The Smart Chicago Collaborative is proud to announce the launch of Roll With Me – an app that gives transit directions for the those who use wheelchairs.
Launch
mRelief: Mobilizing social service relief in Chicago
Last week marked the launch of mRelief, a site that simplifies the social service qualifying process with an easy-to-use form that can be accessed online and through SMS. Residents can check to see if they’re eligible for a variety of programs including food stamps, medicaid, WIC, and more. Here’s the press release by mRelief creators on day of launch.
mRelief is made by an all-woman team hailing from different backgrounds and walks of life dedicated to making an impact with technology. Smart Chicago has supported mRelief under our CivicWorks Project funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
mRelief is already deployed at the Martin Luther King Jr Community Services Center. The Community Service Centers are run by the City of Chicago’s Department of Family and Support Services. DFSS Community Service Centers help individuals and families in need access a wide range of resources from shelter, food and clothing to domestic violence assistance, job training/placement and services for the formerly incarcerated. Staff members are using mRelief to help streamline the process of evaluating their eligibility. The mRelief team has also partnered with Purple Binder to refer residents to other useful local resources if they are ineligible for public assistance.
The Launch of Chicago Localwiki
Today we’re stoked to announce the launch of Chicago’s LocalWiki, an online hyperlocal encyclopedia that anyone can edit. There are already several cities with LocalWiki including Oakland, Ann Arbor, and Santa Cruz.
In order to launch LocalWiki in Chicago, we partnered with the Chicago Public Library and local writer Mairead Case. As you explore the wiki, you’ll definitely notice a literary bent.
Right now, the Chicago LocalWiki is seeded with information about local writers, places, and books that have a Chicago connection. However, this is only the beginning for LocalWiki. Because LocalWikis can be edited by anyone, there’s a huge opportunity for people to write about the rich history of their own neighborhoods. Signing up is easy and you’ll be helping people learn more about our great city. LocalWiki also has an API. We’ll also be hosting write-a-thons at Chicago Public Library locations to help fill out the LocalWiki.
This project is part of our CivicWorks Project – program funded by the Knight Foundation and the Chicago Community Trust to spur support civic innovation in Chicago. The program will produce 200 content pieces, 5 apps that solve government problems, and 5 apps that solve community problems.
Crime and Punishment Release Party at FreeGeekChicago
A couple weeks ago we had a party to celebrate our shared work with FreeGeek Chicago on the Crime and Punishment in Chicago project. During the event, we heard from the people on the project team and got feedback on how the project can become even more helpful for community members, journalists, and policymakers.
I’m particularly proud of this project, because it takes a hard look at the gaping data holes we have in seeing the full cycle of crime in our city. I am very proud of the large cache of crime reports available on the City data portal, but I am mindful that we seem to be no closer in having a true understanding of the system.
In my work at EveryBlock, I was responsible for finding crime data in cities all over the country. It gave me a great window into the day-to-day reality of the data and the differences in what’s published. When we had the opportunity to partner with Tracy Siska of the Chicago Justice Project as the main subject matter expert, and the community-based developers like Brian Peterson of the FreeGeek Chicago’s Supreme Chi-Town Coding Crew, I knew we had something special.
On the launch of Crime and Punishment in Chicago
Smart Chicago Collaborative is proud to launch our latest Civic Works Project: Crime and Punishment in Chicago. This project is a collaborative effort among Smart Chicago, FreeGeekChicago, and the Chicago Justice Project.
The Crime and Punishment in Chicago project provides an index of data sources regarding the criminal justice system in Chicago. We aggregate sources of data, how this data is generated, how to get it, and what data is unavailable. This project is a key way we are using the Civic Works grant to use data journalism to uncover the value of data and cover the stories behind the data.
The Launch of Chicago Health Atlas
Today we’re happy to announce the launch of our latest project, the Chicago Health Atlas, where you can view citywide information about health trends and take action near you to improve your own health.
You can read all about the making of the Chicago Health Atlas on our project page. It’s quite a story of collaboration. We pulled sprawling amounts of city-wide health data into a cohesive view of health near you.
- It all starts with Otho S.A. Sprague Memorial Institute, the project funder, and Jim Alexander, the Institute’s Executive Director and the conceptual leader behind the project
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We worked with Abel Kho and some of the largest providers of health care in Chicago to develop tools which balanced the need for anonymity of patients and providers, while preserving uniqueness of patients. Read more about their work here
- Eric Jones and Jamyia Clark of the Chicago Department of Public Health have been instrumental in shepherding the CDPH data into the Atlas— explaining the data, advising on presentation, and generally acting as an intermediary between the Web development and health informatics sides of the project. He also presents the project to the health science community at places like the 2013 Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists Annual Meeting
Read more about data sources on the Chicago Health Atlas About page.
On the Smart Chicago side, Program Officer Kyla Williams oversees all of our health initiatives and has been a great leader. Long-time consultant Derek Eder of Data Made has been essential to the success of this project. His deep experience with mapping Chicago things has been a huge natural resource. Aaron Salmon of Auraworks is the design lead for this project.
Patrice Coleman is our Project Coordinator in charge of outreach. Want to take part? Let’s do it.
