Anyone know some awesome projects in the NYC area using technology to build civic engagement that I may have missed?
Project Breaker, a social-entrepreneurship design challenge based out of NYC, is an educational project for 18-24 year old design-minded youth.
Right now we're tackling the challenge of using technology to engage communities in civic action. We're using the HCD methods to conduct our research, but I'd love help finding companies that are doing similar things in the city!
So far we've explored OpenPlans (Open311), Change By Us, Purpose and a few others.
Any leads are much appreciated!
Answers: 9
Liz, there is probably a lot. Not sure its limited to NYC however. Have a look at some of the outcomes from the Aspen Ideas Festival this year, there was a huge amount on tech and civic participation etc.
http://www.aspenideas.org/topic/technology?page=2
hope this helps
Tim
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I have heard about someone trying to implement a mobile-phone-based community survey platform in Brooklyn. Not sure if the project is still active. If you are interested, I could poke around and find out for you.
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that would be great Kevin!
this is the one I was looking for, not sure if its awesome or worrying but anyway...
http://www.bluestatedigital.com/about- Likes 0
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A former intern at EcoLogic, Barrie Charney Golden, is one of the founders of Kinvolved. It sounds fantastic, and she is an awesome person well worth contacting.
http://www.kinvolved.com/the-team/By engaging parents and families through mobile technology, Kinvolved aims to improve academic performance by increasing the classroom attendance rates of disadvantaged students. Based at NYU, the team has created a "mobile based app [that] allows for instant communication between teachers and parents and families. When teachers record attendance, a text message is automatically and immediately sent to parents about their child's classroom presence." See also
www.facebook.com/Kinvolvedand Twitter: @Kinvolved
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This group isn't tech focused, per se, but they are a pretty amazing educational organization you might want to contact or at least know about - http://www.globallanguageproject.org. Also, Citizen Schools is now in New York. I used to work for them in Boston.
http://www.citizenschools.org/apprenticeships/topic/science-technology/and
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Hi Liz - I recently attended part of a talk by Noreen Whysel at the IXDA NYC event on The IA of Emergency Response on July 24th, which I think relates to your project and she might be a good person to get in contact with. (Here's the link to the past event:
http://ixda-nyc-june24.eventbrite.com/)
Here's her bio: She is a freelance IA consultant, research analyst and mapmaker. Many of you know her as the Operations Manager of the IA Institute. For nearly twenty years, she has also been an advocate for open data access and sharing through GISMO, a NYC-based geographic information systems community. Her view of the evolution of emergency response technology comes both as an historian and a participant, beginning with her role recruiting volunteer geographers for the 9/11 response and culminating in a retrospective conference NYC GeoSymposium 2001-2011-2021, which was produced with the NYC Office of Emergency Management in November 2011.
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that's fascinating, I wasn't familiar with her work -- thanks for the lead!
Not sure if I'm too late here, but Digital Democracy is a New York-based NGO that uses technology to help strengthen the voice of marginalized communities around the world. Happy to connect you if it would be relevant/helpful!
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This website and mobile app allows users to report and track neighborhood issues (potholes, etc.). It started here in New Haven, CT and has expanded to a bunch of U.S. cities.
This is a recent and simple example of how a website (not much more than a hashtag really) can drive civic engagement.
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