Yesterday we were named one of Chicago Inno’s 50 on Fire in the “Civic” category! The awards recognize “inventors, disruptors, luminaries and newsmakers” that are driving Chicago’s innovation economy forward.
We were honored to be named among many of our friends including Andrea Saenz of Chicago Public Library, Infiniteach, Literacenter, and Blue 1647! Here’s a video snip:
See ChicagoInno’s past articles on Smart Chicago here.
Smart Chicago Collaborative guest blogger Jensi Sartin is a YSEALI State Department Fellow from Indonesia. He is working with the Smart Chicago Collaborative for a month to gain experience in Chicago’s public, philanthropic, and nonprofit sectors — especially on digital issues.
Rising incomes in populous Southeast Asian countries plus plunging smartphone prices have created an Internet boom. It is estimated that there will be 190 million smartphone users in Southeast Asia by end of 2015. By the end of 2019, that number will be over 340 million! In my country of Indonesia we have the most mobile Facebook users in the world and the capital capital city, Jakarta, has more active Twitter users than any other city in the world.
This digital advancement affects the public, including citizens’ relationship with and communication with government. In Indonesia, you can tweet directly to the governor and, even if it’s an angry tweet, you’re sure to get reply or a retweet. The public also uses online petitions like Change.org to spread awareness or even force government to shift positions on policies. We’ve even found that using apps and crowdsourcing can help crackdown corruption in the government.
Organizing rally urging government to eradicate corruption and promote more meaningful transparency in the mining sector.
Despite the fact that Indonesia’s Internet quality is poorer compared to its Southeast Asian neighbor nations, most government agencies have at least two digital channels: a website and a social media account. Some agencies have even created digital platforms for e-Procurement, e-Budgeting, e-Tax, and many more “e-somethings”. For instance, the city of Jakarta, famous for its bad traffic jams, is using social media to make the city more livable.
Environmental damage by a mining company found by combining images from drone mapping with a government map on existing mining concession (the white color area is a lake that has been used to wash bauxite from soil)
Civic advocacy is also adopting technology in its work. Following the progress of Open Government Partnership and Indonesia’s Freedom of Information Law, a number of projects were launched to promote open data. Civic apps and websites were created to solve problems that are either rarely or inefficiently addressed by government. For instance, KawalPilkada is an app that educates the public on provincial and city-level elections. Also, a local anti-corruption organization launched opentender.net to crosscheck the procurement process in the government projects.
Community brainstorming with fishermen, the marine tourism operators, and government to develop a joint-program to manage fisheries and marine tourism in the area. This region in east of Bali is one of main tourism destinations that is threatened by the increasing impact of climate change.
Have all these “e-somethings” improved public service delivery in Indonesia or have they simply spread the “you are not cool if you don’t have Twitter” feeling? Unfortunately, this question is rarely addressed. The most important thing in this work should be user (or expected user) opinion and experience. It’s about the people that use the technology! A people-focused organization, set of methods, and best practices should be established to ensure that new digital tools truly improve public life.
I think this might look like a Smart Chicago Collaborative model in Indonesia with missions in Internet access (like Connect Chicago), in digital skills and education (like Smart Health Centers), and in user-focused tools (like the CUTGroup). This is why I’m here in Chicago — to learn more about the Smart Chicago model and see how I can apply it to districts in my country!
To learn more about me and follow my work, follow me on Twitter.
Jensi Sartin is a YSEALI Professional Fellow for Legislative and Governance Process of Department of State and he is hosted by American Council of Young Political Leaders. YSEALI is President Barack Obama’s signature program to strengthen leadership development and networking in Southeast Asia. Based in Indonesia, Jensi serves as a program development manager of Publish What You Pay Indonesia’s efforts to promote transparency and accountability in government especially related to governance of extractive sector (i.e. oil, gas, coal, mineral, forestry industry, etc.). He also provides Reef Check Indonesia with research and advisory support. Jensi holds a Master’s degree in Natural Resources Management from the James Cook University Australia and a Bachelor’s Degree in Marine Sciences from Diponegoro University.
My name is Akya Gossitt, I’m 29 years old, I’m an Assistant Instructor for Smart Chicago’s Youth Led Tech Program in Englewood, and I am Chicago.
