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Chris Jaure edited this page May 24, 2016 · 7 revisions

Mike Putnam

How we made a change in the world and you should too!

Not as hard as you might think.

Ice breaker define "hacking" "civic" Benjamin Franklin

"hacking is making a change to something" "doesnt need to be through code"

You dont need permission to do good.

hackathon

Chris

How did this start?

Bob Waldron single-handedly organized the first civic hackathon in Appleton, which involved:

  • getting funding for food and a venue (it was a free event)
  • cooperating with the local government (the Mayor was the keynote speaker)
  • designing and printing the t-shirts
  • producing a ton of content for the DHMN Civic Hackathon blog to raise awareness

At the event, technical and non-technical people clustered around ideas they found interesting and collaborated to make those ideas happen. We had about 12 different projects people worked on that day. Some of them were problems that we ourselves had which made them more interesting for us to work on, but we all had different areas of exertise, and that led to a wider breadth of progress.

What have we done since then?

Since then, we've held a number of mini civic hackathons where we came together to polish and build upon our original work. This was vital to finish what we started as well as maintain the momentum generated by the original event. Once again, Bob played a major role in making sure this happened.

What are we going to do?

Build up our community and build more hacks to make it better! Keep an eye out for the next Appleton Civic Hackathon!

Mike Rosack

What were we trying to accomplish?

  • Mike P had already been working on getting data out of appleton's website in a usable format
  • Ross was working on using Mike's data to display recycling information on his pebble
  • Mike R liked what Mike and Ross were doing but he lived in a different city
  • Chris wanted to help but had a hard time finding data for Kaukauna
  • Everyone had similar goals but needed to work together to realize them, without forming a group we never would have got as much done

End result

  • Show screenshots of apps

Other projects

  • Madison: SMSmyBus
  • Boston: Adopt-a-hydrant
  • Non-technical hacking: little free libraries / FAQ honolulu

Conclusion

  • Just get involved and start hacking!
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