notes/.config/newsboat/rss/democracylab.rss

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/"><channel><title><![CDATA[The DemocracyLab Blog]]></title><description><![CDATA[We empower people who use technology to advance the public good.]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/</link><image><url>https://blog.democracylab.org/favicon.png</url><title>The DemocracyLab Blog</title><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/</link></image><generator>Ghost 3.42</generator><lastBuildDate>Thu, 26 Jan 2023 23:34:49 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://blog.democracylab.org/rss/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><ttl>60</ttl><item><title><![CDATA[Making Citizen’s Issues Accessible]]></title><description><![CDATA[The Council Data Project in Missoula, Montana, is a new and innovative way to change how citizens find out about what is happening in their communities allowing for more citizen engagement.]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/making-citizens-issues-accessible-2/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">62e2e752f26ec2001ebe03db</guid><category><![CDATA[Community Engagement]]></category><category><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></category><category><![CDATA[Community]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 09 Aug 2022 22:36:33 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2022/08/DemocracyLab-Open-Montana.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2022/08/DemocracyLab-Open-Montana.jpg" alt="Making Citizen’s Issues Accessible"><p>Many citizens are not in the know of the happenings within their own community. This could be a lack of resources, public transport, or even time. The Council Data Project in Missoula, Montana, is a new and innovative way to change this and allows for more citizen engagement tools.</p><p>In about 20 hours, Smai Fullerton used pre-existing technology to install an instance of  the Council Data Project for the city of Missoula, Montana. She did this through the encouragement and backing of Open Montana, a new program of DemocracyLab. This project records and digitizes city council meetings. In addition it allows individuals to search key terms from the transcript of the meeting themselves so they can find the information that has the most impact on them.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2022/08/pasted-image-0--2-.png" class="kg-image" alt="Making Citizen’s Issues Accessible"><figcaption>Search results for City Council Meetings about zoning</figcaption></figure><p>This project allows for more citizen engagement because citizens can stay informed whether people are able to go to the city council meeting or not. When asked the question, “What is the easiest way to get this project all across the country?”,  Smai Fullerton said we need a great story, more immediate use cases, and the ability to provide examples of its utility. </p><p>This technology can also be developed further to be more user friendly and allow for a greater impact. The use of voice recognition to be able to search for specific city council members would be a useful addition so citizens are able to see specific opinions from their community leaders. Some other useful additions to the Council Data Project are: seeing how many times people are interrupted or interrupt someone, a minute count of how much time a member of the city council was speaking, and ability to search for keywords/phrases. The latter of these potential improvements could be the most useful. Vernacular used in a city council meeting versus the way individuals talk to each other and various professional settings are vastly different. Therefore, allowing for a related word search would likely help improve the accessibility for individuals.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2022/08/pasted-image-0--1-.png" class="kg-image" alt="Making Citizen’s Issues Accessible"><figcaption>Search results for events about zoning</figcaption></figure><p>Key information to highlight regarding the Council Data Project is its relation with Open Montana which is the maintainer for the Missoula Council Data Project. Though this technology is in more locations than Missoula it is also the same basic infrastructure. This means the “data processing pipelines, the web frontend, and data storage systems all share the same infrastructure specification.” </p><p>When discussing the features Council Data Project is planning on creating and implementing, Eva Brown had the following to say: “We have a lot of features in development right now. A whole page just for tracking legislation, an audio-based speaker classification model for annotated speaker names in the produced transcripts, a notifications feature that would work a bit like Google Search Alerts (i.e. "a meeting from June 7 discussed 'missing middle housing'"), and some more that are just getting started.”</p><p>All these improvements, though important, are more likely to be seen as part of a long-term plan for this technology and the City of Missoula. The technology of the Council Data Project is very important and with time we expect to see more citizen engagement and will be able to gain personal testimony on how this technology has been useful, and through this, be able to implement it in other cities around the country.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Better Tech-a-thon: ground-breaking collaboration on Public Interest Technology]]></title><description><![CDATA[Students and faculty from leading universities collaborated with tech professionals to contribute to 17 tech-for-good projects at A Better Tech-a-thon.]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/a-better-tech-a-thon/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">618d25ba15d8f6001e4b3252</guid><category><![CDATA[Civic Tech]]></category><category><![CDATA[collaboration]]></category><category><![CDATA[College]]></category><category><![CDATA[Community]]></category><category><![CDATA[Education]]></category><category><![CDATA[Hackathon]]></category><category><![CDATA[Tech For Good]]></category><category><![CDATA[Upskill]]></category><category><![CDATA[Virtual Hackathon]]></category><category><![CDATA[Career]]></category><category><![CDATA[Community Engagement]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Thu, 11 Nov 2021 15:05:48 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/11/2021.10.14-A-Better-Tech-a-thon-Event-Image.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/11/2021.10.14-A-Better-Tech-a-thon-Event-Image.png" alt="A Better Tech-a-thon: ground-breaking collaboration on Public Interest Technology"><p>Students, faculty, and tech professionals from across the United States recently got together to collaborate on innovative tech-for-good projects as part of A Better Tech-a-thon. <br></p><p>The hands-on virtual event took place on October 14th and 15th, 2021, and was presented by <a href="https://democracylab.org/">DemocracyLab</a>, <a href="https://www.codeforamerica.org/">Code for America</a>, and <a href="https://www.nyu.edu/">New York University</a>, with sponsorship from <a href="https://www.aboutamazon.com/impact/community">Amazon</a>.<br></p><p>It was part of the <a href="https://www.abettertech.net/">A Better Tech Public Interest Technology Convention and Career Fair</a> —  the first event of its kind in the US to bring together talented students, leading researchers, organizations, and companies passionate about serving public interest through responsible and accountable tech.  The event was convened by New York University (NYU), with support from <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/pit-un/about/members/">New America’s Public Interest Technology University Network</a>.<br></p><p>The goal of A Better Tech-a-thon was to provide participants an opportunity to hone their skills while networking and making valuable contributions to numerous tech-for-good projects.  Projects were sourced from the Code for America Brigade Network and DemocracyLab and ranged in missions from educating children about the trees around them, to making it easier to locate food donation sites.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/1SNpMzX4wecJ6uqradM2E55f2vZcIN56DLBFgfVb_yZDh2QZ9AcZ--hACbSa5uhnfIinWuTh2OvuHPbGs9_p4kGCKMfLWRv3FWIS3PKbtcl2KYdk3YKkasE63b6fhyOX0ctFnDNA" class="kg-image" alt="A Better Tech-a-thon: ground-breaking collaboration on Public Interest Technology"></figure><p><a href="https://www.newamerica.org/our-people/hana-schank/">Hana Schank</a>, co-director of the Public Interest Technology program at New America and author of <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9780691216638/power-to-the-public">Power to the Public</a>, said that looking at the participating projects was like “taking a spin through people’s hopes and dreams for a better world.”<br></p><p>“The world that you are all envisioning is a beautiful place where technology is used intelligently and thoughtfully to connect people instead of dividing them; to empower people, especially those who have been historically marginalized; and to make not only government, but society work better and more effectively, ”Schank added.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/zZrHEtkFOL2r8JlG1XFQ5ul6fu0zvR6P-vg-_019RmyPXeoZez03daj7prnN0l6DtXSLjYaCsWiDuUqQ-k6qpYOV59gkYjs6n8_c__s6FkPSe1Bo-hiEX_kKYJDZZsnPiQ16PctP" class="kg-image" alt="A Better Tech-a-thon: ground-breaking collaboration on Public Interest Technology"></figure><p><a href="https://www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/matt-statler">Matt Statler</a>, the Richman Family Director of Business Ethics and Social Impact Programming at NYU Stern said about the hackathon: “To see and hear all of these examples of incredible work and interesting challenges people have selected, public interest challenges that people are bringing technology to bear on, and a clearly vibrant and ongoing network for really great collaborations across geographies and disciplines… and the knowledge of civic infrastructure, government, and political science is really, really super.”</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/yqcZYfShjIu7jNf3GlqUOJA8tDFMnmYzcsZdk7hRAtk-Nb5mMqJgkECiqIu7_hA0lde23_0bMdqALWNjDLhI1NQ46j4KfK14dt_J9Z3QjLwmgeYp8zuSFqD9AL8JN9e9HiN_Wue1" class="kg-image" alt="A Better Tech-a-thon: ground-breaking collaboration on Public Interest Technology"></figure><p><a href="https://ipk.nyu.edu/people/mona-sloane/">Mona Sloane</a>, Director of the This is Not a Drill (TINAD) program and Future Imagination Collaboratory (FIC) Fellow at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, applauded the young talented participants for choosing to get involved in public interest technology careers.<br></p><p>“I firmly believe in putting things on the road and translation work between disciplines, between the public, policymakers, technologists, and so on,” said Sloane. <br></p><p>She added, “I really do think that the hackathon work that has happened as part of this event, as well as the other hackathons run by DemocracyLab, are really important in practicing that and getting us to a place where we more routinely can do that work.”<br></p><p>Participating universities included City University of New York; Columbia University; New York University; Pepperdine University; Stanford University; University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Washington.<br></p><p><strong>Collaborating on public interest projects</strong></p><p>The exciting two-day hackathon virtually brought together coders, designers, researchers, project managers, subject matter experts, and test users from different time zones to work on 17 unique projects.<br></p><p>For students, the event provided a great opportunity to sharpen their skills, extend their networks, and begin long-term relationships as project contributors.<br></p><p>More experienced tech professionals were also able to further their passions by helping tech-for-good projects make incremental progress toward their long-term goals, as well as work with the next generation of talent.<br></p><p>The <a href="https://democracylab.org/events/a-better-tech-a-thon">participating projects</a> were:</p><ol><li>59Boards — Aims to update or rebuild New York City’s system of 59 community board districts to allow the public to better get involved with local politics.</li><li>Accessibility Ratings — A crowd-sourced application for accessibility ratings that will help users and organizations adopt and use more accessible applications.</li><li>Banana App — A location-based food donation app system that connects food donors and low-income clients.</li><li>Council Data Project — An entirely free and open application that makes it easier to follow one’s local municipality’s council action.</li><li>EnCiv — "A portal for productive democracy online, using processes derived from in-person dialog &amp; deliberation, because social media is like a mob!