RALEIGH, N.C. – Congratulations FreeWheeling NC!
FreeWheeling NC won the fourth annual CityCamp NC event held in Raleigh on May 29-31 for their idea of prototyping a way to make biking safer in North Carolina.
The 2014 CityCamp NC unconference had more than 100 attendees last week for civic hacking, knowledge sharing, and team competition.
The event kicked off on Thursday with keynote speaker Bill Greeves, Wake County CIO, and a diverse group of eight speakers giving five-minute lightning talks.
On Friday, May 30 the unconference had 24 pitches, 22 sessions, and one awesome grid, Seven teams formally submitted paperwork for the competition and five of them competed for $3,000, consulting from Bull City Venture Partners, and two months of co-working space at HQ Raleigh.
On Saturday, CityCampers gathered at William Peace University for the CityCamp NC civic hackathon. This was one of more than 120 events hacking for change, part of the National Day of Civic Hacking, a coordinated movement sponsored by the White House to encourage communities around the nation to participate in their local government.
Most of the hackathon time was spent working on the team projects and presentations, but a few civic hackers helped out with other projects, such as working on a Google Fiber interest form for the City of Raleigh.
By the afternoon, a sizeable crowd of almost 60 people gathered in the lecture hall at the Flowe Building on William Peace University campus to view the presentations.
Here were the five teams that competed:
• Wake County To The Trails App: Implemented the open source “To The Trails” App from Code for America for Wake County. The application provides an easy to use map interface. It is responsive (works on desktop, tablets, and mobile) and explored adding an engagement piece to allow users to post comments (downed trees, debris, tough climb, etc.)
• Activate Spaces: Mapping Raleigh vacant spaces with crowdsourced data.
• FreeWheeling NC: Influence planning and healthy communities through real-time crowdsourced bike routes that people use, using bikes as transportation vs. recreation. Also influence upcoming Raleigh Bike share program.
• Raleigh Engage: Building an engagement website for the City of Raleigh on NationBuilder.
• Re-humanize: Improve employment for ex-offenders.
Each team had five minutes to present and were given 2-3 minutes for questions from the judges. Team photos were taken while the judges deliberated. After reaching consensus, the judges each gave some feedback and announced the winning team.
The FreeWheeling team was Amy Simes, Anna Stokes, Carsi Tong, Anthony Castrati, and Chad Foley assisted by Andrea Restle-Lay and John Weis.
CityCamp NC is an annual event that brings citizens, city/county/state government, and businesses together to openly innovate and improve our quality of life through technology. FreeWheeling NC won this year’s competition for prototyping a way to make biking safer in North Carolina.
