City Camp-NC Open Pass to focus on open data and economic development

Now in its seventh year, CityCamp NC, part of NC Open Pass, is proof that the civic tech and open government scene in the Triangle is alive and vibrant.

CityCamp NC is an annual civic tech event that brings citizens, government change agents, and businesses together to openly innovate and improve our communities.

The event begins Thursday evening at 5:30, Sept. 28 with the first ever, mega lighting talk and continues with 5-minute lightning talks and networking opportunities.

Friday, Sept.29, brings keynote speakers, a public-private sector Smart Cities panel discussion, and unconference sessions–where participants create the agenda.

Saturday, Sept. 30, brings CityCamp NC to a close with the Code for NC hackathon and code sprint, while kicking off NC DataPalooza open data competition.

(For more information and to register, go to http://citycampnc.org/register/)

As a CityCamp NC co-chair, I’m excited about the focus on open data and economic development. Our keynote topic this year will focus on how open data is having a positive impact on economic development with case studies from across the United States with Stephen Larrick from the Sunlight Foundation in his keynote, Participatory urbanism: from built environment to open data.

I’m also excited about our continued partnership with NC DataPalooza and the hackathon event will be the start of the open data competition that will conclude in November with three teams competing for cash prizes.

New in 2017

New this year, the NC Open Pass planning team worked with the Wake County Innovation Team starting in February 2017 to identify several projects that could leverage the NC Open Pass events to foster citizen engagement and participation.

The three initiatives are:

Parks and Rec park finder – an app to find all the parks and greenways across the Triangle, including programs and amenities in all municipalities
Not just a flu-shot finder – an app to where you can search for where to get flu shots and expanding the capabilities to include other health-related needs such as finding narcan and prescription drop-off locations
Business development diversity accelerator – looking at ways to help minority and under-represented people turn their business ideas into actual businesses by providing resources to streamline the business-creation process

Teams competing in the open data competition are eligible for a $1,000 cash prize during the NC DataPalooza kickoff on September 30 and a $5,000 cash prize on November 13 at the NC DataPalooza finale.

Registration is open and seats are filling quickly.

CityCamp NC and other Code for Raleigh events would not be possible without our partners who help by sponsoring our efforts. Our partners also help to keep registration costs low while we continue to provide high value for the price of our events.

Our partners

We’d like to recognize our partners:

Platinum partners: BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina Foundation, Google Fiber, Innovate Carolina, Red Hat, Raleigh 4U (Economic Development City of Raleigh)
Gold Partners: All Things Open, HQ Raleigh
Silver Partners: data.world, IPREO, NC State Poole College of Management Entrepreneurship Clinic
Community partners: Raleigh MAIN Events, Reveal Mobile
Venue partners: Nash Hall at Church on Morgan, HQ Raleigh

Seven years of civic tech in the Triangle

The civic tech and open government scene in the Triangle is alive and vibrant. The intersection of citizens, elected officials, and civil servants collaborating on solutions to solve community problems is creating a high level of engagement. This engagement is creating new opportunities and having a positive impact for the entire community (and beyond). But how did all this open government acceleration begin and why are people so interested in getting involved? Let’s take a look back at how an unconference called CityCamp NC came to Raleigh, NC.