Hacking a Better Pittsburgh – The National Day of Civic Hacking is Saturday

I am WAY late writing a blog post about the National Day of Civic Hacking, which is tomorrow, Saturday, May 31.  But I want to make sure you know about all of the great stuff that is happening in Pittsburgh around civic hacking.

Pittsburgh Event for the National Day of Civic Hacking

OpenPittsburgh Open House

• Saturday, May 31, 2014
• 10am-3pm (lunch will be provided)
• Homewood Branch of the Carnegie Library, 7101 Hamilton Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15208
• Register Here
• Facebook Event
• #hackforchange

Agenda for the Pittsburgh National Day of Civic Hacking Event:

• 10 am: Coffee, Donuts and Introductions
• 10:20 am Welcome and agenda overview (Bob Gradeck, Open Pittsburgh, UCSUR)
• 10:30 am Why is the Library involved? (Toby Greenwalt, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh)
• 10:45 am Neighborhood welcome, (Jerome Jackson, Operation Better Block)
• 11: 00 am Project work – U.S. Open Data Census, Property Survey Training / data collection, and more!
• (Lunches available 11:45am – 12:45 pm)
• 1:30 Mayor Bill Peduto – Pittsburgh Data Forum Q&A
• 2:30-3 (or when the Mayor is finished) Wrap-up

Loving Pittsburgh & Civic Hacking

What is civic hacking and why I think it is the future of Pittsburgh.  Civic hacking is a bunch of citiuzens who want to make their communities better by bringing technology and data together.  In some ways this blog was started as a way to hack the image of Pittsburgh.

I attended the National Day of Civic Hacking here in Pittsburgh last summer (you can read a recap of the 2013 Pittsburgh National Day of Civic Hacking event here) and I’ve been attending the now monthly meetups for the OpenPGH group.  The civic hackers in Pittsburgh are coming up with some incredible ideas and solutions for things happening in the city of Pittsburgh (and the country).

So much has happened in the past year and there has been a ton of momentum around open data in Pittsburgh.  A few highlights include:

• Monthly OpenPgh MeetUps (Local Chapter for the Code for America Brigade)
• Mayor Peduto – hires Laura Meixel as the city’s first data and analytics manager.  You can follow here @LauraTypes
• March 2014 – Pittsburgh city council passes Open Data Legislation
• @PGH311 joins twitter – citizens can now tweet with the city’s 311 Response Center

Links Civic Hacking and Open Data in Pittsburgh

• Follow @OpenPGH and #OpenPGH for latest info
• pgh.io – future website for OpenPGH
• OpenPGH on GitHub
• National Day of Civic Hacking website
• Pittsburgh Code for America Google Group

Read more about the National Day of Civic Hacking…

• National Day of Civic Hacking enlists innovators to build community solutions (knightfoundation.org)
• Expert to evangelize in Pittsburgh for open data (post-gazette.com)
• Civic Hackers Across the Country Will Band Together in June for National Day of Civic Hacking (programmableweb.com)

About Lindsay

Lindsay has been writing about Pittsburgh for as long as she has been blogging - but fortunately there are lots of great things about Pittsburgh to share. She likes pretzels from the Pretzel Shop on Carson St., used book stores, her rollerblades and she hopes to learn to skateboard someday soon. Lindsay is also working on BlogLocal which is building a map of blogs with local content.

• View all posts by Lindsay →
• Blog
• Twitter
• Google+