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Foodborne Chicago is a Top 25 Innovation in Government

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Foodborne Chicago Twitter characterToday our product, Foodborne Chicago, was recognized by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Here’s their writeup:

FoodBorne Chicago
City of Chicago, IL

On March 23, 2013, the Chicago Department of Public Health and the SmartChicago Collaborative launched the FoodBorne Chicago web application with the goal of improving food safety in Chicago. FoodBorne Chicago tracks tweets using a supervised machine-learning algorithm that identifies the keywords of “food poison” within the Chicago area. This tool allows residents to report a food poisoning incident through 311 after the program identifies tweets with possible cases of food poisoning. The team then tweets back a link to submit an online web form where residents can identify where they ate, the date and time they frequented the restaurant, their symptoms, and send it through Open311. The information is sent directly to the Department of Public Health and, if warranted, an inspection team visits the restaurant in question and then lets the resident know the status of the investigation via e-mail. The algorithm gets smarter at identifying related tweets as the team replies to residents that are suspected to have a potential case of food poisoning to report. If several complaints occur together, these clusters can be investigated to prevent further illnesses from developing.

 

And here’s a snip from a press release from Mayor Rahm Emanuel:

The Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) has been recognized as a Top 25 program in this year’s Innovations in American Government Awards competition by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University for its FoodBorne Chicago program.

Two years ago, CDPH and the SmartChicago Collaborative launched the FoodBorne Chicago web application with the goal of improving food safety in Chicago.

“The Department of Public Health and the Department of Innovation and Technology used social media and technology to create a tool that makes food consumption in Chicago safer,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “It is innovative thinking like this that enhances and leverages available resources to make the most impact.”

Summer Job Opportunity: Instructors for Youth-Led Tech Program in Five Chicago Communities

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6948480920_6f945ab8f5_kUPDATE: All positions are filled.

The Smart Chicago Collaborative is getting ready to launch “Youth-Led Tech: Summer 2015”, a youth coding school in five locations across the city of Chicago in summer 2015.

We are working to get this program funded through Get IN Chicago, whose mission is to identify, fund and rigorously evaluate evidence-based programs that lead to a sustainable reduction in violence for individuals and communities most affected by violence and poverty. Read more here on our project page and complete this form if you are interested in a position.

In the interest of time, and an acknowledgement that the summer learning season is right about nowish, we are looking to start building staff for this potential program.

We are recruiting seventeen people to take serve as instructors, coordinators, and other key roles. Each of these roles are an 8-week summer job opportunity. The start date is Monday, June 15, 2015, with two weeks of orientation and preparation. Instruction begins Monday, June 29, 2015 and ends on Friday, August 8, 2015, which is the last day of employment. We will perform background checks on all applicants.

The five communities are Austin, Englewood, Humboldt Park, North Lawndale, and Roseland. Here’s are the job descriptions:

Instructor

Instructors lead all instruction at a location. There is one Instructor for each of the five locations. All instruction materials will be provided, with detailed lesson plans to guide your day. A dominant mode of instruction is “kinesthetic learning”, a learning style in which learning takes place by the students carrying out physical activities, rather than listening to a lecture or watching demonstrations.

We practice “youth-led tech”, which means that we teach technology in the context of the needs & priorities of young people. We will train you on the fundamentals of youth-led tech, but experience in working with youth in the context of needs & priorities is a plus.

The main technology we’ll teach is WordPress, a free open-source content management system. Familiarity with WordPress is a plus, and you can become familiar with WordPress very quickly. We will also offer “whet your appetite”- style training in gaming and app development.

Each instructor will be given a lesson plan for each day breaking down activities and explicitly laying out training content. Most of the actual training content will be taken from existing tutorial and instruction that is already available on the Internet in the form of teaching content and development environments. Instructors will also be responsible for documenting the program material so that it can be accessed, downloaded, and reproduced anywhere. Instructors will be responsible for filing daily reports about on-site activity.

In choosing instructors, we value strong classroom management, interest in and aptitude with technology, and the ability to listen to youth voice and make sure it gets heard and represented the the tech we make over the summer. Pay is $20 per hour.

Assistant Instructor

Assistant instructors will help Instructors to teach the material and also have other key responsibilities. These include activities like preparing the location each day (set up chairs, tables, computers), check the wi-fi, temperature, and other ambient details, order and manage lunch and snack, and assist in classroom management throughout the day.

We are seeking 10 Assistant instructors— three instructors for each location. Pay is $15 per hour.

Please apply today and share this opportunity as far and wide as possible. Questions? Contact us.

