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What is Civic Hacking?

Chris Jaure edited this page May 7, 2016 · 10 revisions

This is a talk on civic hacking. Civic hacking is FIXME

First NE Wisconsin DHMN Civic Hackathon

FIXME

What we built

Most importantly we built a community. We connected people around a common purpose; improve the places we live using technology.

We built a very modest platform (API - application programming interface) upon which other applications can be based. This platform represents an aggregation of any available public data we could find for our area. We constructed this platform in a way that makes adding future communities and data possible(meta contracts).

Next we built several single-purpose applications to use the platform. An Android app, a responsive web app, a pebble app, and very recently we've started on an iOS/iPhone app.

Our initial data purpose/focus was intentionally small to create a low barrier to participation. "Is it Recycling Week?"!

How do we get data?

Some cites (like Appleton) have the data available on their websites in a format that's easy to read by computers, some cities require some effort to get data from a PDF. In any case, we're always looking for help to find someone to support data for new cities!

In other cases, we were able to acquire GIS data by contacting the Outagamie County Planning Department.

Sharing data in a common format increases the value of that data

The more data you get in a common format, the more people that data can help, and the more likely it is that data will be used.

What we used

FIXME - While important, we should not belabor this section as it can have an overwhelming affect on newcomers.

  • Python
  • Google App Engine
  • Azure
  • Android
  • Pebble
  • NodeJS
  • React
  • Material-UI
  • Slack
  • Github

What we gained

FIXME - bootstrapped a small community. Learned what skills/interests people have. Got a lot more ideas.

Next steps