Civic Data and Open Government: How Local Funders Can Get Involved

Civic Data and Open
Government: How
Local Funders Can
Get Involved
Community Engagement: Digital
Strategies for Local Funders
Knight Digital Media Center
September 11, 2014
1
@danxoneil @smartchicago

Hello
• Me
• Early civic tech experiments
• EveryBlock
• Open data movement
• You?
September 11, 2014 2

Our Principles
Technology
Open
Everyone
Chicago

We’re all about technology
• Everything we do relates to technology
• We are of and about the Internet
• We believe in the transformative power of
the Internet to change lives and build the
economy for all

We are open
• Open source code
• More importantly: open processes, open
minds, open methods
• Allowing others “in”, wherever that may be

Target market: everyone
• We believe in the power of the network
• The network needs everyone in it in order
for it to be powerful
• We work on solutions that cover the entire
city

Chicago is our middle name
• All of our work is done there
• Unique and thriving ecosystem
• But we serve as a model for others

The Strategy

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.

Access
If you’re not connected
to the Internet, it is
difficult for technology to
be of much use to you.

Skills
If 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

The Funding

Sources of Capital
• MacArthur: primary; essential
• CCT: critical back-office support as well as grants
• Sprague: on-target programs centered on health
• Knight: an essential, growing partner focused on
civic engagement
• Cook County: to do open data work

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

Chicago Early Learning
• Easily find early learning programs near your
home or work
• Compare programs side-by-side to select the
highest quality option for your child
• Kick off the enrollment process

Chicago Works For You
• Citywide dashboard with ward-by-ward
views of service delivery in Chicago
• Slice, dice, view, review
• Sort by whatever interests you
• Automatic, running totals

Chicago Health Atlas
• View citywide information about health
trends and take action near you to improve
your own health
• Our health programs are run by Kyla
Williams
• Also: Smart Health Centers

Chicago School of Data
• There is a Chicago School of
Data emerging
• One that places people at the
center
• One in the service of people

Chicago School of Data
• Chicago School of Data Days
• Friday and Saturday, September
19 and 20
• Let’s do this

Moar
• There’s always more
• @danxoneil
• (773) 960-6045
• doneil@cct.org

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