Smart Chicago in the Wall Street Journal

Today Smart Chicago was featured, along with many others, in a story in the Wall Street Journal covering the great work of civic hackers in Chicago:

Hackers Called Into Civic Duty
Chicago, Other Cities Work With Programmers to Leverage Data Troves for Public Purpose

Snip:

“People still think hacking is getting people’s credit-card numbers from J.C. Penney,” said Daniel X. O’Neil, executive director of the Smart Chicago Collaborative, a nonprofit using technology to improve city life. “Now we work pretty closely with the city and the state.”

Smart Chicago consultant Christopher Whitaker reviewed the Open311 project brought to Chicago through a grant to Code for America:

Christopher Whitaker, who heads Chicago’s Code for America team, also showed off 311 Service Tracker Chicago, a program from his group and the city that helps residents track the status of service requests for things such as removing abandoned vehicles or filling potholes.

“Now, when you file a request in Chicago, you get a tracking number like you would from UPS,” Mr. Whitaker said. People can go to the website, enter the tracking number and see which city department is working on the problem and the status of the request.

Full story: