After last years event, we took a long, hard look at how we could better follow up and follow through with all the great ideas and work born from civic hacking events such as Hack For Athens and the 100+ others across the US for the National Day of Civic Hacking. We wanted to be more effective, efficient, and genuinely have an impact on our community. 

• We identified that more time and effort needs to go into understanding the problem and creating more abstract solutions that can be vetted, as opposed to spending a great deal of time programming a prototype or proof of concept
• We determined that having community leaders present allows ideas and solutions to be carried forward after the event.
  • We reached out to local representatives and commissioners and invited them to the event to participate as well as share insight and perspective on how the local government and the community could feasibly move forward on any given solution together.
• We understood that without an action report and initiative, without direction, the follow up would likely fizzle out. Jordan Burke created The Knope Initiative as a guideline that incorporates events such as Hack For Athens into a larger plan with long-term goals.
  • In doing so, we see that the goal with these events is not to complete a solution, or even focus entirely on a specific solution, but to evolve potential solutions to problems that are then used to seed and fuel the conversation between events. 

• Jordan Burke
• Kelly Storm

Erica Parson, Executive Director of Athens' premier Makerspace Hatch Athens, along with Glenn Stovall worked with others from around the country to identify the primary needs for any group when attempting to establish a Makerspace. Their findings and efforts are made publicly available in the Makerspace Google Drive. Erica has provided a great deal of information to other communities, such as 501(c)3 paperwork and example, templates for donation letters, website structure and checklist, and much more. 

• Erica Parson
• Glenn Stovall
• John Posey

Working with city officials and available resources, filling out the US Open Data Census for Athens. Big thanks to Nick Skytland for putting a fire under it and getting Athens in the listings, and Commissioner Jerry NeSmith for all the invaluable insight on how and where to locate and maintain data for Athens!

• Jordan Burke
• Kelly Storm
• Nick Skytland
• Jerry NeSmith

We outlined and vetted abstract understanding and functionality of detection network that would both solve the existing challenge while also providing a system that allows for additional utility/functionality

• Kelly Storm
• Jason Manous
• Jordan Burke

1. Efficient follow-up of newly detected asteroids | Define concept of efficiency, what comprises follow-up, NEO or any threat?
2. How do we determine size? Parallax.
3. How can we rely on the information? (Timestamp information)
4. Efficient must allow for reasonable thresholds and reliability with respect to parallax/distance/size/velocity
5. Quick analysis of visual data implies timely analysis
6. By timely, we mean results of analysis should return quickly and any parallel or distributed network that is employed or integrated needs to allow for intelligent and timely endpoint discovery.
7. Which algorithm is behind efficient discovery ie: strength reliability (bittorrent)

We implemented two APIs via Socrata. One provides information about district commissioners and the other gives the district boundaries in latitude and longitude. In addition, we implemented an example app that allows citizens to provide an address and determine their commissioner.

• Glenn Stovall
• Jonathan Wallace
• Amanda Newell
• Jennifer Johnson

Our solution to providing low-income areas with affordable broadband internet access relies upon working with businesses and community organisations to create a wireless mesh network to re-invest unused and underutilized bandwidth back into the community.

• Jordan Burke
• Angel Brown
• Peter Walker
• Mike Wilbur
• Sean Dunn

It is hard to understand the scope of need in Athens as well as communities throughout the country. We have large datasets such as census data and social quality indexes, but they don't inform or enable action at the local community level. To affect change requires "small data," that is real-time, geo-located, and communications on a human scale. Comm-unity is a solution that gathers information about needs within the community while delivering help to those who need it from a mobile app. With this information, an open API, and advanced visualizations, various stakeholders will be able directly impact communities across the United States -- as Comm-unity scales efficiently across the existing 211 infrastructure.

• Travis Douce
• Stacey Kerr
• Ankur Vashi
• Scott Shamp
• Henry Oddi

Our goal is to build a system that collects information and events from multiple sources to build the story from multiple angles, and shares the story as we know it via web, mobile, and paper. We also want to create a solution that provides opportunities for others to contribute in the future.

• Baron Chandler
• Chris Sparnicht