Meet the inaugural class of the Code for America Accelerator.
Aunt Bertha // Captricity // LearnSprout // Measured Voice
MindMixer // Recovers // Revelstone
Aunt Bertha picks up where Uncle Sam left off by simplifying the search and application process for social services. We collect information on federal, state, county, city, neighborhood and nonprofit programs and put it all in one place. In just a few seconds, users can enter basic information and find programs relevant to their needs. Currently, Aunt Bertha has rolled out this search service to the State of Texas (roughly 1/12 of the American population) and is preparing to scale nationwide. More than 17,000 people have used AuntBertha.com.
Get to know Aunt Bertha // http://auntbertha.com // founders[@]auntbertha.com
“As a parole officer working with ex-offenders, it can be exceptionally difficult to find resources. Aunt Bertha has been a great tool that allows people to find help for themselves and often, support their family’s needs as well!”
– Erin McGann, Texas Department of Criminal Justice
“I have been involved in both the philanthropic and delivery side of social services for over 30 years. Nothing has come close to Aunt Bertha’s solution-based ideas and implementation.”
– Sara Speer Selber, Former CEO of AIDS Foundation Houston
Aunt Bertha on the Accelerator:
Since joining the Code for America Accelerator, the number of weekly visitors has jumped 62 percent and people are spending 49 percent more time on the platform on average, per visit.
“We’re launched in Texas, which is 1/12 of the American population. Code for America helped make the connections we will need to expand our service to the rest of the country and we’re on track to do it in 2013.”
– Erine Gray, Founder and CEO of Aunt Bertha
Why is Aunt Bertha coding for America? Find out.
Captricity is an award-winning Berkeley, CA-based technology startup that offers a completely self-serve data entry service for digitizing paper forms. We can get data off of paper and into a digital spreadsheet quickly and cheaply, taking care of the data entry so you don’t have to! We’re not an optical character recognition (OCR) service. We provide human-quality data entry that works on hand-writing — but at a fraction of what manual data entry costs.
Get to know Captricity // http://captricity.com // cusdev[@]captricity.com
“There is a gold mine of this important information which is virtually impossible to really use because it’s on paper, or at best, scans of paper forms. Captricity unlocks that data and allows us to offer it to the public in a digital, machine-readable format. It allows us to further our mission and keep the public genuinely more informed.”
– Ann Ravel, Commission Chair of the Fair Political Practices Commission of California
Captricity on the Accelerator:
Over the course of the Accelerator, Captricity began working with the FPPC, received funding from the Knight Foundation, and launched an iOS mobile app, a suite of cloud integrations including Salesforce, Box, Dropbox, and Constant Contact, an open data portal, and a self-signup pay-as-you-go API.
The Accelerator enabled numerous civic contacts and ongoing discussions in the government space.
“From Captricity’s early days, we thought that the technology’s ability to capture and digitize data from paper forms would be extremely useful in governments. However, we knew very little about how governments worked and had no contacts in the civic space. Code for America has given us the knowledge, understanding, and contacts we need to better support the work of civic leaders across the country.”
– Kuang Chen, CEO of Captricity
Why is Captricity coding for America? Find out.
LearnSprout brings interoperability and accessibility to school data. We build tools to access the valuable data (e.g. roster info, grades, attendance) currently silo-ed away in legacy student information systems used across US K12. We’re creating a web API service that allows developers to build classroom apps that leverage this data, without the expensive enterprise-like vendor integration process. Lack of easy access to school data stifles innovation in the education space and creates unnecessary cost, time, and risk for both schools and app makers. We want to change this.
Get to know LearnSprout // http://learnsprout.com // founders[@]learnsprout.com
“LearnSprout took just a few minutes to set up and eliminated the hassle of integrating with our PowerSchool student information system. It’s been refreshingly simple and reliable.”
– Mike Teng, Director of Instructional Technology at Rocketship Education
LearnSprout on the Accelerator:
“I’ve been amazed by how quickly things have taken off since joining Code for America. An API can be difficult to explain because it’s invisible and unknown to those who benefit the most, but our mentors at Code for America have shared some ingenious ideas that have had a dramatic and immediate impact. Needless to say, we are reluctant graduates. We’d do it again if we could.”
