the promise of people in civic tech
TRANSCRIPT
The Promise of
People in Civic
Tech
Daniel X. O’Neil
HackFort
March 26, 2015
1
@danxoneil @smartchicago
Points
• Where you from?
• About Smart Chicago
• A focus on infrastructure for others
• What you can do
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OK enough of that. Let’s talk about
something that really matters.
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Access, Skills, and Data
Smart Chicago is a civic organization devoted to improving lives in Chicago through technology. We work on increasing access to the Internet, improving skills for using Internet, and developing meaningful products from data that measurably contribute to the quality of life of residents in our region and beyond.
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AccessIf you’re not connected
to the Internet, it is
difficult for technology to
be of much use to you.
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SkillsIf you can’t use the
Internet, being
connected isn’t going to
be all that meaningful.
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Data
We construe data as content. Because there has to be something meaningful to look at once you’re connected and skilled.
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The John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation
• A center for ideation and
conception
• Julia Stasch: 2007 report,
“The City that NETWorks”
• Our primary source of funding
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The Chicago Community Trust
• Provides housing for the
organization and is fiscal
agent
• At the center of funding and
knowledge for the region
• Critical financial, human
resources, and other support
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The City of Chicago
• The most important policy
lever in the region
• Departmental relationships
• A critical partner for having
impact and getting things
done
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Focus on infrastructure
We make technology, programs,
and initiatives that allow others
to be more effective— to
provide clarity and impetus
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Amazon Web Services
• We host dozens of apps for civic hackers
• At a moment’s notice & for as long as they want
• This allows us to be helpful at the moment of inspiration
• Eliminating stoppers, encouraging innovation
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Project Work and Office Space
• We have three employees at Smart Chicago
• A deliberate strategy to spread revenue, power, and growth across the ecosystem
• We are founding tenants of 1871, going back to May 2012
• We’ve helped jumpstart a half dozen companies
• OpenGov Hack Night— an institution. There because of our seats
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CUTGroup
• Civic User Testing Group as a new model for UX testing, digital skills development, and community engagement in civic tech
• 800+ residents are available
• We’ve paid each of them a $5 VISA gift card. When they participate in a test, they get a $20 gift card
• We help the developers design and implement UX testing and it allows us to be deeply engaged with communities while improving digital skills
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Foodborne Chicago
• We use computers & code to search Twitter for tweets related to food poisoning in Chicago
• We do as much as we can to automatically zero-in on the tweets we think are really about a possible food poisoning case and really coming from Chicago
• Then real humans review the tweets and @reply back to people with a link back to our site, hoping to generate legitimate service requests
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Tell me where you’re from.
@danxoneil
(773) 960-6045
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