Civic Hacking in Philadelphia
February 26th, 2011 by Mark HeaddYesterday in Philadelphia, Tropo had the pleasure of taking part in the Data Camp event sponsored by Code for America.
This event was focused on identifying useful data sources for Philadelphia and building civic applications to use that data – in one day! It was a great event, and several really cool projects were taken on by attendees.
I worked with a group to build out a CouchDB-based API for geographic data. Essentially, a Philly version of Max Ogden’s PDX API project, which I talk about more fully in this post.
In one day, our team was able to stand up Philly API and build a demo app that lets users find library locations near their homes or places of business using SMS or IM.
I wanted to demonstrate the power of Tropo for building powerful, multi-channel communication apps quickly and easily. A screen shot demonstrating how the app works can be seen in this post.
Just send an SMS or IM message to the app with an address, and get back the library locations closest to that address. This is a highly effective way to help people who might face some challenges in accessing technology get to a location in their neighborhood where they can have access to the Internet and online government services.
The code for the app is available on GitHub.
This civic hacking event was so much fun that we’re planning another event in Philadelphia in the near future. This upcoming event is going to be awesome, and details will be announced in the coming week.
Stay tuned!
Related posts:
- Philadelphia Startup Drinkup
- Hacking for the Greater Good
- Build the Next Generation of Mobile Apps in Philadelphia
- Unlocking Government Data with Tropo and Open Source Software
- Hacking History with Tropo
Tags: IM, opengov, philadelphia, PHP, SMS
Saturday, 26 February 2011
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