code for america Archives

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

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

I have been meaning to write a post about the last Code for America Pittsburgh Brigade Meetup which was held at the Studio for Creative Inquiry in February. But is has been a busy month – I promise I will write more about my experience attending the StartingBloc fellowship in Los Angeles at the beginning of march. I have lots of ideas to share.

At the February meetup the group decided to call the Code for America Pittsburgh chapter (other cities use the term brigade – so you will often see Pittsburgh bridgade) OpenPGH.

The February OpenPGH MeetUp is one of the best events I’ve attended this year. It was great to see so many folks from many different areas of Pittsburgh come together to talk about how we can use data to make Pittsburgh a better place to live. Connor Sites-Bowen was one of the presenters and shared some fascinating data and maps about hunger in Western, PA. I feel like IheartPGH has been hacking together a story of Pittsburgh and it was exciting to brain storm with other people on how to use websites and apps to hack a better city. I left the February MeetUp and said to a friend – what sort of job will pay me to be a full time civic hacker. [If anyone has any ideas on who might hire me as a civic hacker – please let me know. :)]

What is Code for America?

From the Code for America about page:

Code for America is a 501(c)3 non-profit that envisions a government by the people, for the people, that works in the 21st century.

Our programs change how we participate in government by:

Connecting citizens and governments to design better services,
Encouraging low-risk settings for innovation; and,
Supporting a competitive civic tech marketplace.

Bringing Code for America to Pittsburgh

There are several ways that Pittsburgh has been working towards more open data and civic hacking in the past year.

Last summer, Pittsburgh along with many other cities participated in the national day of civic hacking.
Mayor Bill Peduto has hired Laura Meixell, a Code for America fellow to work in his office. You can read more about Laura and the projects she’s started working on here.
Pittsburgh has passed an open data policy. Check out this blog post from the Sunlight Foundation for details on how Pittsburgh’s open data policy is different from other cities.

OpenPGH March MeetUp

Wednesday, March 26th is the next meetup for OpenPGH. The OpenPGH group meets every month at a different location.

Facebook event for the OpenPGH March MeetUp

Agenda for March MeetUp:

Welcome and introductions 5 minutes
Host’s welcome / presentation (Kostas Pelechrinis, Pitt Information Sciences) 10-15 minutes
Quick updates (City legislation, state advocacy) 5 minutes
Allegheny County GIS (Matt Mercurio, GIS manager) 15-20 minutes
County election data – (Brady Hunsaker) 10-15 minutes
Visual survey toolkit demo using LocalData (GTECH) 10-15 minutes
Participant survey results 5 minutes
Project ideas / open discussion / “planning party” ideas