</li><li>Full Disclosure Project — Aims to disrupt the culture of secrecy that systematically and pervasively shields law enforcement misconduct.”</li><li>iSeaTree — A game-play app that helps kids learn, identify, and record trees in the U.S. and Canada and works with US Forest Service’s iTree CO2 calculator.</li><li>Neighborhood.org — Model.earth Lifecycle Tools for Schools and Communities using US EPA widgets.</li><li>OutreachApp — An app that streamlines communication between outreach groups providing services and resources to the unsheltered community</li><li>P4H — An app that empowers education systems in developing countries by facilitating collaboration and certifications for teachers and P4h staff.</li><li>Pipeline — Fighting unemployment &amp; streamlining the job search by offering a centralized application tracking system and recruiting insights.</li><li>Proof of Humanity — Many immigrants are undocumented and don't get social services. BrightID approaches this issue with a "Proof-of humanity" tech we'll test.</li><li>Saving Political Sites — Local political candidate websites disappear post-elections -- this project collects and archives those websites to make them accessible.</li><li>Smart City Planning — OSM2GMNS aims to enable rapid creation of routable multimodal networks and demand in General Modeling Network Specification.</li><li>Transpare-NC — Starting with campaign finance data, TRANSPARE-NC plans to offer unprecedented access and insight into North Carolina politics.</li><li>Vot-ER — An organization at the crossroads of health and democracy that helps patients register to vote in healthcare settings.</li><li>Yellow Box Disaster Relief — Rapid and local coms and supply chain app for volunteers.</li></ol><p><strong>Get involved</strong></p><p>Since launching its open-source platform in 2018, DemocracyLab has convened more than 20 tech-for-good hackathons aimed at supporting public interest technology. <br></p><p>The hackathons have allowed projects to execute a narrow scope of work and make incremental progress towards their long term goals, and volunteers to begin long-term relationships with projects that match their skills and interests while upskilling and advancing their careers.<br></p><p>For more information on how you can participate in DemocracyLab’s next tech-for-good event, please visit our <a href="https://democracylab.org/events">events page</a>.</p><p><br>For a list of ongoing volunteer opportunities, make sure to check out DemocracyLab’s <a href="https://democracylab.org/projects">project listings</a>.</p><p>And if you're a company representative seeking innovative ways to increase employee enthusiasm and retention, take a look at our <a href="https://democracylab.org/companies">corporate engagement page</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Navigating Career Changes with Chocolate Milk Diplomacy]]></title><description><![CDATA[Searching for a job or navigating a career change can feel ambiguous and overwhelming. Chocolate Milk Diplomacy and DemocracyLab have teamed up to create a four-part 50-minute video course to help you get started. ]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/navigating-career-changes-with-chocolate-milk-diplomacy/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">61382aa13dcc2d001e93a187</guid><category><![CDATA[Career]]></category><category><![CDATA[job search]]></category><category><![CDATA[Corporate Culture]]></category><category><![CDATA[collaboration]]></category><category><![CDATA[Education]]></category><category><![CDATA[growth]]></category><category><![CDATA[Tech For Good]]></category><category><![CDATA[Upskill]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 08 Sep 2021 19:34:39 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/09/cmd.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/09/cmd.png" alt="Navigating Career Changes with Chocolate Milk Diplomacy"><p>Searching for a job or navigating a career change can feel ambiguous and overwhelming. That’s why the DemocracyLab marketing team, in partnership with <a href="https://chocolatemilkdiplomacy.com/">Chocolate Milk Diplomacy</a> has created a 50-minute course to help make this process engaging, with clear and actionable steps. It will help you get started and point you to the resources you need to navigate your career transition.</p><h3 id="about-the-course-creators">ABOUT THE COURSE CREATORS</h3><p>This course was created from the “Career Advancement Workshop” that was organized in partnership with DemocracyLab and led by Alex Berry of Chocolate Milk Diplomacy, an organization that provides career coaching, navigation, and development resources to marginalized and underrepresented communities.</p><h3 id="course-summary">COURSE SUMMARY</h3><p>Here’s a quick summary of each of the four modules in the course.</p><p><strong>Module 1</strong> - CMD believes that storytelling is at the heart of career development. The first module introduces CMD’s Five Step Career Transition Process and walks you through how to identify your own personal career story.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o972w6f0xQA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></figure><p><strong>Module 2</strong> - A discussion of why career transitions are often so painful. In this module Berry offers some insights about how to move past some of the fears and confusion that can keep us from making progress.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yivUqqF7pt4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></figure><p><strong><strong>Module 3</strong> - </strong>Progress can be tough if you don't have a goal in mind. The third module focuses on how to identify where you want to go in your career. Berry walks through three categories to consider when deciding on a career that will fit holistically into your life.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ibx68SIletw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></figure><p><strong>Module 4</strong> - Now that you have your career story and your career path, Berry gets into the details of how to identify and create action plans for filling in the gaps in your resume.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-embed-card"><iframe width="200" height="113" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3lsnT3BwixI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></figure><h3 id="more-resources">MORE RESOURCES</h3><p>This four-part course will give you a great kickstart to your making your career advancement or career transition goals a reality. For more resources <a href="https://chocolatemilkdiplomacy.com/media-library/">check out the media library</a> on the Chocolate Milk Diplomacy website. Here you'll find workshops, podcasts, one-on-one consulting, and self-led workbooks. </p><p>And consider volunteering with <a href="https://www.democracylab.org/">DemocracyLab</a> to do good while building your resume and your network. <a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects">Check out our projects page</a> to find something that interests you today.  <br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Building a Database to End School Violence]]></title><description><![CDATA[Gun violence in schools is a public health issue that plagues our country. The Athena project is using social science and big data to create an app to power violence prevention programs in our schools. ]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/building-the-database-to-end-school-violence/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">61083b3b8a066a001ea3b384</guid><category><![CDATA[Civic Engagement]]></category><category><![CDATA[Civic Tech]]></category><category><![CDATA[Community Engagement]]></category><category><![CDATA[School Violence]]></category><category><![CDATA[Gun Violence]]></category><category><![CDATA[Education]]></category><category><![CDATA[data]]></category><category><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></category><category><![CDATA[Hackathon]]></category><category><![CDATA[Tech For Good]]></category><category><![CDATA[database]]></category><category><![CDATA[Volunteer]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 11 Aug 2021 21:29:41 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/08/Screen-Shot-2021-08-02-at-6.13.49-PM.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/08/Screen-Shot-2021-08-02-at-6.13.49-PM.png" alt="Building a Database to End School Violence"><p>Gun violence in schools is a public health issue affected almost <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/us-school-shootings-history/">200,000 students</a> firsthand between the 1999 shooting in Columbine, Colorado and 2018. The following year in 2019, there was an average of one <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/15/us/2019-us-school-shootings-trnd/index.html">school shooting every school week</a>. But despite the frequency of such tragedies, nothing was done at scale to analyze data from the events to identify patterns and help prevent further catastrophe.</p><h2 id="seeing-the-forest-through-the-trees">Seeing the forest through the trees</h2><p>Professor and technology advocate Paul Privateer believes that technology is an intricate part of our social consciousness. In under a year, the world developed and distributed a COVID-19 vaccine, and people immediately went to work building aggregate search tools that allow anyone to find nearby doses. Why, wonders Professor Privateer, do we as a society not have the same response to school violence? With the right resources, parents or teachers could monitor behavioral changes in an individual, correlate them the location and demographics of a school, and see in an instant whether those data predict violent actions. With enough time to intervene, we could potentially prevent more tragedies from happening.</p><h2 id="an-idea-born-of-tragedy">An idea born of tragedy</h2><p>Throughout his career Paul Privateer has been a professor of technological sciences and digital culture at San Jose State, Arizona State University, Georgia Tech, and MIT. The idea for the Athena Project was born during his tenure at Arizona State University, after two graduate students committed suicide within a few months of each other. As Paul grieved the loss of these young people along with his community, he asked his colleagues to brainstorm ways that they could use technology to understand and analyze the psychological and social factors of violence towards oneself or others. Unable to get federal funding, they decided to proceed on their own. From this starting point Professor Privateer founded his Seattle-based non-profit NoSchoolViolence.org in 2017.</p><h2 id="the-athena-project">The Athena Project</h2><p>The Athena project under the NoSchoolViolence umbrella is developing a national school violence database that’s searchable via a user-friendly app. Paul found that data about incidents of school violence were recorded in over 40 separate, local systems in narrative “trend reports.” Using powerful data science software, the team has been able to pull reports from the disparate sites housing the information, run comparative analyses to identify common data points, and organize that data into tables.</p><p>The long term goal of this project is to provide the Athena app as a resource for parents, school faculty and administrations, researchers, health professionals, state education departments, and state and federal agencies. The app will help them understand which combinations of behaviors and traits correlate to violence, and will offer tested and effective intervention methods. Through this analysis users will be able to build and sustain successful violence prevention programs.</p><h2 id="current-state-and-next-steps">Current state and next steps</h2><p>Paul has attended 10 DemocracyLab hack-a-thons where he connected with volunteers skilled in wireframe design, search, machine learning, and natural language processing. At each event, Paul and the volunteers worked to advance the quality of the project’s dataset and the efficiency of its search models. By participating in these events Paul has discovered what improvements will benefit the project most and moved the Athena project forward iteratively. Once the backend data is fully converted, Paul will focus on refining the app's search models.</p><h2 id="get-involved">Get Involved</h2><p>Currently, this project is still in the development phase, and there are lots of ways to get involved. If you’re a designer, data savvy, or specialize in machine learning, and you want to help create the first national school violence database and search tool this is a great project for you.