Chicago will be hosting three different events during National Day of Civic Hacking.
- ChicagoMigrahack: A hackathon focused on immigration issues at Cibola. (May 31st – June 2nd)
- Hack for Youth: A youth centric hackathon hosted by the Alder Planetarium. (June 1st – June 2nd)
- Hack for Chicago: A general hackathon at 1871.
Here are a couple of the projects that will be going on during the Hack for Chicago event.
Civic Needs App: (9:30 IMSA Room)
One of the challenges of civic innovation is matching the resources provided by open government data, and talent of the civic hacking community with the needs of the community. This app is led by a team of Ryan Briones, Scott Robin, and Chris Gansen. The idea behind this app is to help provide an easy interface for community members to recruit web developers for civic projects.
Civic.json:
A branch of the civic needs app will be focused on creating a database of all civic app projects in Chicago using a new template. This will enable people to search for civic projects already in existence in order to either find a solution to a problem or to help improve an existing app.
App Design Workshop with Knight Lab: (9:30am Auditorium)
Miranda Mulligan will be giving an app design workshop at 9:30. This design process doesn’t start with the latest data set, but instead focuses on user needs.
Everyone partners up for the workshop and takes turns interviewing their partners about a particular problem they face. The workshop encourages participants to dig deeper by determining the user’s needs, insights on how they feel about the issue, and then designing an app that fits those needs.
Chicago-Area Red Cross Tech Recruitment: (11:30 Auditorium)
Red Cross Digital Operations Center, Dell/Creative Commons
Jim McGowan from the Chicago Area Red Cross will be at the event to recruit tech volunteers for the Red Cross. Jim is the manager of the Red Cross Operations Analysis and Disaster Dispatch for the region.
He’ll also be on hand to talk about the Urban Disaster Planning hackathon with Geeks without Bounds occurring June 21st – June 23rd.
Edit-a-thon with OpenStreetMap
Steven Vance/Creative Commons
Ian Dees will be leading an Edit-a-thon for Chicago’s OpenStreetMap. OpenStreetMap is an open source map that anyone can edit. Users can add data to the map including information about their favorite restaurants, cultural venues, and more. We’ll be adding more data to the map as part of the OpenStreetMap Meetup Group. You can register for the event at the Chicago OpenStreetMap Meetup Page here.
Chicago Councilmatic Launch: (12:00pm Auditorium)
OpenCity Apps will be launching the Chicago Councilmatic for National Day of Civic Hacking. Councilmatic was originally a Code for America project built for the City of Philadelphia that makes it easy to track city legislation.
Whatever you want:
Steven Vance, Creative Commons
The Hack for Chicago event as 1871 is not limited to any specific project and so people are more than welcome to come in and work on any civic app they like. Civic problems are tough and there is plenty of work to be done on a variety of issues.
To register for the Hack for Chicago event, simply RSVP on the OpenGov Chicago Meetup page and tell us what you’re interested in working on.
Breakfast will be provided by Azavea at 8:45am. Lunch will be provided by the Smart Chicago Collaborative and will be served at 11:30am.