“Organize!”— Tech Training for New Civic Tech Leaders on National Day of Civic Hacking

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logoOne of our three main areas of focus at Smart Chicago is digital skills. In the past three years, we’ve learned a lot of things from our experience running events, building projects, conducting user testing, and writing extensively about civic innovation.

As part of our work around National Day of Civic Hacking, this year we’re going to be focusing our efforts around teaching these digital skills both locally and nationally. As usual, this effort will be led by Christopher Whitaker.

Christopher has written a number of tutorials and guides to help volunteer civic technology groups for the national Hack for Change website.

Here in Chicago, he will run a training camp at Blue1647 for new civic technology leaders centered around the theme of community organizing. (Register here!)  On June 6th,  we’ll be bringing in experts around the city to help train new civic tech leaders on the tools and techniques used to leverage the power of technology to help our neighborhoods. The event is specially set up for people new to civic technology regardless of their technology proficiency. This is a learning event— so bring your questions!

This event will be just one of many National Day of Civic Hacking events happening in Chicago including hackathons happening at the Adler Planetarium, Center for Neighborhood Technologies, the Chicago Public Library’s Maker Lab, and OpenGov Hack Night. We’ll be blogging about these events and more as we get closer to June 6th.

You can register for our event here.

Results of Our PACER Postcard Campaign

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Today our colleague Elizabeth Bartels collected 31 postcards from law students, lawyers, and interested residents sharing their thoughts about making the PACER federal court document system more accessible and open to all.

One reason we’re so happy with these results is that everyone who completed a postcard is an actual registered user of PACER. It’s one thing to be an open information advocate, writing to a distant federal official about the concept of openness. It’s another thing altogether to be an actual user of the software, someone building their career, someone who will be working directly with Judge Ruben Castillo on important matters of justice.

When we approached this campaign, in which we joined with people in San Francisco and New York, we did so with a focus on building real relationships with people here in Chicago who are passionate about this issue of open law. We hired Oprima-1 to research contact information for law school interest groups.

Some examples: the Muslim Law Students Association of the University Chicago Law School, the Justinian Society of John Marshall Law School, the Student Funded Public Interest Fellowships Program of Northwestern University, the American Civil Liberties Union of Loyola University Chicago, the Journal of Intellectual Property at Chicago-Kent College of Law, and the DePaul Entertainment and Sports Law Society.

The point: there are a lot of people (in 187 student groups and 449 law firms) who care about this topic. Moving beyond our own circles, our own tight spheres of civic tech and open data, our own Slack channels and our own favored blogs, is essential. As we’ve re-learned, in great detail, in our Experimental Modes project, if we want to be of impact, we have to meet people where they are.

That’s hard work. We’re happy we do it, because it’s all that matters. Here’s pictures from our day.

Our first cards

Our first cards

On the agenda at John Marshall Law School

On the agenda at John Marshall Law School

Postcard from Daniel X. O'Neil

Postcard from Daniel X. O’Neil

Elizabeth Bartels working with students who are completing postcards at John Marshall Law School

Elizabeth Bartels working with students who are completing postcards at John Marshall Law School

Elizabeth Bartels working with students who are completing postcards at John Marshall Law School

Elizabeth Bartels working with students who are completing postcards at John Marshall Law School

Some postcards!

Some postcards!

Swartz Law Day 2015

Swartz Law Day 2015

Our final results

Our final results

We gave away copies of In Re: PACER to all

We gave away copies of In Re: PACER to all

Many postcards to choose from.

Many postcards to choose from.

Custom stamps (and buttons!)

Custom stamps (and buttons!)

Here’s a look at every completed postcard— lots of great comments:

Finally, a very special shout-out to my friend, sister-in-law, and John Marshall Law School valedictorian Elizabeth Bartels for leading the way on this project.
Elizabeth Bartels

Elizabeth Bartels

Join the Mass Pacer Postcard Campaign

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On this Friday, May 1, 2015— Law Day— the Smart Chicago Collaborative is joining with colleagues across the country to participate in “An Appeal For Postcards”.

We’re asking law students, lawyers, and anyone who cares about the law to write a brief note about why they think that access to PACER is important. Come to John Marshall Law School, 315 S. Plymouth Court to complete a postcard and get your voice heard.

Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) is an electronic public access service that allows people to obtain case and docket information online from federal appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts, and the PACER Case Locator.

There are a multitude of issues with PACER, many of which are detailed here at Yo.YourHonor.Org. PACER is a complex, cost-filled, and technically primitive system that unnecessarily impedes the free flow of information about our courts and our law. “This is about access to justice, about innovation in our legal system, this is about basic principles of due process and equal protection in our democratic system.”