</p><p><strong>The <a href="https://democracylab.org/projects/354">Athena project</a> is looking for volunteers with the following skills:</strong></p><ul><li>Machine learning experience</li><li>Working knowledge of search engines</li><li>Natural language processing</li><li>Data Conversion for structured queries</li></ul><p>If you're not yet registered, <a href="https://democracylab.org/signup">registering with DemocracyLab is free and easy</a>.</p><hr><p>DemocracyLab is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to empower people who use technology to advance the public good. We are headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Volunteers make the 2021 Summer Create-a-thon a Success]]></title><description><![CDATA[At this year's Create-a-thon ten projects came together with over 60 volunteers to make progress building tech-for-good. Both volunteers and project leaders enjoyed the event, found it rewarding, and made progress towards the goals they set. ]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/volunteers-make-the-2021-summer-create-a-thon-a-success/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">610857748a066a001ea3b401</guid><category><![CDATA[Civic Engagement]]></category><category><![CDATA[Civic Tech]]></category><category><![CDATA[Community Engagement]]></category><category><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 11 Aug 2021 21:19:12 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/08/Screenshot-2021-07-10-9.40.46-AM_2.jpg" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/08/Screenshot-2021-07-10-9.40.46-AM_2.jpg" alt="Volunteers make the 2021 Summer Create-a-thon a Success"><p></p><p>On July 10, 2021, DemocracyLab collaborated with Code for America Brigade Network for its Summer Create-a-thon. Ten projects came together with over 60 volunteers to make progress building tech-for-good. There was a diverse mix of causes that benefited, including environmental conservation, civic infrastructure, education, and social services. Each project lead set progress goals and worked with its volunteers to advance their technologies.</p><h2 id="who-participated">Who participated</h2><p>Volunteers joined in from around the world to contribute their talents and skills to help our participating projects make critical developments. Both first-time volunteers and veterans were drawn by the opportunity to practice or learn new skills in coding, design, research, and project management while addressing concrete civic issues. </p><p>By the end of the day our participants felt like they’d made substantial progress toward the goals they’d set, and many volunteers intended to continue contributing to the project they’d worked with that day.</p><h2 id="what-was-accomplished">What was accomplished</h2><p>Project leads came with a variety of tasks and goals. Many projects worked on building new prototypes and developing or expanding new versions of apps, websites, and tools. Volunteers had the opportunity to work in UX design, data analysis, content development, and both frontend and backend development. Some key achievements included building app prototypes, developing or expanding new versions of apps, website development, and onboarding new team members.</p><p><strong>Here’s a list of the projects:</strong></p><ol><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/218">A/B Street–</a>software that runs traffic simulations to find ways to make cities less reliant on cars–worked on drafting new blog posts for recent proposals for local road changes.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/284">Accessibility Ratings–</a>a crowdsourced app that helps users ensure they adopt accessible applications–worked on building prototypes for some newly completed designs using search services and parsing metadata in app stores.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/145">CouncilDataProject–</a>an app providing users a way to follow local municipality council activities–worked to expand their coverage to new cities for version 3 launch, including backend web scraping and frontend UX design.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/281">EnCiv </a>(Unpoll)–software crowdsourcing political debate questions–worked to create the React components for their Figma prototype.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/502">iSeaTree–</a>a citizen science game-play app that lets users ID trees while contributing to the database–worked on selecting new data for their new CO2 and Hydrologics calculator feature. Volunteers reviewed over 300 tree images and tested the new version of the iSeaTree platform.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/486">Nonprofit Exchange Hub–</a>an app that helps nonprofits locate and exchange info and goods–made progress in the development of their prototype while refining wireframes for the next batch of development.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/81">Orcasound–</a>a website where citizen scientists can study audio recordings of Orcas and help to conserve them–developed a prototype app replicating the website experience.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/701">Project Lockdown–</a>an interactive platform providing an overview of the state of human and digital rights around the world–continued development on the MAP and API 2.0 versions, parsing the database and building new API models.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/356">ShelterApp–</a>a program that connects outreach workers to homeless encampments and offers real-time supply inventory tracking–worked on designing and developing a new Outreach Tracker app.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/227">Turn the Bus–</a>an app providing educational resources to high school students in underdeveloped parts of India–designed prototypes of a flashcard-style learning workflow, building a backend question database and moving the project closer to their Android launch.</li></ol><h2 id="what-did-our-participants-think">What did our participants think?</h2><p>Volunteering at a DemocracyLab event offers an opportunity to contribute to areas of interest and provides great career-building experiences. All participants found a project with a mission that they're passionate about; both volunteers and project leaders enjoyed the event and found it rewarding. Volunteers had the opportunity to learn by doing while contributing to tech-for-good projects impacting real issues they care about. Project leads saw tangible development and moved their technologies forward towards longer-term goals. </p><p><strong>Survey results: </strong></p><ul><li>85% strongly agreed the experience was excellent</li><li>70% strongly agreed the quality of projects was excellent</li><li>70% strongly agreed they were satisfied with their team’s output at the end</li><li>85% strongly agreed they intend to continue working on the project</li><li>70% said they gained new experience that will benefit them</li></ul><h2 id="learn-more-about-getting-involved">Learn more about getting involved</h2><p>For more information about how you can participate in our next tech-for-good event please visit our <a href="https://democracylab.org/events">events page</a>.</p><p>To explore our list of projects with ongoing volunteer opportunities <a href="https://democracylab.org/projects">check out our website</a>.</p><hr><p>DemocracyLab is a volunteer-based 501(c)3 non-profit organization headquartered in Seattle, WA.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Optimizing Municipal Infrastructure with Smart City Planning]]></title><description><![CDATA[Smart City Planning is creating a transparent, open source platform that puts the power to make data-driven decisions back into the hands of the community.]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/optimizing-municipal-infrastructure-with-smart-city-planning/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">60e320aa8a5e18001ec7f448</guid><category><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></category><category><![CDATA[Civic Tech]]></category><category><![CDATA[collaboration]]></category><category><![CDATA[Community Engagement]]></category><category><![CDATA[Tech For Good]]></category><category><![CDATA[Smart City]]></category><category><![CDATA[City Planning]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 07 Jul 2021 17:49:53 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/07/smartcity2.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/07/smartcity2.png" alt="Optimizing Municipal Infrastructure with Smart City Planning"><p>There’s a lot of buzz in the technology world about Smart City Planning. A Smart City collects and analyzes the data it produces to make improvements in areas like accessibility, sustainability, and walkability. During the pandemic countries like <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-01-01/covid-travel-singapore-pandemic-quarantine-lockdown">Singapore</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/world/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-flatten-curve.html">Korea</a>, and <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/wired25-day3-audrey-tang-taiwan/">Taiwan</a> used Smart City techniques to keep track of and contain Covid-19 infections. </p><p>The Smart City market is forecast to become a trillion-dollar industry, and many private companies are jumping in to create technologies to make cities more livable for residents. However, ethical concerns have arisen about private corporate control of cities' public data. Luckily people like Dr. Xuesong Zhou are working on open source projects, creating transparent alternatives that give the power to make data-driven decisions back into the hands of the community. Given that<a href="https://graylinegroup.com/urbanization-catalyst-overview/"> millions of  people </a>are moving to cities every week, efficiency has become an essential priority.</p><h2 id="the-vision-of-a-communal-tool">The Vision of a Communal Tool</h2><p>Dr. Xuesong Zhou is an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at Arizona State University specializing in dynamic traffic assignment, traffic estimation and prediction, and large scale routing and rail scheduling. He’s also passionate about the democratization of urban planning. He saw the potential of OpenStreetMap, an open source alternative to Google Maps, but knew it needed better functionality if it were to compete as a city planning tool. The Smart City Planning project was born.</p><p><br>The data packages built by Dr. Zhou and his partners extract the OpenStreetMaps data and add layers to make it more usable. To date, it’s been downloaded over 16,000 times from Github and is being used by universities and departments of transportation across the nation, including by Cambridge Systematics Inc. in the modeling system developed for Northern Virginia Transportation Authority’s TransAction Program.<br></p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/AnRPFFDAi-rH3LlgvFtUEAO3SGIVbovLETCRwcAL-TWb3nL07qWYZsrlzqSnXhhvMpBjtJW41pSOWHEDv-Rdrtu1fxOBANVEywl6-Y1tkft_zuPPUUGePsrdU-2gNTt6sOT3n3VQ" class="kg-image" alt="Optimizing Municipal Infrastructure with Smart City Planning"><figcaption>Photo Credit: Smart City Planning</figcaption></figure><h2 id="the-bridge-between-data-and-community">The Bridge Between Data and Community</h2><p>For Dr. Zhou, the various problems affecting cities (traffic, pollution, accessibility) are related and solvable with data. By bringing together academics, community leaders, and non-profit organizations, he hopes to develop an open data source that will serve as the framework for running simulations and informing data-driven infrastructure decisions. Dr. Zhou has also been an avid participant in DemocracyLab’s hackathons, where volunteers updated the data package versions with additional data layers, such as traffic light timing.</p><p>That vision is already beginning to manifest. Through a program sponsored by Arizona State University, high school students have been able to contribute to Dr. Zhou’s project. Earlier this year, Xenia Zhao worked with Dr. Zhou to research food bank optimization in her local city and her paper won first place in the Arizona Science and Engineering Fair. The high school student currently working with Dr. Zhou, Rachel Dai, is using the Smart City data package combined with US census data to understand how to optimize accessibility for vulnerable and elderly populations</p><h2 id="the-future-of-smart-city-planning">The Future of Smart City Planning</h2><p>The long-term goal of the project is to build digital “twin cities” that mirror the physical space and infrastructure of a metropolitan area. Users will be able to easily run real-time simulations that model a city's utilities, transportation, physical infrastructure, civic services, and more. By building digital twins that are accessible and easy to use, the project enables community-supported city planning. Dr. Zhou hopes to continue partnering with high school and college students who are passionate about social change and who want to work on creative ways to use technology to improve their cities.