I say that because growing up in some of the most destructive and volatile parts of the city has made that statement more true then I would like it to be. Growing up as a child was hard. I come from a man that up until this point in my life more than half of my age years has been spent in a prison from convictions of petty theft to murder.
My mother was a severe substance abuser and chronic alcoholic as well as verbally abusive at times. Although I love both my parents dearly, as a child I can’t say the respect factor was ever there and my idea of doing well in school or putting forth effort to do anything came and went.
If I participated in school groups it was only to avoid the real life situations I was facing at home. Once high school came they became my escape, my coping mechanism to Chicago lessons of living the struggle. I went to 3 elementary schools and 3 high schools.
During my sophomore year I met my guardian angel Kimberly Moore. She was the first person outside my family that really showed an interest in knowing me and what I was going through and how she could help me be the bright person she knew I was. Imagine my surprise to hear these good things— she barely knew me— nonetheless over the years she is the one who I think saved my life. Her and the streets to some extent. She’s who made me find my calling in social work and who I always admired to be. She was a successful black woman who spoke so highly of everyone— she always saw the good in you. She was a great mom. Everything I aspired to be in the future as a black woman.
Over time as my connection grew with her a light bulb went off. Everything that I had ever wanted or needed she gave me. Attention, motivation, hope belief. That’s when I realized that I wanted to help kids who were like me. I wanted engage with youth that experienced the same trials and tribulations I did and show them a way out. I wanted to be their guardian angel. Give hope that better is attainable, not impossible. I can’t say that I didn’t make more mistakes along the way, because I did. But eventually I started making better choices. I went to the military, gained some insight on living life on a schedule, being self-accountable and gaining self-discipline as well as setting a financial foundation for myself as a newly single parent. I moved back to Chicago and entered college studying social work.
My last semester of community college I interned at a nonprofit organization called Youth Guidance. During my internship I received an email blast from a colleague who wanted us to let our children know about the youth-led tech program and that they were looking for instructors as well. I applied for the position as instructor, interviewed, and here I am.
What I’d like for people to understand is that not only did my good and greater choices get me here but also my bad— sometimes you have to fall and soak in the sorrow before you realize you’re ready to get up and play the game. That’s what I did. Was it hard? Absolutely! Could I have did thing the “traditional” way or just listen? Of course— but that wasn’t the reality of my life and as far as I’m concerned that applies to all young and old.
Every decision I made got me to this point and if one doesn’t know all the steps I took to get to where I am now then I’m just another person standing in front of them preaching to the choir. They have to relate and that why I have a clip of my past so that people who read my biography know that yes I am in a good position and platform to do great things but that I came from nothing and had to go through every single stage to get where I am and I’m still pushing to do better.
I’m dedicated to the youth and the communities that want my help in showing them their vast potential of not being or becoming statistic. Just because you are doesn’t mean you have to stay one nor just because someone say that you can be doesn’t mean that you have to be.
LinkedIn | Twitter
Today Denise Linn joins the Smart Chicago Collaborative as the Program Analyst. She will manage citywide ecosystem initiatives like Connect Chicago and the Chicago School of Data.
Denise comes to us from the Harvard Kennedy School, where she completed her Master in Public Policy degree and researched civic innovation and city-level Internet access projects. In 2015, she published “A Data-Driven Digital Inclusion Strategy for Gigabit Cities” and co-wrote the “Next Generation Network Connectivity Handbook.” She previously worked as an Economics Research Assistant in the Auctions & Spectrum Access Division of the Federal Communications Commission and is an alumna of the AmeriCorps VISTA program.
As Program Analyst, Denise will develop, execute, and manage the evaluation of Smart Chicago Programming. She has primary responsibility for the day-to-day activities of Connect Chicago, the Chicago School of Data, and other data engagement projects like the Array of Things and the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership.
You can follow her work on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Slideshare.
Please join me in welcoming Denise Linn.
Last week I spoke at the Personal Democracy Forum about the Jackie Robinson West Little League baseball team, open data, and what we should do as practitioners of civic tech and members of society.