Here’s our plan for Chicago:

This program is a part of our Justice program here at Smart Chicago. The beginning of May has had a long and proud history in Chicago, serving as a day of action and reflection about the role of the masses in society. We’re proud to be a part of this national effort. Please join us!

Law School, Night

Law School, Night

Speakers announced for this weekend’s Civic Design Camp at Smart Chicago

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rvprofileSmart Chicago and Code for America are pleased to announce our first two speakers for Civic Design Camp. Civic Design Camp is an annual event designed to bring together government employees, nonprofit partners and professional designers.  This year’s event is being held in Chicago on April 25th at the offices of kCura.

Our first speaker will be Raphy Villas from 18F’s Chicago office.

Raphy Villas began his public service as a Presidential Innovation Fellow working on MyUSA, a platform for accessing government services. He is now a product manager and co-founding member of 18F. Raphy lives in Chicago with his wife and two kids.

Villas will speak about the work of 18F with examples of how their using design thinking to transform government.

Our second speaker is Sonja Marziano, Project Coordinator at Smart Chicago Collaborative.

CCT Headshots-380-editedIn this position, Sonja manages projects including the Civic User Testing Group (CUTGroup), the Chicago Early Learning Portal, Expunge.io “Plus,” and the Chicago School of Data. Before Smart Chicago, she worked in customer service and community programs at the Chicago Children’s Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Sonja has a Bachelor’s Degree in International Studies from Allegheny College.

Sonja will speak about the methods and processes of the CUTGroup, and how CUTGroup is a new model for UX testing, digital skills development, and community engagement in civic tech.

You can register for Civic Design Camp right here on our SplashThat Page!

Civic Tech Hero: Scott Robbin

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Scott RobbinSince October 2013, civic tech pioneer, Chicago web developer, and good friend Scott Robbin has been working with Smart Chicago as our lead developer. If you have worked at all with us since then, you have benefitted from his work. Let’s take a look:

This is a ton of work. But at Smart Chicago, we’re not all about the technology. Scott has been a patient mentor for developers, teaching them how to use our resources, advising them on how to build their sites. He’s helped us work with non-technical consultants to keep them on the path to being bona-fide Web project managers. And he’s generally shared his vast knowledge in a patented, gentle, learned way. Scott Robbin is a treasure.

On a personal note, I’ve known Scott for many years, and we’ve worked on a volunteer basis on all sorts of projects. Most recently, we worked together to scrape, display, and make available for download every Comment on FCC Filing 14-28, Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet. We work. All we care about is work.

All hail Scott Robbin.

Primer for Experimental Modes Meeting

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Here at Smart Chicago, we’ve always had three areas of focus:

  • Access to technology and the internet
  • Digital skills for all
  • Meaningful products from data

This focus keeps us on the right path— one that requires us to lay practical groundwork before delivering cool apps— to put people first. We’ve done this since day one.

On a personal note, I’ve been a worker in community technology for a long time. I love it. In the early 2000s, I started a side business to help people get an internet life. I learned that nearly no one goes beyond default configurations, or even knows they can.

Internet Life Services

In 2004, I conducted bilingual computer training at my church to teach people how to post to our blog. I learned that everyone has a thirst to express themselves.

Bilingual computer training

In 2006, I taught a 6-week course in websites for small businesses. I learned that people love certificates.

Websites for small businesses

I’ve also been a part of a parallel path, which started taking off right about this time: the open data and civic tech movements. As a co-founder of EveryBlock, one of the earliest examples of a site that sought to use civic data in communities, I helped shape and build things like the 8 Principles of Open Government Data and  Open Gov Chicago, a gathering of technologists in the field started in 2009.

EveryBlock Launch Screenshot

We like to think these worlds— those of community technology, grounded in the needs of the people, and civic technology, driven by the most technical people, are aligned. When we’re at our best, they are. Very often, however, they are worlds apart.

This is why Smart Chicago exists. Our mission, grounded in our areas of focus, situated directly in the community (as we work here at the region’s community foundation), based in community technology research (lead by the MacArthur Foundation), and fully engaged with the governments and institutions that serve the people (including the City of Chicago, one of our founders)—this is us. This is why we’re here today.

We designed this project to fit under a larger area of work that Smart Chicago: the Knight Community Information Challenge grant awarded under their Engaged Communities strategy to the Chicago Community Trust “as it builds on its successful Smart Chicago Project, which is taking open government resources directly into neighborhoods through a variety of civic-minded apps”.

Materials for today:

There is no other organization in the country that is more qualified to lead this thinking. I am proud of where we are, and steeled for the work ahead.