[Peace] 10 lessons from organizing the Chi Hack Night

[Ben Galewsky]

Since I began living part-time in Chicago a year-and-a-half ago I've been
an active participant in Chi HackNight (http://chihacknight.org/) a group
that meets weekly to discuss, learn about and develop civic technology. In
addition to technologists, our group regularly includes social workers,
transit planners, government officials, designers and other do-gooders.

Members of the group have created applications that:

   - Help people find government assistance that meets their needs:
   https://www.mrelief.com/
   - Allow minors to expunge criminal records: http://www.expunge.io/
   - Know if there was a combined sewer overflow into the river:
   http://istheresewageinthechicagoriver.com/

It is a very positive and inspiring meeting that has been the model of
other nights across the country. The organizer of the group has written a
blog article about what he thinks have made it so successful:
http://chihacknight.org/blog/2015/11/23/10-lessons-from-organizing-the-chi-hack-night.html

Perhaps it will inspire someone to create a similar evening around the new
open data portal the city of Urbana has launched:
https://data.urbanaillinois.us/

As we say at hack night "See you Tues"

Ben
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