– Frank Chien, Co-Founder of LearnSprout
Why is LearnSprout coding for America? Find out.
Measured Voice (MV) is a web-based social media management system (SMMS) designed to help government organizations create, publish, and measure social media content. Measured Voice helps users manage multiple social media accounts, enact publishing workflow, delineate team roles, and measure results and team performance through a simple interface.
Get to know Measured Voice // http://measuredvoice.com // founders@measuredvoice.com
Measured Voice on the Accelerator:
“The Code for America Accelerator has been invaluable. It’s introduced us to experienced mentors who have helped us create a world-class product. We’ve also been able to get feedback on our product from dozens of people working in government throughout the country.”
– Jed Sundwall, Co-Founder of Measured Voice
Why is Measured Voice coding for America? Find out.
MindMixer is an engagement tool that activates community contributors. Ideas, voices, and perspectives are shared to facilitate deeper conversations that yield actionable insights. The tool has helped create a network of contributors in more than 250 organizations around the country.
Get to know MindMixer // http://mindmixer.com // founder[@]mindmixer.com
“The MindMixer site has been incredible for the City of Omaha and its citizens. In the first 24 hours of the site being live, we received more ideas than we had in the previous year of the Mayor’s administration.”
– Nikola Jordan, Deputy Director for the mayor of Omaha
MindMixer on the Accelerator:
“MindMixer is thrilled to be working with Code for America as we share their passion to improve the way citizens communicate and interact with their government.”
– MindMixer CEO, Nick Bowden
Why is MindMixer coding for America? Find out.
We’re building a toolkit for community powered disaster recovery. Our disaster response platform at [townname].recovers.org incorporates searchable databases, social media aggregation, and mobile tools, allowing grassroots organizers to efficiently marshal resources in their area. We can launch a site for an affected area in minutes, or set up an area with preparedness software and training. This allows an area to turn the wave of interest into a database of usable resources, even if their internet is knocked out for a week.
Get to know Recovers // http://recovers.org // founders[@]recovers.org
“We did not already have Recovers in place before the disaster, and while the learning curve on their system is very simple, it would have been immensely beneficial if we had put their program in place before a disaster. If there’s ever another disaster in your area, the very first person I would call would be Caitria and the recovers team and one of the first things I would focus on would be implementing their site and systems into the community recovery effort from the very beginning.”
– Cooper Taylor, Community Outreach Director for cLife Church in Forney, Texas
Recovers on the Accelerator:
“A disaster touches everyone in the community, and believe that everyone should be able to participate in the recovery effort. But to be able to do so safely, efficiently, and effectively, they need tools and marching orders. We’ve built our platform specifically for people who aren’t prepared to manage resources. Code for America has helped us refine these tools, and deliver them to preparing communities. In just a few months, they’ve taken us from goodhearted idea, to technology company.”
– Caitria O’Neill, CEO of Recovers
Revelstone is a performance metrics and social networking company for the public sector. We are building an online virtual community that enables local government leaders to measure, compare, and discuss operational performance results with their peers in order to learn from each other to improve. Our product, Compass, is the first and only SAAS-based platform that leverages both performance management and social media technologies to achieve this goal.
Get to know Revelstone // http://revelstonelabs.com // founders[@]revelstonelabs.com
“We are convinced the Revelstone strategy of organizing, storing, and sharing data with so many communities will be extremely valuable to mayors across the country. The platform’s benchmarking capabilities are advantageous to elected officials because it allows them to provide residents with a clear explanation about why a certain change makes sense both financially and in terms of benefits to the entire community. Any time an elected official can relate empirical statistical data to residents it provides a factual and historical rationale for why any type of change or project makes sense, and that the decision was not indiscriminately reached on a whim.”
– Dave Fried, Mayor of the Robbinsville, New Jersey Township
Revelstone on the Accelerator:
“Code for America is inspiring a government innovation movement and as part of that is working with Revelstone to ensure citizens are living in efficient and well-run cities and towns. The CfA Accelerator has helped to turbo-charge our business with advice, national awareness, introductions to the technology elite of Silicon Valley and nurturing potential investment opportunities.”
– Ken Wolf, CEO of Revelstone
Why is Revelstone coding for America? Find out.
