Month: December 2014

Incomplete List of Apps Using the Open311 API in Chicago

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It’s been years since the City of Chicago launched their implementation of Open311, a standard for reading and writing 311 service requests. Here’s an incomplete, idiosyncratic list of apps that are currently using the City of Chicago Open311 API. If you know of one that I don’t have listed here, please let us know!

311 Super Mayor Emanuel: Fixing Chicago’s problems one 311 request at a time. Beyond the obvious fun of an 8-bit mayor that hops over a red porcupine when a service request is submitted, this is a real-time system that refreshes the page as new requests are submitted. Skyline graphic by TJ McKimmey, logo by Angel Kittiyachavalit; most other stuff by Ben Sheldon. Check out the source code on Github.

Super Mayor Emanuel

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The Next Connect Chicago Meetup is January 30

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RSVP

Please join us at our first meetup luncheon of 2015.

Erin Simpson , Public Policy Student at the University of Chicago & Civic Tech Fellow at Microsoft, will talk about her research of Connect Chicago locations.

Digital Dividends: Assessing the Use & Impact of Free Public Computer Labs in Chicago

This analysis seeks to understand the ways in which the free, public computer labs in the Connect Chicago network have impacted users and communities. By surveying more than 300 users at a cross-section of Connect Chicago locations, this research will analyze  the role that public computer centers play in urban neighborhoods and the ways in which users leverage those resources. By understanding the impacts that centers are having on users and communities, I will be able to present a preliminary evaluation of the city, state, and federal policies that have supported community-based organizations in maintaining the labs, inform the conversation about the role of the state in providing technology resources, and generate actionable policy recommendations for improving Connect Chicago locations. Secondary research questions for the project include understanding the interplay between digital and physical community-building and identifying successful strategies to promoting digital literacy.

New Dataset from the City Clerk’s Office: Residential Parking Zones

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This morning, Susana Mendoza, the City Clerk of Chicago,  is set to release a new dataset to the City’s data portal: residential parking zone data. Here’s a link: https://data.cityofchicago.org/Transportation/Parking-Permit-Zones/u9xt-hiju. The data provides the starting and end points of all street segments that the City Council has designated as parking for residents.

WIcker Park, Late November Morning with Bright Sun

This data set is already going to have several organizations (including us) using the data. We’ll outline the efforts below the fold:

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The Launch of Convicted in Cook

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Today we’re launching Convicted in Cook, a joint project of Smart Chicago, the Chicago Justice Project, and FreeGeek Chicago’s Supreme Chi-Town Coding Crew (SC3).

Convicted in Cook is an analysis of five years worth of conviction data received through the Office of the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County by Tracy Siska of the Chicago Justice Project. The goal is to shed a light on criminal convictions in Cook County.

The project is part of the Smart Chicago Collaborative’s Civic Works Project, a program funded by the Knight Foundation and the Chicago Community Trust to spur and support civic innovation in Chicago.

cookcounty

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Sonja Marziano promoted to Project Coordinator

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Sonja Marziano has been promoted to Smart Chicago’s Project Coordinator. Sonja first joined Smart Chicago last year as Smart Chicago’s administrative assistant, but quickly grew to be a huge part of Smart Chicago’s operations including managing the Civic User Testing Group and spearheading the Chicago School of Data Days.

Sonja Marziano

Sonja will be transitioning from her Administrative Assistant role and managing more programs and projects for Smart Chicago. This includes her continued leadership in the CUTGroup and Chicago School of Data Project, and now includes Expunge.io, Early Childhood Web Portal, and other projects as they arise.

You can follow her on Twitter at @ssmarziano.

 

Kyla Williams promoted to Director of Operations

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Kyla Williams has been promoted to Smart Chicago’s Director of Operations. Kyla has been an integral part of Smart Chicago’s work helping to manage our finances, contracts, and grants. Kyla also runs all of our health initiatives including the Chicago Health Atlas and the Smart Health Centers.

Smart Chicago will be taking on more projects in 2015 and Kyla’s new role will be to help manage all of our operations going forward and will continue to spearhead our health initiatives.

You can follow Kyla on Twitter at @SmartChgoKyla.

Preface: Experimental Modes of Civic Engagement in Civic Tech

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Today we’re launching a new project— Experimental Modes of Civic Engagement in Civic Tech. This is a project led by Laurenellen McCann that deepens her work in needs-responsive, community-driven processes for creating technology with real people and real communities for public good. See our project page for complete details.

I’m excited about this project because it supports so many important nodes for Smart Chicago:

  • Keeping the focus on people and communities rather than technology. We are leading creators of civic tech, and we publish a lot of software. It’s people and impact we care about
  • Driving toward a shared language around the work. There is a lot of enthusiasm for “people” in our space right now. This project sharpens pencils and will put definition to the work
  • Highlighting the workers: communities are doing this work and doing it right. We seek to lift them up and spread their methods

Au Natur-Elle #latergramSmart Chicago is utterly devoted to being of impact here in Chicago. As our work progresses, we see that we have opportunity to have influence all over. This project, rooted in the Chicago Community Trust, funded by them and the Knight Foundation, executed by a leading thinker in the field, is one way we’re doing just that.

 

Smart Chicago, Expunge.io, and Ecosystem

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This is one in a series of posts that help us at Smart Chicago to develop a cohesive product strategy that helps us deliver on the promise of access, skills, and data. As we’ve grown, more and more cities have an interest in how Smart Chicago works and how the model can be used near them. These detailed posts, showing all of the steps we take, are a way to keep us in check locally while be of service nationally. Here’s more information on our model.

Expunge.io is a youth-led project.

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Toward Estimating Value in Civic Tech

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One of the great challenges of our work in open data is making a concrete case for value. For me, the question comes up all the time, going back to my time at EveryBlock and even before that, as a tech contractor trying to convince a municipality to open more data.

We often rely on important but somewhat vague successes around weather and transit, but we really lack demonstrative examples of direct economic development around open data.

Now comes the inimitable Waldo Jaquith, Director of the U.S. Open Data Institute, with a detailed blog post that shows one small path to understanding: “The Financial Value of Open Corporate Data to Government” .

Awesome Market at Germain and St. Jacques, Paris, February 2012

The regulation of businesses is one of the most essential government functions and one that generates critical revenue for government services.

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