City of Chicago

The City of Chicago is one of three founding partners of the Smart Chicago Collaborative.

Benchmark: Chicago Public Library Cyber Navigator Program

Smart Chicago 1 Comment

“Establish a smart community benchmark and toolkit for broadband access and use” is Initiative Four of the City of Chicago Tech Plan. The Connect Chicago program is an essential component of that initiative. As part of this, we’re highlighting programs that are quintessential programs that we consider crucial to having a connected city for all.

One of the first comprehensive technology training programs in the city, the CyberNavigators program at Chicago Public Libraries has led the way in bridging the digital divide in Chicago.

Bessie Coleman

About the CyberNavigator Program

CyberNavigators are computer tutors that work in 44 libraries across Chicago, where they served almost 90,000 library patrons in 2011. Through technology training and mentoring, one-on-one assistance and public classes, CyberNavigators work with library patrons to teach computer basics, resume writing, word processing, internet searching and more.

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OpenGov Hack Night: @ChicagoCDO unveils new OpenData Report

Christopher Whitaker

Tom Schenk Jr, Director of Analytics at the City of Chicago, unveiled the City of Chicago’s 2013 Open Data Report.

The Open Data Report overviews the Open Data Executive Order, initiatives accomplished during 2013 such as the launch of the Chicago Data Dictionary, the progress of Chicago’s data portal, and what to expect in 2014.

You can read the report here on the City of Chicago’s website.

 

Chicago’s Hidden Open Data

Christopher Whitaker

At this week’s hack night, Forest Gregg of DataMade gave a talk about Chicago’s hidden open data. While the civic innovation community has gotten used to going to data.cityofchicago.org for their open data needs, there’s a lot more data that’s not on the portal.

Chicago's Hidden Data

The last few OpenGov Hack Nights have been spent building out a website (opengovhacknight.org) to help gather information on projects, people, and events in Chicago’s robust civic innovation community. Another goal of the project is to list all the resources available to developers (including Smart Chicago’s free web hosting for civic apps and user testing.)

A large part of the page has been documenting all the open data that’s not on the portal. Forest Gregg talks more about that below the fold.

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What It Takes to get the Municipal Code of Chicago Online

Smart Chicago

Julia Ellis of the Office of the Chicago City Clerk Addressing OpenGovChicago Meetup at the Chicago Cultural Center

It’s somewhat taken for granted that Chicago civic hackers have access to a plethora of data.  This includes the city code – which is available online for anyone and everyone to see and download. To get the code to this point takes a lot of work.

Julia Ellis, Policy Director of the Office of City Clerk, spoke at the last OpenGov Chicago Meetup to explain the process of getting the city code online and how the process is far more complicated than it sounds.

We work in the civic innovation sector of the technology industry to improve lives in cities, improve relationships between residents and government, and create sustainable business models that support an innovative ecosystem. Having brass-tacks explications of the actual work (not what we perceive the work to be) is critical.
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OpenGovChicago Meeting: Process and Products Around the Chicago Municipal Code

Smart Chicago

Julia Ellis of the Office of the Chicago City Clerk Addressing OpenGovChicago Meetup at the Chicago Cultural Center

Last week, Smart Chicago hosted the OpenGov Chicago-land meetup at the Chicago Cultural Center with a great lineup of authoritative speakers:

Susana Mendoza, City Clerk of the City of Chicago, Julia Ellis, Legislative Counsel at Chicago City Clerk, Carl Malamud, President and Founder of Public.Resource.Org, Waldo Jaquith, an Open Government Technologist who is leading an effort to test the Open Data Institute model for open data standards in the United States, and Seamus Kraft, Executive Director of the OpenGov Foundation talk about the code by which we rule our city.

We’ve compiled all the videos of the presentation below the fold:
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