Ecosystem

Smart Chicago provides programs and convenings on supporting the development of the civic innovation sector of the technology industry. We also create our own applications that make lives better in Chicago through technology. Here's a chapter of the Code for America book, "Beyond Transparency" that lays out the Chicago civic innovation ecosystem in some detail.

Access

We work to increase access to ideas, data, and technology for all Chicago residents while leading the nation.

Skills

We run programs that help developers all over the country learn their craft and push policy forward.

Data

We provide free technology infrastructure that helps developers create new websites & build the industry.

Complete list of projects under our Ecosystem program

Array of Things Civic Engagement

Array of Things Civic Engagement is a series of community meetings to discuss the Array of Things project and introduce concepts around how the Internet of Things can benefit communities. Our partners for this project is the University of Chicago and their Urban Center for Computation and Data (Urban CCD) , a research initiative of the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory .  Urban CCD runs Array of Things . Here's how they...
Chicago School of Data

Chicago School of Data

There is a Chicago School of Data emerging—one that places data at the service of the people. The Smart Chicago Collaborative has been researching Chicago people & organizations who do this work. Over 200 organizations have already added their voice and described their use of data. We conducted the Chicago School of Data Days conference to meet & share with each other. You can see lots of documentation of our conference in recorded sessions , shared meeting notes , and images . ...
Cook County Open Data

Cook County Open Data

The Smart Chicago Collaborative has a partnership with the Cook County Bureau of Technology to assist them in the creation and publication of open data in the context of the County's Open Government Plan Ordinance  and Open Government Plan . To see more about the genesis of this project, see the blog post, "On our Partnership with Cook County to Expand Open Data ". HowTo One of the core principles of Smart Chicago is openness. This extends beyond the details of the work we do and into a br...
CUTGroup

CUTGroup

The CUTGroup is a community of nearly 1,500 residents in Chicago and all of Cook County who get paid to test websites and apps to help create better technology. In Chicago, we have reached people from all over the city-- all 50 wards, all 77 community areas. We continue to do outreach in Cook County to grow our diverse group of testers. The premise is simple: Fill out a CUTGroup profile and sign up to be a tester, and we’ll send you a $5 VISA gift card If and when you are chosen for a t...
Developer Resources

Developer Resources

As a central part of Ecosystem work, Smart Chicago offers free developer resources for qualifying projects. All of our offerings— things like web hosting, text tools, map hosting, and user testing— are designed to stimulate the civic innovation sector of the technology industry to serve the needs of the people. Here's what we've got: Web hosting and configuration  on Amazon Web Services , Heroku ,and Mapbox . We also have Compose.io , which includes MongoDB, Elasticsearch, RethinkDB, and Redis....
Documenters

Documenters

Our Documenters program is an essential tool for us to add new thinkers, generate ideas, and expand the field for civic tech. Christopher Whitaker , a longtime former consultant to Smart Chicago, was our original documenter. We trained, equipped, and edited him for more than three years. We worked with him to develop our livestreaming program , test new equipment and methods , and spread knowledge in the sphere. Read a collection of his work in The @CivicWhitaker Anthology . As...
Open Grid for Smart Cities

Open Grid for Smart Cities

Open Grid for Smart Cities (also known as OpenGrid AMI on the AWS Marketplace) is an interactive, map-based platform to explore publicly-available open data sets in an easy-to-use-interface. OpenGrid enables municipalities to offer residents, businesses and communities a better way to interact with public data. Users can perform advanced queries to filter data and search within custom boundaries or based on the user's location. This project builds on our previous investments in OpenGrid , an...