Author Archives: Kevin Curry

About Kevin Curry

Kevin Curry is a co-founder and director of CityCamp and is Chief Scientist and co-founder of Bridgeborn, inc..

CityCamp Turns 3

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Alpha CityCamper Andre Natta (@acnatta) reminded me on Twitter that it’s been 3 years since the inaugural CityCamp:
http://barcamp.org/w/page/25504543/CityCamp-Original

In that time there have been 30 CityCamps independently organized BY YOU in
25 cities across 8 countries and 5 continents:
http://citycamp.govfresh.com/cities

Always a fun time to scroll back through the Introductions thread…
http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/citycamp/messages/topic/5tikRb8TaKCI4ba31BLrH3

…and look way back on the CityCamp Tumblr:
http://citycamp.tumblr.com/page/7

Code Across America: A Week of Civic Innovation

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Originally posted on codeforamerica.org

From February 24 through March 4, passionate citizens around the country will come together to “Code Across America” – to make their cities even better. In over a dozen cities, there will be hackathons to build civic apps, “brigades” to deploy existing apps, unconferences to plan for the year ahead, and meetups to strengthen the community. Five of these cities are CityCamp cities. Check out details of what’s going on and where it’s happening below.

Details

When: Simultaneous event, February 25; Ongoing, February 24 – March 4
What: Activities ranging from hackathons and app deployments to unconference sessions
Who: Urbanists, Civic Hackers, City Reps, Developers, Designers, etc — anyone with the passion to make their city better
How: Bring together the city government with a supporting community group, organization, or business, and reach out to a broad range of participants with diverse backgrounds and skills

FAQ

What’s a “Brigade” event? This year, Code for America is launching the CfA Brigade to bring together groups of civic hackers in cities across the country, focused on customizing and deploying civic apps locally. These Brigade events will be the kick off: each city will identify an app to focus on, customizing it for their needs, standing it up, and getting it in the hands of users by the end of the day.

How do I participate? Find your city on the map above or the list to the right and join the event there. If you don’t see your city, then host your own event using our guide, and if you can’t make it happen on February 25, don’t worry, Code Across America events are happening all week long, February 24 – March 4. Contact us if you need some help or want more information.

CityCamp Council & Code Across America

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CityCamp Council

This coming Tuesday we’re having a kickoff meeting of organizers for the world CityCamp Council planned for this year. I’m stoked that we’ll have 12 participants that include representatives from all 4 countries where there have been CityCamps: US, UK, Russia, and Canada. Three members of the org team are from government.

Code Across America

From 24 February through 4 March CityCampers, Open Gov-ers, Code for America fellows, and other civic-minded hackers will participate in a national week of civic innovation. We’ll deploy apps, liberate data, and share the skills we need to build a civic web.

Look for an event near you:

View Code Across America in a larger map

CityCampHNL Hackathon – Jan. 20-21, 2012, McCoy Pavilion

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Join us for the CityCampHNL Hackathon on Jan 20-21, 2012 at the McCoy Pavilion at Ala Moana Beach Park. Be a part of Honolulu’s Open Data Initiative, register here.

CityCampHNL Hackathon Rules

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We’ve been asked the question: What are the rules for the hackathon and what will the judging be based on? Granted as we try to objectify a process that is somewhat subjective we may not please everyone. These rules are meant to be inclusive and provide the means for broad participation:

  • Apps need to have some connection to Hawaii.
  • Apps can be based on open source software from other cities but need to be customized for Hawaii.
  • Teams can be from anywhere but need to present at CityCampHNL Hackathon to qualify for prizes.
  • Teams can be individuals, company employees, City employees or a combination thereof.
  • Teams can form now (i.e. immediately), before the hackathon event.
  • Work on applications and ideas can start now but will conclude at 3:00pm on Jan. 21, 2012.
  • There is no restriction on team size, but teams need to be clear who is on their team.
  • If code used is open source it should be made available to the open source community.
  • If code is 100% proprietary to the team it can remain proprietary.
  • Mobile apps, web apps, APIs and idea strategies (e.g. work on API ordnance) will be judged equally.
  • Mashups with external webservices (like Flickr, Google Maps, etc) are allowed.
  • Teams will have 10 minutes to present their apps.
  • Judging will be based working prototype, user interface, depth of concept, impact of application.

For those concerned about prize money. The prize money is from CityCampHNL sponsors. The City & County of Honolulu is not involved with any financial transaction between CityCampHNL and the respective teams nor has any financial responsibility with any potential awardees.

As always we welcome your comments and suggestions. Most of all we encourage your ongoing participation. Mahalo!

Request for Comments

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Open Data Labels

source: Wikipedia

CityCampSF organizer Adriel Hampton is working legislation to come up with a legal definition of open data in California. The definition will be used as a test for a requirement for the government to publish according to the definition. Note Adriel’s comments in the discussion. He specifically has been asked to address phrase like “commonly used Web search applications and commonly used software.” Also, there is a challenge to the no-cost claim. Please lend your expertise by commenting here:

http://www.wiredtoshare.com/briefing_doc_structured_open_data_sf_ca

CityCampSF Hackathon Set for December 10-11

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CityCampSF, Gov 2.0 Radio, OpenSF, Third Thursdays SF and Granicus are hosting 24 hours of civic innovation.

Challenges include:

Best demonstration app for assessing the impacts of clear-cutting in the Sierra Nevadas;

Best app combining City data sources for transparency in SF campaign donations, lobbying and contracting;

Best use of Granicus APIs;

Submit a challenge and ask questions on the CityCampSF Hackathon Projects page.

The event will also launch an advocacy campaign for structured open data definitions in San Francisco municipal and California state law. Endorse that effort here.

Contribute funds to cover the cost of the event here, at Nation Builder.

WHEN
December 10, 2011 at 12:00 PM – December 11, 2011 at 12:00 PM
WHERE
Granicus
600 Harrison St
Suite 120
San Francisco, CA 94107
Google map and directions
CONTACT
Adriel Hampton · adriel@adrielhampton.com · 415-237-4299

4 Cities, 4 Camps

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Take a look at the calendar and you will see that four CityCamps will be hosted in four cities over the next six weeks:

October 14: Manchester, UK

Manchester

October 28: Colorado (2nd CityCamp)

Colorado

November 12: Minnesota

Minnesota

December 3: Honolulu

Honolulu

And there was another (the 3rd) Russian CityCamp in Ulyanovsk in September:
Ulyanovsk

Not bad for a “leaderless movement.”