This weekend we’re bringing together a group of Boston-area residents interested in bridging the gap between community and technology. Tons of opportunities for technology innovation are identified by various groups working for the City of Boston (or by community organizations), but budgets are tight and most software developers are working for software companies, not city governments.
That’s where you come in. If you have a useful skill-set (developers, designers, librarians, or statisticians) or represent a community group (after-school programs, social services, community gardens, etc.) then please come and join us to share how you think technology and data could help the City of Boston and it’s residents solve actual problems.
So far this year our team at Code for America has been working hand in hand with the City of Boston to try and find datasets and application ideas that we think the community has more of a capacity to build upon than the city itself.
Some examples include:
- Real time school bus locations for every Boston Public School parent
- A well designed online catalog to help parents discover eligible public schools
- Up to the minute GPS feeds from every food truck in Boston
- Daily, detailed crime reports from Boston Police Department
- Multiple mapping layers: restaurants, bakeries, parks, social services, etc.
I personally have been very impressed with how forward thinking the Mayor Menino’s Office has been with regard to the future of technology in Boston. If you want a chance to meet like-minded citizens, as well as representatives from local government (who have lots of data!), then come out to Boston College this Saturday.
