Local entrepreneurs, software developers, and government leaders convened at the Universities at Shady Grove (USG) on Saturday, June 1 to join 11,000 participants in in 83 cities across the United States in one common goal: to improve people's daily live through technology. USG hosted one of 95 nationwide sites for the first annual National Day of Civic Hacking event, a collaborative effort to promote transparency, participation and collaboration between governments, companies and citizens.
The event focused on generating new solutions to challenges relevant to the country's neighborhoods, cities, and states using publicly-released data, code and technology. All projects were generated by "reverse pitches"- a format that allows solution providers to hear from public sector teams about their needs and select the idea that they would like to work on.
At the USG site, pitches centered on themes such as service requests, clean water, food waste, environmental stewardship, public transit and more:
MC311 Service Requests: Montgomery County residents care about their communities and advocate for solutions to ongoing issues. We would like for these community advocates and leaders to have access to an app that provides all service requests for their area, listed by most frequently requested service. This could help communities identify "problem areas" in communities. (Presented by leslie Hamm, MC311)
Food Recovery Application: Tons of excess perishable food goes to waste every year. If this food could be properly connected to those who need it, the burden on local food pantries could be reduced. The Montgomery County Food Recovery Working Group has been researching this issue and will present some of their findings that could include an application that links up supply (those with excess perishable food) to demand (shelters, food pantries, etc.) (Presented by linda McMillan, County Council Staff)
Safe Drinking Water Notifications: With the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) data available to the public, it is possible to increase our understanding of water quality trends. Most recently, EPA developed an application programming interface (API) for the Envirofacts database, which houses the Safe Drinking Water data. EPA wants to leverage innovative thinkers and developers that are able to create an application that is simple to use and understand, but creative enough to bring attention to this important public health issue. (Presented by Sam Bronson, EPA)
My Green Montgomery: The Department of Environmental Protection would like to build an app that takes locally based "greening" to the next level by providing Montgomery County residents with environmental resources based on their property's layout and location in the county. The app would provide environmental resources and suggestions based on exactly where and how people live. (Presented by Jessica Jones, DEP)
Transit Data Visualizations: Modern transit authorities generate a considerable volume of data: schedules, geospatial data about routes and stops, ridership statistics, historical performance, and more. For transit authorities, visualizations transform raw data into actionable intelligence that can help optimize transit networks to improve mobility. For transit riders, visualizations of transit networks can open new opportunities, answering questions like "where can transit take me in the next 30 minutes", which conventional static maps are unable to answer. (Presented by Kurt Raschke, renowned open data guru and Silver Spring resident)
Read more about the National Day of Civic Hacking at USG on BethesdaNow.com.
More information about the national event is available at www.hackforchange.org