Chi Hack Night

Chi Hack Night t is Chicago’s weekly event to build, share, and learn about civic tech. Smart Chicago livestreams this event and writes up blog posts about the presentations on a regular basis.

Hack Night Live: CIO Brenna Berman talks Procurement

Christopher Whitaker

City of Chicago CIO Brenna Berman will host a Q&A session on technology procurement, similar to last month’s OpenGov Chicago meetup (here’s the meeting notes).

Brenna Berman Handles City Council

The City is looking for ways to improve the procurement process and lower barriers to entry for small and medium businesses. If you have questions, feedback or suggestions on how Chicago buys technology, this is your chance speak up!

We’ll be live streaming tonight’s event on via Google Hangouts. If you have questions, feel free to tweet us at @SmartChicago or via the Hangouts Q&A feature.

OpenGov Hack Night: Cartografika

Christopher Whitaker

At the February 18,2 014 OpenGov Hack Night, Adam Jentleson, Jose Alarcon, and Taylor McKinley from Cartografika stopped by to tell us about their work.

Cartografika is a design shop that integrates GIS data into beautiful custom maps. On their Esty page, they describe themselves as designer-cartographers. Here’s Adam and Taylor introducing their company below:

They use city GIS data to produce the maps. GIS, or geographic information systems, is software and data that used to present geographic information. The  map on your phone is a common use of GIS. Adam and Taylor explain more about GIS and how they use it.

The company uses open GIS data from cities across the globe to make custom maps which they then sell on their Etsy page. Here’s some examples of their work:

Adam and Taylor also walked us through their design process. As an example, the company created a map of ancient China using historical map data.

As always, the speakers were available for questions after their presentation.

You can find our more information about Cartografika on their website.

Hack Night Live: Expunge.io

Christopher Whitaker

At tonight’s Chicago OpenGov Hack Night, Cathy Deng will talk about Expunge.io, a guide to help youth in Cook County erase their juvenile arrest and/or court records through the legal process of juvenile expungement.

Mikva Juvenile Justice Council #CivicSummer Session at Tribeca Flahspoint

Mikva Juvenile Justice Council #CivicSummer Session at Tribeca Flashpoint

Our hack night coverage will start at 6:15 pm Chicago Time on this very blog post.