data are sparking concerns about further erosion of individual privacy in a city already outfitted with police cameras, red light cameras, in-store cameras and public transit cameras. And, perhaps most critically, some observers question whether the collection and analysis of data will lead to meaningful improvements to urban life, as advocates suggest, or just enrich big tech vendors.

These concerns make authentic, inclusive resident engagement and the lessons from Aberdeen all the more relevant for Chicago. If the University of Aberdeen case recommended one central idea, it was this: community-based and community-centered dialogue is a key ingredient to implementation.

To read background on the Array of Things urban sensing project go to this website. To read more about Smart Chicago’s civic engagement work in Array of Things, visit our project page.

Surveillance in Chicago: an On The Table Event at the Burger King on South Pulaski Road

Smart Chicago

I have been a member of the On The Table Steering Committee since its inception. I am very proud of my connection to this central community engagement model for The Chicago Community Trust, my employer and the place where Smart Chicago is based.

I believe in the power of bringing regular Chicago residents together to plan our collective future. I also believe it’s easy to have easy conversations— to create a private space among friends to talk about and celebrate our shared work.

But we just can’t afford to do that in Chicago today. We are in the middle of a series of crises around policing, education, the use of public space, and how to pay for the things we need. On The Table is far too important a tool to use for discussions that don’t go to the core.

So we’re hosting a dinner at an important place to talk about important things. Here’s details: Surveillance in Chicago: A Conversation at the Burger King on S. Pulaski Road

The October 20, 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald at 4100 S. Pulaski was a seminal event in this city. The reverberations are still being felt in the publication of recommendations from the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force, in the Pattern or Practice Investigation being conducted by the Department of Justice, and in continued protests in the streets and at the doors of power. This conversation will focus on one aspect of power: video surveillance. Our venue will be the Burger King where 86 minutes of recording went missing on the morning after McDonald’s death.

We hope you can join us. If this event fills up, we encourage you to host your own On The Table as well.

On The Table 2015

Meantime, here are some resources to help move the conversation along:

  • Burger King surveillance video section of the Wikipedia page devoted to the Laquan McDonald shooting
  • Surveillance Cameras in Chicago: Extensive, Pervasive and Unregulated
  • Recommendations for Reform: Restoring Trust between the Chicago Police and the Communities they Serve

Questions, comments, additions? Write / call / tweet Daniel X. O’Neil  (773) 960-6045 @smartchicago  @danxoneil.

Themes from the NNIP San Antonio Spring 2016 Meeting

Denise Linn

From April 6th – April 8th, I attended the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP) Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. NNIP is a network of city partners that collects, analyzes, and evangelizes neighborhood data. The idea of “data for local action” underscores this important work. Above all, NNIP is a community of practice.

NNIP_PartnersBadge_Logo_RGB

 

The bi-annual meetings are when partners collaborate in person and share out work. I represented the Smart Chicago Collaborative at the meeting, joining essential Chicago data intermediaries Heartland Alliance and the Woodstock Institute.

This blog post is organized by the major themes that captured my interest at NNIP:

  • NNIP’s new commitment to centralizing data training resources
  • The challenge of capturing and quantifying civic participation
  • The promise of integrated data systems for future neighborhood research
  • The need for more usability testing of local data tools

You can read a similar recap blog post from the fall 2015 NNIP Meeting in Dallas, Texas here.

NNIP 2016 4

NNIP’s commitment to data training

On the first day of the San Antonio NNIP meeting, NNIP announced a new project with Microsoft Technology and Civic Engagement: “Expanding Training in Using Data and Technology to Improve Communities.”

According to the project website:

This project focuses on expanding training opportunities for local audiences who work professionally or as civic activists to serve communities and improve neighborhood conditions. Training can help these dedicated individuals use data and technology to perform their daily work more efficiently, effectively, and inclusively.  Examples include ways to access, interpret, combine, and analyze data, as well as approaches to visualize and communicate data-based stories and results.

NNIP will conduct a scan of civic training and resources across its partners and other organizations. To further inform that scan, there will be a working session at the next NNIP meeting in Cleveland. With the results from the scan and cross-city collaboration, NNIP plans to publish a guide on data training and share a bank of open curricula for local organizations to use. This would be an amazing national resource for organizations within and beyond the NNIP network.

I look forward to following this project and seeing how Smart Chicago can contribute to the bank of knowledge that NNIP assembles. Smart Chicago sees data and digital literacy as essential pieces to a healthy tech ecosystem. We have already committed to this type of training and capacity building through the Chicago School of Data and Connect Chicago. Smart Chicago has ample resources and lessons to share from our work and we are supportive of other cities seeking to replicate our models.

The challenge of capturing civic participation measures

At Smart Chicago, we see technology is a means to civic engagement and prosperity rather than an end in itself. One of the most interesting conversations at the San Antonio NNIP meeting was about quantifying and measuring civic participation in innovative ways. Representatives from Portland State University, DataSpark RI and the University of Minnesota shared their recent work in this area.