</p><h2 id="how-to-get-involved">How to get Involved</h2><p>The Smart City Planning project is currently looking for anyone familiar with OpenStreetMaps software or knowledge of Python, especially high school or college students interested in sharpening their skills with hands-on experience. Check out the <a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/639">project page</a> on DemocracyLab and sign up to get started!</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Supporting Diversity in the Health Sciences]]></title><description><![CDATA[There’s a lack of diversity in the American healthcare field. Northwest Health Career Path (NWHCP) believes a healthcare workforce should reflect its community and works to support diversity in healthcare. ]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/supporting-diversity-in-the-health-sciences/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">60cd24d2b3abd6001ef57645</guid><category><![CDATA[Education]]></category><category><![CDATA[collaboration]]></category><category><![CDATA[College]]></category><category><![CDATA[Community]]></category><category><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></category><category><![CDATA[Tech For Good]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 07 Jul 2021 17:40:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/06/NW-Health-Career-Path.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-u6MVmGlKYIpG8RCZ2TNYaYmUSrIHENdw8-CpzbVajELm53Q3quL_Wu1s-EbU82TfmuZjtNUm1FoRAuzD-5ORrlEA-0qgANe-swcRfj8JcjENJ-bA0ILF5NSOcyjIZYUF-vOSUzj" class="kg-image" alt="Supporting Diversity in the Health Sciences"><figcaption>Photo Credit: Northwest Health Career Path</figcaption></figure><h2 id="diversity-in-health-sciences">Diversity in Health Sciences</h2><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/06/NW-Health-Career-Path.png" alt="Supporting Diversity in the Health Sciences"><p>There’s a lack of diversity in the American healthcare field—the <a href="https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/workforce/report/diversity-medicine-facts-and-figures-2019">rates of employment</a> in healthcare don’t reflect current US demographics. Students of color and the LGBTQ community remain underrepresented in many healthcare jobs, and the number of medical students from rural areas is <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/practices/rural-health-crisis-number-medical-students-from-rural-backgrounds-declined-28-over-15">declining</a>. Given that the White population in the US is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245230112030016X">projected to fall 10%</a> in the upcoming decades, the gap is likely to widen if nothing is done.</p><p>Northwest Health Career Path (NWHCP) believes a healthcare workforce should reflect its community and works to support diversity in healthcare. NWHCP’s mission is to make it easier for underrepresented people to access the resources they need to successfully launch a career in healthcare. NWHCP has created one place to find everything from summer camps and after-school programs, to workshops and internships, as well as college access programs, and more. The website serves students from middle schoolers to postgraduates.</p><p>With NWHCP’s free interactive map, users can find nearby resources fitting their education level and career focus, as well as financial and transportation needs. Longer term, NWHCP hopes their initiative will facilitate collaboration between organizations to create a more complete ecosystem of support for these students as they navigate through the sometimes complex landscape of higher education.</p><p>NWHCP is a collaborative effort between the University of Washington Medical School Service Learning Program and several regional partners. (Check out the <a href="http://nwhealthcareerpath.uw.edu/more">Support section</a> of their website for more information about all of the organizations making this project possible).</p><h2 id="how-the-tool-works">How the Tool Works</h2><p>NWHCP started by collecting data from all of the healthcare outreach programs across the region of UW School of Medicine’s WWAMI partnership (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho), totalling over four dozen programs and organizations. The data is visualized on an interactive map, making it easy for students to find the resources closest to them. Each resource has a details page with a description and contact information.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/XZkznXAV9R68i3ABqvm_Gzjngl3ssMnSdzZEUCKn0S1DWBN0QEv24RNvIjryaLWWwUnJywM4Rx4j-uQOlS6Pp_HXNZc3IfRDyi5Vt7N5XVeRPh3YfSe6pJMYoskcQl80ieu7yg9M" class="kg-image" alt="Supporting Diversity in the Health Sciences"></figure><h2 id="how-to-get-involved">How to get involved</h2><p>Up to this point NWHCP has focused on getting their interactive map up and running. Next the project is looking to develop their website, and is partnering with DemocracyLab to connect with the following skilled volunteers:</p><!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><ul>
<li>Front-end developers</li>
<li>Back-end developers</li>
</ul>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--><p>Learn more about the project and discover how you can get involved by visiting the <a href="https://democracylab.org/projects/7">Northwest Health Career Path project profile</a> on DemocracyLab.<br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[DemocracyLab: Globally Inclusive]]></title><description><![CDATA[In such unpredictable, virtual-first times, it is not a bad idea for civic organizations to expand their circle with international volunteerism. The team at DemocracyLab takes diversity and inclusion to heart, and it shows in the incredible work we all accomplish together.]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/democracylab-globally-inclusive/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">60c68ebfbfecf6001ef39bf7</guid><category><![CDATA[Volunteer]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 15 Jun 2021 23:25:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/06/Globally-inclusive-article-1.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/06/Globally-inclusive-article-1.png" alt="DemocracyLab: Globally Inclusive"><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/">DemocracyLab </a>has paved the way for thousands of volunteering opportunities through our projects, providing diverse types of roles and responsibilities. Once signed up, a volunteer from any part of the world can select the role that suits them best.</p><p>An inclusive culture is an indispensable component of recruiting as it leads to improved creativity, efficiency, and innovation. Diversity in the workforce unleashes immense potential for dynamic ideas, facilitating an organizational culture where each person feels free and comfortable expressing their thoughts. DemocracyLab encourages volunteers from around the world to get engaged in public interest technology projects. Such inclusivity and diversity are a core strength of the organization, which believes that diverse teams working together with goodwill and respect can accomplish remarkable things.</p><p>Through virtual tech-for-good initiatives, the volunteering opportunities at DemocracyLab open doors for many who want to make a mark by helping out their communities. With a vast selection of projects to choose from, aimed at supporting social, economic, environmental, and civic causes, remote volunteers have the chance to develop their skills while making a difference in the world.</p><p>Here are some of the inclusive behaviors that have helped DemocracyLab to encompass a worldwide presence:</p><!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><ul>
<li>Providing volunteer opportunities to people from diverse backgrounds and skills</li>
<li>Practicing inclusion strategies in recruitment, teamwork, and succession planning</li>
<li>Encouraging teams with a variety of skill sets by giving them opportunities to showcase their talent</li>
<li>Creating a sense of belonging</li>
</ul>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--><h3 id="ryan-lechner-content-writer-">Ryan Lechner, content writer: </h3><blockquote>I am a writer who has contributed to DemocracyLab because of the opportunities available to learn and grow and its inclusive culture. I have been a part of this organization for around two years and can say that I definitely feel like an important part of it. There are many other international volunteers who feel the same about the work they do at DemocracyLab. Here are testimonials from some of our active volunteers about how the organization has made a difference in their lives.</blockquote><h3 id="hakki-a-ux-designer-from-turkey-">Hakki, a UX Designer from Turkey:</h3><blockquote>I wanted to improve my international experience as a UX designer and also do some networking by joining DemocracyLab . Being able to connect and collaborate with people from various backgrounds is refreshing and interesting. I really enjoy working with people with various skill sets. Time difference is a challenge but DemocracyLab's inclusive environment helps me freely express my opinions and find opportunities to hone my skills. It sounds strange but without Covid-19, I wouldn't be in DemocracyLab. Because of the pandemic, it seems like we're moving into a physically distant but digitally more connected world. This is a borderless world where everyone can connect, collaborate, and create value regardless of their actual location. And I believe that in the long run it will have unprecedented results for everyone.</blockquote><h3 id="zoe-nguyen-a-ux-designer-from-germany-">Zoe Nguyen, a UX designer from Germany:</h3><blockquote>I joined Democracy Lab to improve my skill as a product designer and I was happy to contribute my skill for good causes to society through the platform. I chose specifically DemocracyLab as I was inspired by the mission and the values of the organization. It creates a win-win situation for non-profit projects that lack resources as well as skilled people who want to practice some tech skills or simply want to help. Not to mention, I am amazed at how the platform grows by the teamwork of a diverse group of people and I am proud to be a part of the team.</blockquote><h3 id="anee-marie-nnaedozie-a-ux-designer-from-uk-">Anee-Marie Nnaedozie, a UX designer from UK:</h3><blockquote>I joined Democracy Lab because of their cause and what the organization represents. I enjoy being part of the organization because of the causes and projects we inadvertently help by doing what we do. I’ve had the pleasure of working with great designers that I’ve collaborated with and learnt from; and would love to continue to do so.</blockquote><h3 id="aashish-sawhney-a-product-manager-from-india-">Aashish Sawhney, a product manager from India:</h3><blockquote>I joined DemocracyLab as I was inspired by its mission and the work they are doing for tech-for-good projects. It's been a great experience so far to volunteer and give back to the community and I encourage more people to come ahead and contribute.</blockquote><p>In such unpredictable, virtual-first times, it is not a bad idea for civic organizations to expand their circle with international volunteerism. The team at DemocracyLab takes diversity and inclusion to heart, and it shows in the incredible work we all accomplish together.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How Are Social & Environmental Organizations Growing with Data?]]></title><description><![CDATA[Any organization leader — of a non-profit, a volunteer group, an app-based company combating climate change, or anything similar — can benefit.]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/how-are-organizations-managing-data-transformations/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">60c69115bfecf6001ef39c54</guid><category><![CDATA[data]]></category><category><![CDATA[growth]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 15 Jun 2021 23:13:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/06/how-can-you-transform-your-organization-with-data-analytics.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/06/how-can-you-transform-your-organization-with-data-analytics.png" alt="How Are Social & Environmental Organizations Growing with Data?"><p><strong><em>by Rhia June</em></strong></p><p>As data analysis has become a more mainstream practice over the years, it has spawned an industry unto itself. University programs and online learning institutions alike have prioritized this field of study to meet the growing demand for data professionals, and a <a href="https://online.maryville.edu/online-masters-degrees/business-data-analytics/careers/">Maryville University's data analytics careers page</a> makes it clear that this has resulted in data making its way into businesses of all kinds.