Hack for LA

Thank you so much to everyone who made Hack for LA an incredible success, and who helped create the momentum that brought Hack for LA representatives to DC! About 150 people from across the country were invited to the White House on Wednesday July 23 to be recognized for their efforts in promoting open government and civic hacking. This included seven "champions of change" who were recognized for their work as civic hackers, and over 20 projects who were recognized by being invited to attend and participate, including our very own Urban Fruit.ly!

The first part of the event was a morning session where we heard from DC leaders including Todd Park, the White House’s Chief Technology Officer.  In the afternoon participants split up into smaller groups for workshops on topics ranging from scaling local innovations to other cities to the role of mobile technology in civic innovation. One team member from Urban Fruit.ly wandered into the Office of the First Lady to suggest collaborating on urban gardening apps!

Intel made an exciting announcement at the event - they will be starting an Innovation Pipeline to support the development of selected projects started by civic hackers at the National Day of Civic Hacking, with the aim of helping turn them into viable businesses and applications through access to coaching, analytics, funders, and more. Intel is partnering with SecondMuse on this effort, who will be reaching out to dozens of projects over the coming weeks! Projects will be selected based on a variety of criteria that is currently being refined and will be announced as well.

Hack for LA organizers Lilly Kam (i.am.angel Foundation) and Catherine Geanuracos (New Economy Campaigns) as well as one of our sponsors, Shevy Magen from CGI, also participated in the event. We met civic hackers from across the country, and are already working on some ideas to bring civic apps from other cities to LA, and share our ideas with other cities.

You can watch the video of the morning event here.