When thinking about civic participation indicators, a natural question arises: how can we go beyond voter participation and registration data to capture a more holistic picture of civic engagement in our cities? I was inspired to see NNIP partners using measures like non-emergency 311 reports and AmeriCorps volunteer data to understand local engagement and civic action across neighborhoods.

I was also interested in how different ages and demographic groups practiced civic participation.

One of my favorite resources shared was DataHaven’s 2016 Connecticut Civic Health Index which uses data on charitable giving, community meeting participation, and trust in neighborhoods to capture a well-rounded “civic health” indicator.

The promise of integrated data systems for future neighborhood research

NNIP partners from Cleveland, New York, Baltimore, Providence, Pittsburgh, and Pinellas County participated in a cross-site project called “Connecting People and Place: Improving Communities through Integrated Data Systems.”

There are several approaches to and definitions of integrated data systems, but in NNIP’s own words:

Integrated Data Systems (IDS) link data at the individual level from multiple government agencies such as schools, juvenile justice, and human services, and can also include data from non-governmental service providers. The systems can be used for case management and for program monitoring and evaluation, and have privacy protections governing access to the data.

At the NNIP San Antonio meeting, representatives from New York and Cleveland shared out their experiences from the cross-site project. New York University’s Furman Center used an integrated data system and machine learning to predict city buildings where residents’ risk of entering a homeless shelter was highest. Case Western Reserve University used their integrated data system to understand and predict kindergarten readiness.

NNIP partners shared other results and advice from integrated data system work:

NNIP has many resources on integrated data systems including a suggested reading list and an ever-growing list of projects across the country.

The need for more usability testing of local data tools

The theme of creating user-friendly interactions with data and technology was interwoven through the NNIP meeting.

On the first day of the meeting, the San Antonio NNIP partner CI:Now discussed how residents’ difficulties with understanding and using online forms impacted CI:Now’s ability to collect neighborhood data. If forms were not user-friendly or if residents in a neighborhood lacked the digital skills to fill out the online forms, there was an obstacle to both civic engagement and meaningful research.

The NNIP meeting’s session on website redesigns also echoed the theme of usability challenges. Building or improving portals or data products requires feedback. Unfortunately, there is not always a local organization or civic process in place to dedicated that that usability work.

Given this repeated theme throughout the NNIP meeting, I was pleased to see Nic Moe of Austin’s Children’s Optimal Health facilitate a “camp” conversation on how partners can embrace UX testing.

Smart Chicago would like to be a resource for NNIP partners interested in broader civic engagement and usability testing. Smart Chicago wrote the book on civic user testing. We also share best practices from our CUTGroup project through the new CUTGroup Collective. We are pleased to invite NNIP partners into the CUTGroup Collective and help organizations build a civic user testing community in their own cities. In addition to making data and technology tools better, this testing is also vehicle for meaningful resident engagement and skill-building.  

You find out more information about the CUTGroup Collective and get involved with the community here.

NNIP San Antonio was a thought-provoking convening hitting on many moving target projects and questions that Smart Chicago grapples with daily — from the Array of Things Civic Engagement work to Healthy Chicago 2.0 on the Health Atlas. We are pleased to collaborate with this network and seek new ways to contribute to and add value to this community of neighborhood data practitioners.

You can access the presentations and materials from the San Antonio NNIP meeting here.

Meet the Project Manager and Project Coordinator of Youth-led Tech

Kyla Williams

We are extremely excited to welcome Monica Swope and Anthony Smith to our Youth-led Tech 2016 Team.

Youth-Led Tech 2016

Monica SwopeMonica is leading the program as Project Manager while Anthony is providing solid resources and assistance as Project Coordinator. Monica is Principal Education Consultant for Learning Dimensions; a Chicago based educational consulting company committed to transformative learning environments. “The key to economic empowerment is made possible through greater access to technology and education, and that is something that should be available to all regardless of one’s zip code,” sites Monica as her desire and philosophy for participating in the Youth-led Tech program. She has a wealth of experience including teaching public school, educational administration, and is an adjunct faculty member of Loyola University-School of Education. Monica also is a yoga instructor, all of which will come in handy as the program gears up.

IMG_4034Anthony comes to Smart Chicago from a Teen Pregnancy Prevention program supporting Chicago Public School students. A big portion of his interactions with students was around making better decisions, identifying life goals, and understanding values about who the kids were and how where they came from could affect their life’s path. Anthony was a mentor for youth in the Roseland and Englewood Communities, and coaches basketball at Crane High School. Anthony quotes April Chamberlin as his reason for wanting to work in the Youth-led Tech program, “Education is evolving due to the impact of the Internet. We cannot teach our students in the same manner in which we were taught. Change is necessary to engage students not in the curriculum we are responsible for teaching, but in school. Period.” With this type of attitude, our youth will certainly be better for having Anthony.