Here’s a video:
And here are the notes I used for the talk:
Yesterday morning here at PDF, we heard, for the first time I can remember in the world of civic tech, a lot about the workers and the masses. Specifically, the morning sessions around Civic Tech and Powerful Movements:
Reckoning With Power
Eric LiuCreative Collision: How Business and Social Movements Will Reshape Our Future
Palak ShahPutting Labor in the Lab: How Workers Are Rebooting Their Future
Carmen RojasLabor Codes: The Power of Employee-Led Online Organizing
Jess KutchPowerful Platform, Powerful Movements
Dante BarryThe Net as a Public Utility
Harold Feld
In the summer of 2014, in the city of Chicago, Illinois, a youth baseball team called Jackie Robinson West came out of nowhere (well, at least according to the vast millions of Chicagoans who don’t follow such things) to compete for the World Championship in the Little League Baseball World Series.
It was a team of African-American kids from Chicago’s South Side, and they competed and won at the highest levels. They beat some kids from Las Vegas to play for world championship. Their uniforms said, “Great Lakes”, which makes sense when you’re looking at a map of the world for a world series.
They lost, but valiantly. For about a week and a half, a segregated city was united on something completely incontrovertible: that these kids were awesome, and they were ours. Cue the parade, the T-shirt sales, the mass joy. This was a shared experience that politicians and regular people crave— to be in communion. A surprise summer experience. So we had a parade. The route was amazing.
The kids were on floats and they got adoration.
Then, one morning in February we learned in breaking news fashion that Jackie Robinson West’s U.S. title was vacated. They had placed players on their team who did not qualify to play because they lived outside the team’s boundaries.
We discovered that a coach from an opposing team from the suburbs of Chicago (the Evergreen Park Athletic Association vice president) had discovered this fact and brought it to the attention of the officials at Little League Baseball.
This matter is based on the stuff that civic tech is made of— boundaries, maps, points, addresses, data, records, municipalities. It felt so “us”. Civic tech methodology.
And I realized this vice-president of a suburban little league baseball association was one of us. Just another person who used public data to answer a question— to achieve his civic goals. And he was right. He was a whistleblower. Based on dots. Based on facts. To be fair— based on true data.
But what should we do— those of us in civic tech— what should we do? what should we work on? Mass joy.
At Smart Chicago, that’s what we focus on. Smart Chicago is a civic organization devoted to improving lives in Chicago through technology. We work on increasing access to the Internet, improving skills for using the Internet, and developing meaningful products from data that measurably contribute to the quality of life of residents in our region and beyond. Our three primary areas of focus under which we organize all of our work: Access to the Internet & technology, Skills to use technology once you’ve got access, and Data, which we construe as something meaningful to look at once you have access and skills.
Our Civic Works project, funded in part by the Knight Foundation, a program funded by the Knight Foundation and the Chicago Community Trust to spur support for civic innovation in Chicago. Part of what we do is support an ecosystem of products, people, and services to have more impact. One of the products we support is Textizen, a web platform that sends, receives, and analyzes text messages so you can reach the people you serve. Mass joy through voting on dance competitions.
Another project is Smart Health Centers, a project that places trained health information specialists in clinics to assist patients in connecting to their own medical records and find reliable information about their own conditions. We employ people who have never been a part of the IT industry and give them good jobs helping people with computers. Mass joy through knowledge and jobs.
Another is the Civic User Testing Group, a set of regular Chicago residents who get paid to test civic apps. We tested our product, Expunge.io, with real people. The joy of clearing one’s name and being heard.
I am a father of two boys, both of whom have played youth baseball for years. There’s joy there, I know it. You’re at third base, don’t stay here.
There’s a rainbow over home plate. Go get it.
We have choices every day when we wake up. Let’s make sure we make the right ones.
Since October 2013, civic tech pioneer, Chicago web developer, and good friend Scott Robbin has been working with Smart Chicago as our lead developer. If you have worked at all with us since then, you have benefitted from his work. Let’s take a look:
This is a ton of work. But at Smart Chicago, we’re not all about the technology. Scott has been a patient mentor for developers, teaching them how to use our resources, advising them on how to build their sites. He’s helped us work with non-technical consultants to keep them on the path to being bona-fide Web project managers. And he’s generally shared his vast knowledge in a patented, gentle, learned way. Scott Robbin is a treasure.
On a personal note, I’ve known Scott for many years, and we’ve worked on a volunteer basis on all sorts of projects. Most recently, we worked together to scrape, display, and make available for download every Comment on FCC Filing 14-28, Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet. We work. All we care about is work.
All hail Scott Robbin.