<br><br>Organizations driving social and environmental initiatives are no exception, having opened their doors to data analytics experts to improve internal efficiency and external practices alike. While the applications for data analytics in this space are limitless, the fundamental idea is quite simple, as described in an <a href="https://theconversation.com/data-science-is-a-growing-field-heres-how-to-train-people-to-do-it-110449">article in <em>The Conversation</em> on data science</a>: <em>extract insight from data</em> — that is, gather measurable information and determine what it says about performance and potential.<br><br>To fully understand the benefits, it's helpful to break data analytics down into simple steps to see how the idea is transforming businesses and organizations.</p><h2 id="1-gather-data-">1. Gather Data:</h2><p>The first step in any data analytics operation is to gather the data itself, which can be done in a number of ways, depending on the type of organization, including combing through transaction histories, assessing finances, monitoring customer feedback and social media conversation, and/or maintaining numbers related to website performance. These are just a few examples of the means by which company and organization leaders can begin to gather the data that will serve as the foundation for an analytics operation.<br><br>Keep in mind also that this shouldn’t sound overwhelming. While it’s true that gathering data requires some effort, and the more data the better, a lot of this process is typically automated. With the right tools and software, even a small organization can collect a great deal of valuable information.</p><h2 id="2-draw-insights-">2. Draw Insights:</h2><p>People tend to imagine data analytics as a thoroughly advanced process involving complex computation. The not-so-secret truth though is that once an organization gathers its data, it can begin discovering insight with relative ease, often by simply turning raw information and numbers into something that can be interpreted clearly and at a glance.<br><br>This process is referred to as data visualization, which means turning data into charts and graphs. Creating simple visual representations out of unclear sets of information helps in analyzing the data and strategizing plans.</p><h2 id="3-apply-learnings-">3. Apply Learnings:</h2><p>Once an organization has its data in an easy-to-digest format, leaders can begin making key improvements.</p><!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Identify where operations are breaking down and falling short.</strong> <a href="https://blog.democracylab.org/using-data-analytics-for-good-civic-tech/">Last summer’s blog post on ‘Using Data Analytics for Good’</a>  touched on this very idea, noting that surveys in test communities had helped an analytics team to “understand what isn’t working and what is needed.” It really is about as simple as that. Whether in startups, civic engagement, or even big business, one of the key purposes of data analytics is figuring out what’s going wrong and why.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Identify growth opportunities.</strong> Spotting opportunities is in fact leading many organization leaders today to hire analysts or enlist volunteers from what has become a robust talent pool of data experts. As an example, a trained analyst might observe data that indicates the success of a particular outreach effort at generating engagement, and from there develop ways to repeat or imitate that effort on a continual basis. Someone in this role drives data-driven decision-making efforts, taking advantage of insights to revamp strategy and seize opportunity.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Improve targeting and outreach strategies.</strong> Data analytics is also used to target customers (or partners, donors, voters, and so on). <a href="https://towardsdatascience.com/do-more-with-data-6bc71f6eb4b3">This article by Towards Data Science</a> delved into how targeting and outreach works, essentially pointing out that organizations can use data to glean demographic information about consumers. Whether this information relates to socio-economic status, purchasing history, location, interests, or any other factors, it can help organizations of all kinds sharpen their outreach efforts towards targeted audiences in specific ways that are more likely to work than a more general approach.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--><p>Any organization leader — of a non-profit, a volunteer group, an app-based company combating climate change, or anything similar — can appreciate the potential benefit of this sort of data collection. In the simplest of terms, more insight into operations (both internally and with regard to customers or communities served) lays the foundation for improved performance. All of these efforts are transforming organizations of all kinds, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.<br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[WGU Helps Community College Students Hack for the Future]]></title><description><![CDATA[WGU is reshaping education with its online performance-based approach. Their education model prepares students for the evolving demands of tech industries.]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/community-college-students-hack-for-the-future/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">60c6894bbfecf6001ef39ba0</guid><category><![CDATA[Community]]></category><category><![CDATA[College]]></category><category><![CDATA[Hackathon]]></category><category><![CDATA[Virtual Hackathon]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Mon, 14 Jun 2021 23:07:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/06/college-students-volunteer-online-with-democracylab.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/06/College-Students-Volunteer-Online-With-Democracylab.png" class="kg-image" alt="WGU Helps Community College Students Hack for the Future"></figure><h2 id="what-was-the-event">What was the event?</h2><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/06/college-students-volunteer-online-with-democracylab.png" alt="WGU Helps Community College Students Hack for the Future"><p><a href="https://www.wgu.edu/">Western Governors University</a> (WGU) understands that tech is the future. On May 15, 2021, WGU partnered with five community colleges and DemocracyLab to sponsor an online Hack for the Future event for tech students. The students had the opportunity to practice and learn new tech skills while improving tech-for-good initiatives ranging from civic infrastructure and social services to environmental research and conservation. Everyone who participated agreed the event was a rewarding educational experience.</p><h2 id="how-did-the-hackathon-empower-students">How did the hackathon empower students?</h2><p>WGU is reshaping education with its online performance-based approach. Their dynamic education model prepares students for the evolving demands of tech industries. A partnership with DemocracyLab was natural.</p><p>The virtual hackathon offered the perfect space for students to apply classroom learning to real world projects. The students worked in a collaborative environment with a narrow scope, and focused on making incremental progress toward the projects' long term goals. The students got hands-on experience contributing to the projects' code, building their confidence by applying their knowledge toward concrete deliverables.</p><p>Many students at the WGU Hack for the Future event also had the opportunity to work with new software or technologies for the first time. Furthermore, they made connections with the project leaders and other students that will last beyond the event. </p><h2 id="what-did-the-students-think-about-the-event">What did the students think about the event?</h2><p>The event opened pathways for a diverse group of community college students to learn by doing while contributing to important public interest technology projects. Following the event, students and faculty were surveyed, and two key themes surfaced:</p><ul><li>Learn by doing: All students and faculty agreed the event was a valuable opportunity to apply learnings to real-world projects and to learn new technologies and skills.</li><li>Sense of worth: All the students surveyed agreed the event increased their belief they can make a difference in the world, and would participate in a similar event in the future.</li></ul><p>As one student put it, “for this project, I realized, in that environment, I was the resident expert. And it felt great to be able to contribute!”</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/06/what-is-a-hackathon.png" class="kg-image" alt="WGU Helps Community College Students Hack for the Future"><figcaption><em>Students presenting the work they did during the Hack for the Future event.</em></figcaption></figure><h2 id="what-projects-did-they-work-on">What projects did they work on?</h2><p>The students split into teams where they worked together with classmates and project managers to tackle a specific problem. Some of the skills the students used included bug testing and troubleshooting, building or testing open source code, security testing, and data analysis. The projects they worked on addressed a wide range of social and environmental causes:</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/218">A/B Street</a>: a game simulation of pedestrians, bicycles, cars, and buses using real city maps where players edit lanes and intersections to improve traffic flow.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/425">Every Voice Engaged</a>: an online platform helping citizens, governments, and nonprofit organizations solve problems that benefit from civic engagement.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/502">iSeaTree</a>: a game-play app that lets kids learn, identify, and record trees in the USA and Canada.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/81">Orcasound - Listen for Whales</a>: an open source web -app that lets users listen for whales and act to conserve them.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/356">ShelterApp</a>: an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization helping homeless and low-income families connect to social services.</li><li><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/646">The Butterfly Project</a>: a project analyzing public data and creating technology to mitigate the cumulative effects of systemic racism</li></ul><p>By empowering students to become agents of change, WGU and DemocracyLab help students from underrepresented communities gain access to the booming tech economy and to challenge ineffective power structures.</p><h2 id="where-can-i-learn-more">Where can I learn more?</h2><p>Solutions to many social and environmental problems will be driven by affected communities and empowered by tech. Shifting to online spaces allows for inclusive, global collaboration with expanding opportunities for people to contribute their talents to make a difference. Check out the resources below to learn how you can get involved.<br></p><p>Western Governors University is a nonprofit, regionally accredited online college offering over 60 degrees in Business, IT, Healthcare, and Education. Unlike traditional universities, students build on their previous knowledge and experience, and are assessed based on their competence in their chosen field. For more information, visit <a href="https://www.wgu.edu/online-degree-programs.html">their website</a>.<br></p><p>To get more involved in DemocracyLab’s projects, check out our <a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=FindEvents">upcoming events</a>. Or if you’d like to contribute long term, check out our <a href="https://www.democracylab.org/index/?section=FindProjects">projects listings</a>. Signing up for a project is easy and free.</p><p><br>If you’ve got a tech-for-good project in need of volunteers, simply <a href="https://democracylab.org/signup">create an account</a> with us, upload your project, and start recruiting!<br></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[2nd Virtual St. Hack-trick’s Day Accelerates Civic Innovation]]></title><description><![CDATA[Now a full year into virtual hackathons, we can see that the pandemic accelerated us in the direction we wanted to go, but weren’t quite brave enough to leap toward - events with no geographic bounds.]