The Promise of People in Civic Tech

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

December 24, 2015 2


Where you from?

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Where you from?

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Where you from?

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Where you from?

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So anyway ya, buy all my books on

Amazon. Thanks.

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OK enough of that. Let’s talk about

something that really matters.

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Our PrinciplesTechnology

Open

Everyone

Chicago

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Our PrinciplesTechnology

Open

Everyone

Chicago

December 24, 2015 10

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.



AccessIf you’re not connected

to the Internet, it is

difficult for technology to

be of much use to you.



SkillsIf you can’t use the

Internet, being

connected isn’t going to

be all that meaningful.



Data

We construe data as content. Because there has to be something meaningful to look at once you’re connected and skilled.



The Founders:

2 Philanthropies, 1 Municipality


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



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



The City of Chicago

• The most important policy

lever in the region

• Departmental relationships

• A critical partner for having

impact and getting things

done



We function as a tech

development outfit.


The Work


Focus on infrastructure

We make technology, programs,

and initiatives that allow others

to be more effective— to

provide clarity and impetus



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



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



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



And we produce a lot of software.



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



Sometimes I wonder: where are

all the people?


Big data can

be empty of

humans.


Thing is:

Humans

have

immense

use.


Tell me where you’re from.

@danxoneil

(773) 960-6045

[email protected]

