This website is an archive– it contains all Smart Chicago posts and program descriptions from its inception to May 2016.

Smart Chicago is a civic organization devoted to improving lives in Chicago through technology. We are guided by our principles and we stay focused on access, skills, and data. We rely on our unique model to deliver to do our work, which we document with diligence.

Our Principles

Pretty much every organization has a set of principles or a mission statement or some other text that they craft and put on their website. We actually live by ours. We repeat them at the start of every meeting, and they are a part of every decision we make. Our principles are: Technology, Open, Everyone, Chicago.

Our Focus

Smart Chicago has three primary areas of focus under which we organize all of our work: Access to the Internet & technology, Skills to use technology once you’ve got access, and Data, which we construe as something meaningful to look at once you have access and skills.

Our Model

The Smart Chicago model is based on a lean organization focused on have a broad regional impact, centered among philanthropy and government.

Our Founders

Smart Chicago was founded and is guided by three organizations: the City of Chicago, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Chicago Community Trust.

Our History

Smart Chicago was born in the conversations of the early to mid-2000s around closing the digital divide. As the Internet became an essential tool for citizenship, and a central place for people to gather, it became clear that uneven access to the Internet was a problem to be solved.