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/2nd-virtual-st-hack-tricks-day/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">606f78852892fb001ee8828d</guid><category><![CDATA[Virtual Hackathon]]></category><category><![CDATA[Civic Tech]]></category><category><![CDATA[Civic Engagement]]></category><category><![CDATA[Community]]></category><category><![CDATA[Community Engagement]]></category><category><![CDATA[Hackathon]]></category><category><![CDATA[Tech For Good]]></category><category><![CDATA[Upskill]]></category><category><![CDATA[Volunteer]]></category><category><![CDATA[Hackathon Highlights]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 14 Apr 2021 16:50:40 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/04/DL_sthacktricksday_2021_v1--2-.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3 id="one-year-later-it-s-clear-covid-can-t-stop-tech-for-good">One Year Later, It's Clear COVID Can't Stop Tech-For-Good</h3><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/04/DL_sthacktricksday_2021_v1--2-.png" alt="2nd Virtual St. Hack-trick’s Day Accelerates Civic Innovation"><p>March 3rd 2020 was our first day of Covid at DemocracyLab. Last year’s St. Hack-trick’s Day event was scheduled for the 14th, but with Seattle being the early epicenter of the outbreak we had a decision to make. We cancelled our reservation to use Code Fellows’ space and scrambled to find a way to make it all work online. You’re welcome to read our <a href="https://democracylab.ghost.io/virtual-tech-for-good-hackathon-after-action-report/">after-action report</a> to hear how it went.</p><p>Now a full year into virtual hackathons, we can see that the pandemic accelerated us in the direction we wanted to go, but weren’t quite brave enough to leap toward - events with no geographic bounds. We’re excited to now see volunteers and projects from all over the world participating in our events. With vaccination becoming a reality, we’re looking forward to meeting the challenge of resuming in person events while maintaining the virtual element.</p><h3 id="innovating-toward-citizen-created-government-technology">Innovating Toward Citizen-Created Government Technology</h3><p>Though our geographic impact is expanding, our roots are still in the Pacific Northwest and we were thrilled to have three projects associated with state and local governments represented at 2021’s version of St. Hack-trick’s Day.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/04/SHD-CiviForm.png" class="kg-image" alt="2nd Virtual St. Hack-trick’s Day Accelerates Civic Innovation"></figure><p><a href="https://democracylab.org/projects/698"><strong>CiviForm</strong></a> is a responsive web application that will be accessible to users and their Trusted Intermediaries to help streamline applications to civic discount programs. A full team of Google.org fellows are supporting the City of Seattle to build this application as Seattle provides important resources to low income residents including utility discounts and child care assistance. However, the single portal that is currently used to apply and process for these resources is very inefficient. CiviForm hopes to improve the application process by allowing residents and their Trusted Intermediaries to apply to multiple City of Seattle assistance programs without needing to re-qualify for each. Also it aims to improve the efficiency in the application review and approval process for program administrators who work for the City of Seattle.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/04/SHD-Open-Data-Streams.png" class="kg-image" alt="2nd Virtual St. Hack-trick’s Day Accelerates Civic Innovation"></figure><p><a href="https://democracylab.org/projects/705"><strong>Portland Open Data STREAMS</strong></a> uses an evaluation framework for open datasets published by the city of Portland to create a data analysis tool which provides quality assurance for datasets made available between bureaus and to the public. This project is needed as the City of Portland currently has a large amount of public data across its various agencies but accessibility to that data is low for many interested partners and the general public. </p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/04/SHD-CERB-1.png" class="kg-image" alt="2nd Virtual St. Hack-trick’s Day Accelerates Civic Innovation"></figure><p><a href="https://democracylab.org/projects/697"><strong>SimpleForm</strong></a> is going to be a centralized web application with form entry proposals for CERB clients. This  is needed as CERB provides funding to local governments and federally-recognized tribes for public infrastructure which supports private business growth and expansion. However, the current system is inefficient in terms of archiving and receiving forms. This is because CERB has to send emails to its clients with forms to be filled out and sent back.  Then, someone at CERB has to manually record this in their personal database. </p><h3 id="123-volunteers-16-projects-1-impactful-event">123 Volunteers + 16 Projects = 1 Impactful Event</h3><p>In addition, there were tech-for-good projects, including consistent contributors like Orcasound and CDP and newcomers like Civic Tech Index and Project Lockdown.</p><p>The full list of participating projects included:</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/218"><strong>A/B Street</strong></a>: A game simulating pedestrians, bikes, cars, and buses in Seattle. Players edit lanes and intersections to improve traffic flow.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/284"><strong>Accessibility Ratings</strong></a>: A crowd-sourced application for accessibility ratings will help users and organizations adopt and use more accessible applications.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/534"><strong>Civic Tech Index</strong></a>: A global index of every useful civic tech open source software project.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/698"><strong>CiviForm</strong></a>: Collaboration between the City of Seattle and Google.org to create a universal application tool to streamline benefit applications.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/145"><strong>Council Data Project</strong></a>: An entirely free and open application to make it easier to follow your local municipality's council action.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/640"><strong>DemocraticLi</strong></a>: Platform for location-based community organizing: Location-specific voting Information and discussion.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/425"><strong>EveryVoice Engaged</strong></a>: A platform that helps citizens, governments, and nonprofit organizations solve problems that benefit from effective civic engagement.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/502"><strong>iSeaTree</strong></a>: A game-play app that helps kids learn, identify, and record trees in King Co., WA. Works with USFS iTree CO2 calculator.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/486"><strong>Nonprofit Exchange Hub</strong></a>: A hub for the exchange of goods, information and connections for nonprofits of all sizes.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/111"><strong>OpenSidewalks</strong></a>: OpenSidewalks collects open (pedestrian + accessibility) data for data-driven social justice and equity analytics.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/81"><strong>Orcasound</strong></a>: An open source web-app that lets users listen for whales and act to conserve them.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/705"><strong>Portland Open Data STREAMS</strong></a>: A platform to support data preparation and data submission to publish City of Portland open datasets.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/701"><strong>Project Lockdown</strong></a>: Project Lockdown is a civic tech, interactive platform providing an overview of the state of Human and Digital Rights around the globe.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/697"><strong>SimpleForm</strong></a>: UW iSchool Capstone: assisting Community Economic Revitalization Board with a form entry system for better handling of CERB-related projects.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/639"><strong>Smart city planning</strong></a>: OSM2GMNS aims to enable a rapid creation of routable multimodal networks and demand in General Modeling Network Specification.</p><p><a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/646"><strong>The Butterfly Project</strong></a>: If we are to become a more equitable and just nation, then we must create technology to mitigate the cumulative effects of systemic racism. </p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/04/SHD-thumbsup.png" class="kg-image" alt="2nd Virtual St. Hack-trick’s Day Accelerates Civic Innovation"></figure><h3 id="abundant-positive-outcomes">Abundant Positive Outcomes</h3><p>The diverse group of designers, developers, product managers, researchers and citizens who contributed made worthwhile connections, and helped projects make progress toward their long-term goals. This positive sentiment was echoed by a post-event survey of participants, which found that:</p><ul><li>94% of respondents to our post-event survey agreed that they were satisfied with the work completed by their team.</li><li>100% of respondents said that they continue to work on their hackathon project.</li><li>94% of respondents agreed that their overall experience at St. Hack-trick's Day was excellent.</li></ul><p>We’d like to sincerely thank all 123 project leaders, volunteers and sponsors who made this event a success!</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Undebates: Making Democracy More Accessible]]></title><description><![CDATA[Undebates is a way for voters to quickly get to know candidates and for candidates to gain exposure to voters – for free! It can be deployed for elections all across the country.]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/undebates-making-democracy-accessible/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">606e2dd12892fb001ee88288</guid><category><![CDATA[Civic Tech]]></category><category><![CDATA[Hackathon]]></category><category><![CDATA[Tech For Good]]></category><category><![CDATA[Transparency]]></category><category><![CDATA[Civic Engagement]]></category><category><![CDATA[Voter Access]]></category><category><![CDATA[Elections]]></category><category><![CDATA[Virtual Debates]]></category><category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 14 Apr 2021 15:57:21 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/04/Undebates-logo.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3 id="on-demand-debate-content-demystifies-candidates">On Demand Debate Content Demystifies Candidates</h3><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/04/Undebates-logo.png" alt="Undebates: Making Democracy More Accessible"><p>Have you ever gone to vote in an election and realized that, for certain offices, you have no idea who the candidates are?  You probably know the presidential candidates, and maybe even the gubernatorial or mayoral candidates; these candidates often get lots of free media coverage, as well as donations they can use on advertising.  But what about other offices, like school board director or sheriff?  These candidates don’t get nearly as much media coverage or money for advertising, so they often fly under the radar.  If you’ve ever skipped over these offices on the ballot simply because you didn’t know who the candidates were, you’re not alone. For the candidates running for these lesser-known offices, it’s hard to be seen by voters.  The media coverage isn’t there, and social media advertising is expensive and difficult to get right. And with over 500,000 elections across the country, plenty of candidates – and voters – are not able to participate in the democratic process to their full potential. So, how do we solve this problem? Enter: Undebates.</p><p><strong><strong>How Undebates Works</strong></strong></p><p>Undebates is a way for voters to quickly get to know candidates and for candidates to gain exposure to voters – for free! It can be deployed for elections all across the country.</p><p>Undebates worked with Ballotpedia, a portal which voters already use to learn about the candidates before they vote. Ballotpedia covers elections for all federal and state offices, plus the 100 largest U.S. cities. In partnership with Ballotpedia, Undebates creates a customized link for each candidate. The link leads to a video interview which guides the candidate through several questions, the responses to which are recorded. It also gives the candidates the opportunity to rerecord their answers and review everything before posting.</p><p>After a candidate’s answers are posted, they automatically become part of the Undebate for that office, and the link to that Undebate is then included in the info page for that candidate as well as the info page for that office if more than one candidate has recorded. (On Ballotpedia, these are called “Candidate Conversations.”)