Today we’re pleased to announce the selection the City of Chicago as one of 2012 city partners. We’re especially excited because next year we’ll be working with Chicago to deploy Open311, which will help the city become more efficient, open and responsive.
“The City of Chicago is breaking ground every day, increasing efficiency and delivering services in innovative ways,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a statement. “Open311 is long overdue and something we should pursue. Through this important project, Code for America will help modernize the way service requests are received, executed and tracked, and better serve Chicagoans.”
Across the country, governments have been adopting a common standard for 311 reporting known as “Open311,” which means that applications built on 311 data anywhere can be used everywhere. The City of Chicago has requested that the Code for America fellows deploy this “Open311” standard in Chicago, which would open up access to dozens of web and mobile applications that would essentially revolutionize the way Chicagoans make service requests to the city. Through “Open311,” Chicagoans would be able to easily track the status of their requests, and city officials will be allowed to monitor these requests more efficiently and respond more quickly.
The project will kick off in January 2012, and til then, we’re looking for community input on how to make the project successful. Please share your ideas on Chicago’s project page: http://codeforamerica.org/chicago