Date:Â March 13, 2018
Venue: TWG
Presenters:Â Lucas Declavasio, Monica Low & Andrew Patterson of Wysp Creative
Presenting:Â Principals of Wysp Creative discuss winning the NXT City Prize two years in a row and explore how the 2017 winner of the Civic Tech category can improve the City of Toronto, as long as the right people are working on it.
Wysp Creative works with many local and international businesses – large and small – in a variety of industries, offering branding, design, print, and content creation services. We’ve also developed and spearheaded award-winning public space initiatives and proposals to improve the relationship Torontonians have with their city.
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie6NZuiLSrM
Announcements:
| Register for Ontario’s OpenON Event!
Join Ontario for its OpenON event on March 26, 2018 at the Globe and Mail Centre in downtown Toronto! During this full-day event, you’ll have an opportunity to connect with thought leaders in government, city design and open access movements. You’ll also help shape Ontario’s Open Government Action Plan by joining in conversations about how opening information, data and decision-making, within a renewed focus on inclusion, accessibility and public engagement, is reshaping Ontario’s civil landscape. You can also visit CivicTechTO’s booth in our showcase, along with other Open Government partners! Click here to register, and feel free to share this with your contacts that you think will be interested in participating: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/openon-event-tickets-10048159315 |
| Great Food award
We want to get a picture of the civic tech team with the great food award we’re giving to rangle! |
| Post-Hacknight Hangouts
After most every hacknight, we head out to a nearby accessible venue for casual hangouts and optional drinks. Java House! On Queen. We’ll be meeting in the lobby downstairs. If there are any chances of plans, we’ll post to #general. |
| Civic Tech Organizing Volunteers
We need volunteers to help Civic Tech run! We really need volunteers THIS MONTH! Specifically:
Come talk to Chris or any of the organizers |
Pitches:
Takes a Village (Marica)Description of project: < Collecting stories about good deeds (unrewarded) > What you’re doing today: < scoping, gathering ideas > What you need: People with stories, deed-doers and receivers, storytellers, media producers, influencers AUDIENCE MEMBERS |
Budgetpedia (Arthur)Description of project: Making Toronto’s budget more accessible to the people of Toronto. See budgetpecia.ca What you’re doing today: Talking about our publications sub-site TO COME: pubs.budgetpedia.ca. There is currently some material at tabs.bugdetpedia.ca What you need: Researchers, writers, communications people, branding people |
Find Me Canada ProjectDescription of project: No one wants to go missing for being Missing. There are thousands of missing people in Ontario alone hundreds of them are in the GTA are. Find Me Canada is a  project that aims to help Police departments in Canada (starting TPS) finding Missing people using Artificial Intelligence especially connecting missing people to a possible criminal act. Hopefully expand more features in future. What you’re doing today: I work in the I.T. field in the Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security What you need: Volunteers to work with in future when the project idea matures better. |
CivicTech101 (Patcon)Description: Introduce you to Civic Tech Toronto and learn about one another. Please go here if it’s your first time! Location: Pulling chairs around the main screen. |
BikeSpace (David)Description of project: A webapp which will allow cyclists to drop a pin on a map of Toronto indicating insufficiencies in bike parking infrastructure. We believe that the most valuable data to improve Toronto’s bike parking will be crowdsourced. What we’re doing today: We’re reviewing our user interface, developing our database to support data analytics and prototyping dashboard designs! What we need: Developers, Designers, Researchers, Data Analysts, Communicators MVP: https://app.bikespace.ca/ |
Women and Color (Mohammed)Description of project: Online community of talented women and people of colour available for speaking opportunities at tech-related events. What we’re doing today: User testing, design review, front-end issues, launch planning What we need:
Visit: womenandcolor.com |
TheCarded.ca (Sharky)Description of project: We are Human Centered Design (HCD) platform that simplifies for organizations and community professionals to track their efforts and work in conjunction with policing policies. What we’re doing today: Saying Goodbye, You been Awesome. |
HomeTO (CG Chen)Description of project: We empower at risk, low income, and homeless individuals through inclusive digital tools. What you’re doing today: Working on our first project, a digital product. What you need: Front-end web developers, anyone with connections to shelters, or anybody interested in helping out! |
Chalmers Cards (Zach)Description of project: Chalmers Cards are laser-cut wooden handouts that explain how to access public resources for folks in tight financial situations. Stuff like toll free numbers for shelter referral, financial aid registration, and free legal aid. The cards are laser cut onto wood so the information doesn’t get crumpled. Plus people think they’re cool so the cards don’t get lost! What we’re doing today: Thinking about changing the card! What we need:
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Law & Design Team (Avery)Description of project: Improving access, usability of legal information. There is an access to justice crisis! What we’re doing today: Hacking What we need: User researchers, graphic designers, website builders, anyone with interest in legal issues |
TTC Subway dashboard project (Raphael)Description of project: Build the political will to improve transportation. Transit agencies are bad at communicating successes and failures: leaving users with most salient experience in their memory: their worst one By communicating transit performance in a way that users understand, they might better appreciate how good transit is while understanding why it’s bad when it’s bad. What we’re doing today: Scraping a bunch of subway data from the TTC, still working on processing data What we need: Data geeks, A logo https://github.com/CivicTechTO/ttc_subway_times #transportation |
DemocracyKit Tech Team (Josh)Description of project: We are an open online platform to share advice, educational resources and technology with campaign teams/candidates running for municipal office. What we’re doing today:
What we need: Web developers, designers & civic technologists interested in opening the municipal election process. Also looking for people that want to join and work towards leadership role on the tech team. Keep in touch:
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Public Education App Idea(s)Description of project: Looking to develop an educational app idea for kids. What I’m doing today: -Seeking feedback on an idea that I have developed with some UI/UX designers -looking to create an idea with anyone in general about educating students -I can offer an educational perspective if needed (I work at a school teaching grade 6 students!) What I need: Looking for coders, particularly anyone who can give feedback from a back end perspective Info to learn more: @alternateacher allister.geonanga@gmail.com, Grade 6 Educator with a public school board I have a slide deck of an MVP to show if you’re interested! |
Shelter Map / Placement (Andrew)Description of project: We’ve had a particularly bad winter, and ensuring everyone has safe overnight shelter is a challenge. We want to build a system to help frontline workers place people looking for temporary or emergency shelter. What we’re doing today: Looking for people who are knowledgeable about the shelter system so we can do preliminary research What we need:
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Designing Public Engagement Tools for Government(Ontario’s Open Government Office) Description of project: The Open Government Office has been working with Civic Tech to design tools for Ontario Public Service (OPS) staff to help them better engage with the public in ways that are meaningful and consistent. What you’re doing today: We have been collecting internal and external experiences, formed a problem statement, and now we will be focusing in on case studies that can help both the staff and members of the public learning more about the decision-making processes that influence public engagement. What you need: Design-thinkers, researchers/academics, and just anyone interested in better engagement between the government and citizens |
3rd-Party Data Sharing (Alex & Denis)Description of project: Help the City of Toronto, Government of Ontario and Government of Canada identifying the key stakeholders, topics, values and guidelines around 3rd-party data Sharing agreements. Â
What you’re doing today:
What you need:
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Attendance: 57