</p><p>When voters access the Undebates, they look like a regular debate. But Undebates move quicker, and voters can skip candidates or questions, as well as go back and review them if need be. </p><p><strong><strong>How DemocracyLab Helped Undebates</strong></strong></p><p>The idea for Undebates came about in August of 2019, and the MVP (minimum viable product – or prototype) was ready in time for the Nov. 5, 2019 elections. The first Undebate, which involved the candidates for the San Francisco District Attorney’s race, looked like this:</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/04/Undebates-image1.png" class="kg-image" alt="Undebates: Making Democracy More Accessible"></figure><p>At the November 19 Hack To Give Thanks, hosted by DemocracyLab, the developers of Undebate worked with two designers, one of which joined the Undebates team, to improve the design. </p><p>Now the user interface looks like this: </p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/04/Undebates-image2.png" class="kg-image" alt="Undebates: Making Democracy More Accessible"></figure><p>In March, Undebates teamed up with DemocracyLab again for the 2020 St. Hack-trick's Day with the goal of improving its email campaign to invite candidates to do interviews. With the help of two volunteers, the team was able to implement email automation through Klaviyo with an email campaign that looked like this:</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/04/Undebates-image3.png" class="kg-image" alt="Undebates: Making Democracy More Accessible"></figure><p>This effort resulted in videos from two of the mayoral candidates for Onalaska, Wisconsin.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/04/Undebates-image4.png" class="kg-image" alt="Undebates: Making Democracy More Accessible"></figure><p>Through 2020, Undebates worked with volunteers from DemocracyLab, HackforLA.org, and Taprootplus.org. In the 2020 elections, 91 candidates recorded Undebates for the Nov. 3 general elections, and 67 recorded for the primary elections before that. </p><p>But the Undebates team isn’t stopping there. Plans for the future include a self-service portal where election leaders for student council, homeowners’ associations, unions, and other democratically run organizations can create their own Undebates.  Undebates also wants to support Americans with Disabilities in its user interface and by making transcriptions more accurate.<strong> </strong></p><p>Through volunteer contributions to the open-source code base, Undebates hopes to make democracy work better. The DemocracyLab team is proud to have been able to assist in such a vital goal, and we look forward to making elections more accessible for all voters in the future. Learn how you can get involved by visiting the <a href="https://www.democracylab.org/projects/281">Undebates project profile on DemocracyLab</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[iSeaTree Nurtures Community Scientists]]></title><description><![CDATA[iSeaTree used skilled volunteers from DemocracyLab to build an app that engages a community of data-informed youth in protecting trees.]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/iseatree-nurtures-community-scientists/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">60408ceab5ec73001e07fa40</guid><category><![CDATA[Tech For Good]]></category><category><![CDATA[Volunteer]]></category><category><![CDATA[Community]]></category><category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category><category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category><category><![CDATA[Education]]></category><category><![CDATA[Youth]]></category><category><![CDATA[Civic Tech]]></category><category><![CDATA[Hackathon]]></category><category><![CDATA[Virtual Hackathon]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 05 Mar 2021 17:29:38 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/03/iSeaTree-blog-cover-1.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2 id="the-treemama-s-dream-identifying-the-urban-canopy">The TreeMama's Dream - Identifying the Urban Canopy</h2><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/03/iSeaTree-blog-cover-1.png" alt="iSeaTree Nurtures Community Scientists"><p><br>Arielle Simmons-Steffen has a vision: engage a community of data-informed citizens in protecting trees, starting with the youth of North America. A self-described lifelong naturalist and former software engineer at Tableau, Arielle has worked for the Seattle government for 3.5 years, and is currently a Civil Engineer with Seattle Public Utilities. In 2020, she learned that a tree survey internship program run by the city had been cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns. That's when she realized that the software the youth program had been planning to use had no universal mobile interface. Thus, the idea for iSeaTree was born. Simmons-Steffen originally pitched the idea for the app to the Seattle government for funding, but when the coronavirus pandemic hit, there was understandably little room in Seattle Public Utilities' budget for anything beyond helping citizens keep the water on. Simmons-Steffen turned to DemocracyLab’s volunteer network to help get the app off the ground.</p><p>Simmons-Steffen credits DemocracyLab as being a “critical infrastructure piece” in the development of the app. The iSeaTree team participated in two of DemocracyLab's bi-monthly public hackathons and was able to add three long-term junior developers to their crew. The team then participated in our <a href="https://blog.democracylab.org/how-amazon-hacked-for-good/">Hack for Good event with Amazon</a> in December. Through the Amazon hackathon, the junior developers were able to work with and get advice from seasoned Amazon employees, which Simmons-Steffen is grateful for. “DemocracyLab helped us build our core dream,” Simmons-Steffen said. “You came in at the perfect time.” iSeaTree is now in its second version and is racing toward version 3 in time for tree-measuring season in the spring.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/03/50676417046_20d2d619f5_o.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="iSeaTree Nurtures Community Scientists"><figcaption><em>A young conservationist in the field</em></figcaption></figure><h3 id="how-iseatree-works"><br>How iSeaTree Works</h3><p>iSeaTree is available for free on iOS and Android and is designed for all ages and skill levels. Users simply record information about the trees they find, such as species and diameter at breast height (DBH), and then are rewarded with special badges and fun facts about the tree species. For those who are new to tree surveying, the iSeaTree online forum can help with species identification. Simmons-Steffen connected the mobile interface to the U.S. Forest Service <a href="https://www.itreetools.org/">iTree API</a>, allowing users to access tree benefit calculations while in-field, as well as save the data they collect.</p><p> Simmons-Steffen’s primary goal with iSeaTree is to develop a smart, young usership that’s interested in learning manual tree identification, and not just relying on machine learning algorithms (which are often wrong and still require correction). What better way to engage a young population and make remote learning fun than by making it a game? Simmons-Steffen wants the data collectors using iSeaTree to be just as rewarded as the people using the data, and the iSeaTree team is currently working on expanding gameplay for future versions of the app. Simmons-Steffen particularly hopes to increase usership, especially among students and educators. Now that the app is functional in the United States and Canada, she hopes to see usership expand geographically as well.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/03/iSeaTree-app-screenshots-2.png" class="kg-image" alt="iSeaTree Nurtures Community Scientists"><figcaption><em>Screenshots from the iSeaTree app</em></figcaption></figure><h3 id="the-future-of-iseatree"> <br>The Future of iSeaTree	</h3><p>Beyond expanding usership of the app, Simmons-Steffen hopes to partner with an established conservation agency to further the growth and adoption of the tool. Her philosophy is that an engaged population is more vital than the data collection itself, and she hopes that other companies and projects will adopt this mindset for their products. </p><p>Interested in helping with iSeaTree’s product, business, and community development?  You can visit Simmon-Steffen’s Tree Mama blog <a href="https://treemama.org/">here</a> or iSeaTree’s <a href="https://www.democracylab.org/index/?section=AboutProject&amp;id=502">profile</a> on DemocracyLab and help build a dedicated community of tree surveyors.</p><p><em>Story by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kailey-miller-554a62206/">Kailey Miller</a></em></p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[How Amazon Hacked for Good]]></title><description><![CDATA[Amazon's Self Service Performance Ads team strengthened their culture and boosted employee enthusiasm through a virtual tech-for-good hackathon. ]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/how-amazon-hacked-for-good/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">601a050d38ab2b001ebf0d09</guid><category><![CDATA[Tech For Good]]></category><category><![CDATA[Partner Highlights]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Wed, 03 Feb 2021 08:30:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/02/Does-Amazon-Give-Back.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3 id="engaging-employees-for-social-impact-advances-corporate-goals">Engaging Employees for Social Impact Advances Corporate Goals</h3><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2021/02/Does-Amazon-Give-Back.png" alt="How Amazon Hacked for Good"><p>Few companies have impacted our world as significantly as Amazon. On December 10th and 11th, 2020 Amazon's <a href="https://advertising.amazon.com/en-gb/solutions/objectives/performance-advertising">Self Service Performance Ads</a> (SSPA) team participated in a <a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=CorporateEvent">virtual tech-for-good hackathon</a> where they devoted their time and talents to making a positive impact in communities near and far. 52 Amazonians from around the world worked in teams to drive significant progress for a cohort of innovative tech-for-good projects. It was a win for the projects, for the employees, and for Amazon.</p><!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><ul>
<li>90% of project leaders reported making significant progress at the event</li>
<li>92% of employees agreed the event was a rewarding volunteer experience</li>
<li>73% of employees said the event increased their enthusiasm for working at Amazon</li>
<li>83% of employees said DemocracyLab provided an excellent environment and structure for the event</li>
</ul>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--><blockquote>“At Amazon, we are continually looking for ways to achieve more with less, and work hard to raise the bar for customer experience. DemocracyLab provided us with an impactful way to use our skills to help non-profits achieve more, and contribute to improving the experience of their customers. It was time well spent – fun, impactful, and important.” </blockquote><p>– Colleen Aubrey, Senior Vice President - Advertising Products and Tech, Amazon<br></p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/64lkLOHxc8ohcXf7PTNkiQ930tQDB_TEuMEwq2NOhNoTzZdxiiWCQS1R5Ne0Wz8R8YVBuajgmsN1OfA8uBYKn8cEPY3sFLCx9mdUuzVqtFynYacj2FcbPS7AZxJfrmp5ixIHZwo9" class="kg-image" alt="How Amazon Hacked for Good"><figcaption><em>DemocracyLab’s Mark Frischmuth outlines the event agenda for a group of project leaders and Amazonians.</em></figcaption></figure><h2 id="how-hackathons-empower-employees">How "Hackathons" Empower Employees </h2><p>One of the first questions we often receive is “exactly what is a hackathon?”<strong> </strong>so we actually wrote <a href="https://blog.democracylab.org/hackathon/">an article about this</a>! In short, it is when a group of volunteers band together under one roof - in this case, a virtual workspace - and work collectively on design and technical projects. DemocracyLab’s hackathons are different from most. Projects and participants are encouraged to work collaboratively rather than competitively, and focus exclusively on technology projects that advance the public good. </p><p>Countless studies have found that employees don’t just want to work, they want to engage in activities that make a positive impact on the world. A <a href="http://pwc.blogs.com/files/future-of-work-report-1.pdf">recent PwC survey</a> found that 65% of people across various countries “want to work for an organization with a strong social conscience. Companies that promote active corporate volunteer programs see higher employee morale and a healthier, more energetic culture.” Additionally, a <a href="https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/company-culture/2018/companies-volunteering-culture">LinkedIn study</a> noted that “while establishing employee volunteer programs is an obvious way for companies to give back to their communities and build their brands, there’s an additional benefit: volunteer programs are a powerful engagement and retention tool. In fact, when employees feel connected to their company’s giving and volunteering efforts, turnover drops by an average of 57%.” Furthermore, the study found that 79% of candidates “would prefer to work for a socially responsible company.”</p><p>The benefits of organized volunteerism don’t stop at employee morale and retention, though. They go all the way to the bottom line. A recent <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/culture-of-purpose.html">Deloitte case study</a> found that 91% of respondents (executives and employees) who said their company had a strong sense of purpose also said their company had a history of strong financial performance.</p><p>Amazon has repeatedly shown itself to be a leader in finding ways to empower its employees to change the world, because they realize the importance of doing so. One of those ways was partnering with DemocracyLab on an internal Hackathon with their SSPA team.</p><h2 id="which-projects-did-the-amazon-sspa-team-work-on">Which projects did the Amazon SSPA team work on?</h2><p>For the Amazon SSPA Hack for Good event, members of the DemocracyLab team vetted projects that were interested in participating, then selected projects that were a good match for the interests and skills of the Amazon engineers, managers, designers and user experience professionals that were participating. Members of the Amazon SSPA team were then matched with projects based on their interest and the scope of work each project articulated.</p><!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><ul>
