Editor’s note: Jason Hibbets is NC Open Pass co-chair.
RALEIGH — The 7th annual NC Open Pass DataPalooza event is set for November 14 at Red Hat Annex. The event brings together coders, designers, entrepreneurs, community members, and government workers to create positive change in the community through the use of open data in civic tech projects.
Three teams emerged from NC Open Pass Civic Camp in September and have worked over the last several weeks to advance and improve their project. NC Open Pass DataPalooza will highlight each of these projects and share how you can get involved with Red Alerts, Cyberscape Architecture for Dix Park, and Triangle Innovation Hub.
Red Alerts, 2018 DataPalooza’s Best First Responder project prize winner, focuses on consuming national weather alerts and transform them into specific actionable events for people in the warned area. Cyberscape Architecture for Dix Park challenges the local tech talent community to use data to drive decision making around the cyberscape for park visitors seeking wellness through park features, programs, and spaces. Triangle Innovation Hub’s primary goal is to create a valuable, user-centric, and responsive resource guide for the public and the entrepreneurship community.
NC Open Pass has partnered with RIoT to bring representatives from around the Triangle to discuss how smart cities are impacting their municipality. The panel includes Bonnie Danahy, Wake County Government, Anna Johnston, Town of Holly Springs, and Arek Kempinski, Town of Cary and will be moderated by Sarah Glova, RIoT.
WRAL TechWire readers can save $5 off registration using code TECHWIRE5OFF. More details about the event can be found here.
Featured civic tech projects
Red Alerts
The National Weather Service publishes warnings for tornadoes and other dire events, and they include storm position, speed, and direction information—but nobody is using that information yet. This project is to consume those messages and transform them into specific actionable events for people in the warned area–which involves interpreting the messages, providing them to subscribers, and computing the warned state for a known location.
Cyberscape Architecture for Dix Park
How can data drive decision-making for Dix Park? The local tech talent community is invited to contribute knowledge of resources, tools, and processes for constructing the cyberscape for park visitors seeking wellness through park features, programs, and spaces. The first goal is to create a baseline of park populations with sensors distributed throughout the park to prove the impact of park projects as it grows over the next 50 years. Volunteers are wanted to shape the history of one of the world’s few parks named after a women and dedicated to the cause of wellness. Project ideas are listed here.
Triangle Innovation Hub
Triangle Innovation Hub’s primary goal is to create a valuable, user-centric, and responsive resource guide for the public and the entrepreneurship community. Specifically, they focus on making it easier for new and upcoming entrepreneurs to learn and locate valuable information about a variety of opportunities and resources that are available to them here in the Triangle.
These resources range from co-working spaces, notable initiatives, grants and accelerators, incubators, and more. Triangle Innovation Hub has reorganized an asset map initially started by Innovate Raleigh to respond to a community need and is beneficial to the entrepreneurship community and the public.
Three civic tech projects inspire the ninth annual Civic Camp in Durham
