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Civic Tech Toronto Hacknight: September 15

Ninth hacknight – 20 participants!

Presenter: Andrew Do (@ADoAboutThings).

Breakout groups:

  • Toronto Budget – Henrik
  • Timebank software – Dorothy
  • None of the above (project ideation) – Gabe

Thanks to ThoughtWorks for dinner!

57 thoughts on “Civic Tech Toronto Hacknight: September 15”

  1. Workgroup: Toronto Budget Accessibility Project
    Participants: Henrik Bechmann, Asher Zafar, Andrew Do, William Lachance, Andre Cote

    After a quick review of the material assembled so far on the project wiki (https://github.com/HenrikBechmann/CivicTechTO-TorontoBudget), particularly focussed on the pages nudging us toward a product selection (strategic planning dimensions), we launched into the creation of a matrix to list potential projects. The matrix has prioritized user groups on the vertical axis (civil society organizations, neighbourhood groups, frontline city workers, and individual citizens), and project strategic dimensions on the horizontal access (function/content, objective, impact, and feasibility). This worked very well, and generated a lot of ideas that should get us much closer to a decision point. This matrix is being copied into a spreadsheet database, and will form the basis for further analysis (better granularity), and eventually a scoring exercise that could lead to a project decision.

    In addition a number of general feature options were identified: city issue crowdsourcing, mashups (instagram, facebook, twitter, etc) including issue finders, high end data visualization, budget process engagement timeline, wiki, general budget info vs budget decision points (eg. Gardiner East demolition, Scarborough Subway)

    Asher runs a mean whiteboard! Thanks to William for providing same!

  2. Notes from the “None of the above” group

    It’s the first time this group met — and we don’t plan to make it a regular thing. The idea was to bring together the people who are interested in working on a project, but haven’t found the idea that grabs them, or which can take advantage of their skills.

    Participants: Gabe, Marc, Scott, Jeremy, Andre, Irene

    We talked about some inspiring examples, and some needs and challenges. We landed on this list (and next steps):
    – openparliament for Ontario (Gabe will connect Scott with Howard and Amanda, who are working on it)
    – exploring official plan data (Gabe will connect Jeremy with Bianca, who’s done some work in that area)
    – promoting Tabs on Toronto — tabsontoronto.ca (Gabe will connect with Bill)
    – making a “Tabs” for development applications (?)
    – Section 37 transparency app (try to find the data; Andre has a contact)
    – something secret that Andre and Irene will tell us about in a couple of weeks
    – a Toronto equivalent of istheresewageinthechicagoriver.com (once the data is available, which the province has mandated!)

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