<li><a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=AboutProject&amp;id=218">A/B Street</a>: A game simulating pedestrians, bikes, cars, and buses in Seattle. Players edit lanes and intersections to improve traffic flow.</li>
<li><a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=AboutProject&amp;id=149">Banana App</a>: A location-based food donation app system for imperfect food.</li>
<li><a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=AboutProject&amp;id=425">Every Voice Engaged</a>: A platform that helps citizens, governments, and nonprofit organizations solve problems that benefit from effective civic engagement.</li>
<li><a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=AboutProject&amp;id=528">Fire Refuge</a>: Fire response project to help evacuees find temporary overnight lodging.</li>
<li><a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=AboutProject&amp;id=502">iSeaTree</a>: A game-play app that helps kids learn, identify, and record trees in King Co., WA. Works with USFS iTree CO2 calculator.</li>
<li><a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=AboutProject&amp;id=111">OpenSidewalks</a>: Collects open data relating to pedestrian accessibility for data-driven social justice and equity analytics.</li>
<li><a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=AboutProject&amp;id=81">Orcasound</a>: An open source web-app that lets users listen for whales and act to conserve them.</li>
<li><a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=AboutProject&amp;id=356">ShelterApp/Strappd</a>: A nonprofit organization helping homeless and low-income families connect to services.</li>
<li><a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=AboutProject&amp;id=227">Turn The Bus:</a> An Open edX-based app for video-based learning for students in India. The app provides tools to motivate students to learn, such as a leaderboard, badges, points and other online incentives.</li>
</ul>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/NC-VSt6wWkmsOhe_zjXAuhw_OUb5Az7I-C_-1x41KbFpK01DK7iY4tIILrwstsCrKCsG4Of9XmJWHQhd3z753tsbDegj1v_b9eW1KN51TBR7Y4QiG8Z1TbTJdLKkLoV9igRjF2Tu" class="kg-image" alt="How Amazon Hacked for Good"><figcaption><em>Bratati Ghosh of Turn the Bus introduces an ecomm page mockup the volunteers created over the span of two days. Ghosh hopes to build a donation arm of the edtech website to sell crafts created by students’ parents.</em></figcaption></figure><p></p><h2 id="how-did-it-go">How did it go?</h2><p>Very well! Thanks to well-prepared project leaders and passionate and hardworking Amazon employees, the event resulted in immediate and tangible progress. Here are some interesting additional stats from the participants, gathered by survey after the hackathon:</p><!--kg-card-begin: markdown--><ul>
<li>100% of project leaders said that the quality of work they accomplished was significantly greater than at previous hackathons in which they had participated</li>
<li>60% of project leaders said that the quantity of work they accomplished was significantly greater than at previous hackathons</li>
<li>92% of employees said the lineup of participating projects was excellent</li>
<li>92% of employee agreed that project leaders were well prepared and easy to work with</li>
<li>83% of employees said they made meaningful contributions to the project they worked on</li>
<li>75% of employees  stated they would love to participate in a hack-for-good event again</li>
<li>75% of employees said the event increased their belief they could make a positive impact in the world</li>
<li>50% of the Amazon employees who worked on projects during the hackathon said they intend to continue to work on the projects</li>
</ul>
<!--kg-card-end: markdown--><h2 id="hack-with-us-">Hack with Us!</h2><p>The DemocracyLab platform features over 130 tech-for-good projects in various stages of development. In addition to corporate events, DemocracyLab convenes <a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=FindEvents">public tech-for good hackathons</a> every other month. Over the past two years, DemocracyLab has held 15 public hackathons, engaging more than 1,500 volunteers and 200 tech-for-good projects. Hackathons have become an important program in our mission to empower people who use technology to advance the public good. Through our platform and programs we harness the powers of civic engagement and collective intelligence to create projects that have real, immediate and lasting impact. The DemocracyLab platform makes it easy to discover projects, match skill sets, and create teams.</p><p><strong>Browse</strong> the DemocracyLab project catalogue <a href="https://www.democracylab.org/index/?section=FindProjects">here</a>—signing up for a project is quick and easy! </p><h2 id="harness-the-power-of-corporate-hackathons-for-your-business-">Harness the power of Corporate Hackathons for your business!</h2><p>Corporate hackathons are a perfect way to strengthen employee satisfaction by giving employees an opportunity to leverage their unique skills while improving their communities and the world. It’s a win-win for everybody! If you are interested in learning more about the value of Corporate Hackathons, visit <a href="https://www.democracylab.org/index/?section=CorporateEvent">this page</a> or <a href="https://democracylab.org/index/?section=ContactUs">contact us</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Mayo App - Creating Purposeful, Supportive, In-Person relationships beyond Screens]]></title><description><![CDATA[Learn now about the app helping people fight isolation. Want someone to sing to you from their balcony? You want Mayo. ]]></description><link>https://blog.democracylab.org/mayo-app-in-person-help/</link><guid isPermaLink="false">5fa37bee7e536f001e032fa6</guid><category><![CDATA[Tech For Good]]></category><category><![CDATA[Hack to Give Thanks]]></category><category><![CDATA[Mayo App]]></category><dc:creator><![CDATA[DemocracyLab]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Tue, 17 Nov 2020 10:00:00 GMT</pubDate><media:content url="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2020/11/Mayo-Image.png" medium="image"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<h2 id="fighting-social-isolation-in-2020-and-beyond-one-in-person-connection-at-a-time"><br>Fighting Social Isolation in 2020 and Beyond, one In-Person Connection at a Time</h2><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2020/11/Mayo-Image.png" alt="The Mayo App - Creating Purposeful, Supportive, In-Person relationships beyond Screens"><p><br>In an era filled with digital relationships and social isolation, physical in-person communications with neighbors and local strangers seem to be a thing of the past.  Ironically, the people that can help the quickest when we are in any trouble are the people physically closest to us.  Technology can get us personally connected to many strangers internationally, but the team at Mayo believes that one thing that technology should be helping us do more of is to connect with strangers within our close physical presence through helping each other.</p><p><br>Mayo is an app built and marketed by 20 people and the <a href="http://heroictogether.com/">Heroic Together Community</a>.  Headquartered in Seattle and founded in 2018 by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/allen-chan-9582276/">Allen Chan</a>, a designer that formerly worked at Microsoft and Amazon.  Chan’s app went on to be selected for the Third WTIA Founder Cohort and praised in Millennial Moderator for its small area focus and unique model which in turn makes <a href="https://millennialmoderator.com/this-app-helps-you-help-others#fold">“the accountability of users...much higher, and the sense of interacting and being able to see real people heightens.”</a> The Millennial Moderator also adds that what Mayo does for its users can help them develop communication skills necessary for interactions in college, at work, and in their industry.</p><h2 id="how-to-get-and-give-help-with-mayo"><br>How to get and give help with Mayo</h2><p><br>Mayo’s mission is summed up as the following on their ProductHunt.com page: “Help your community. Feel Happier.”  The app itself is very user-friendly; all someone needs to do is post a request or offer for help; this can be anything such as looking for a lost wallet, asking for help on a college assignment, borrowing a charger, ask directions, or even saying you just want to spend time with someone.  People with a 2-block radius would reply within an hour and can work out the details via the texting feature within the app. This straightforward use removes social barriers and makes introductions easy.  Additionally, there no need to sign-up for an account or set up a profile, and the app offers ‘Kudos points’ for future rewards.  Similar to Uber, users of Mayo can also review the experience of those providing assistance.</p><figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/democracylab-blog/2020/11/image.png" class="kg-image" alt="The Mayo App - Creating Purposeful, Supportive, In-Person relationships beyond Screens"></figure><h2 id="mayo-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-beyond"><br>Mayo during the Coronavirus Pandemic and Beyond</h2><p><br>Chan encourages people in communities to invite them to use the app and to spread the word online and in-person wherever possible, in addition to sharing positive “Mayo Moments” of people using the app.  As the app is very useful in high-population environments, Chan has considered integrating the platform in meet-up environments and universities.  In the meantime, Chan and his team are continuously improving the app to increase genuine real-world connections for people.</p><p><br>Mayo is also taking steps to be of assistance during the Coronavirus Pandemic. They share articles on <a href="https://www.heymayo.com/blog">their blog</a> on how to ask for help, and how to help others while also staying safe.   </p><p><em>“...Some people are desperately hungry. Some people cannot afford medical treatment. Most people are living paycheck-to-paycheck. These are the 'overlooked' who are most affected by this global pandemic. Now is the time to stop, reflect, and offer help to those who need it the most.”  </em></p><p>The team at Mayo developed an app to create a positive social impact on others; now is the time where people need those positive social impacts the most.</p><p><br>Interested in helping with Mayo’s product, business, and community development?  You can contact them via <a href=" https://www.democracylab.org/index/?section=AboutProject&amp;id=387">this link</a> and contribute to a world where it’s easy for people to ask and provide help.  </p><p><br>Join us at our <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hack-to-give-thanks-2020-tickets-120636676547">Hack To Give Thanks</a> this upcoming November 21 to help projects just like Mayo!</p>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>