Hopeworks & Camden Promise Zone Day of Civic Hacking
June 4, 2016 was the fourth annual National Day of Civic Hacking. I celebrated the day by attending the event HopeWorks and Camden Promise Zone hosted. Two groups of Camden’s youth used Esri Story Maps to tell the stories of their community. One group focused on education while the other worked on vacancy & community gardens.
Story Maps is a very cool program. It was my first time really engaging with the platform. You can create different types of narratives through mapping and additional content. I’m thinking of ways to use it now so I can test it out in the future.
Along with Esri, Urban Institute, Camden Promise Zone, HUD, and New Jersey American Water came out to sponsor and help put the event together.
Drew Zachary from the White House came to speak about the significance of the day.
- Over 100 cities participated!
- President Obama was a community organizer.
- Camden youth are acting as community organizers through participating in this day.
- Camden is one of thirteen promise zones.
- The White House values creativity and “wants to know what’s great”.
- Progress made through this day of civic hacking can lead to similar progress in other promise zones.
Both groups were very engaged through out the whole day. At the end of the day, both groups presented their projects. Everyone was delighted to see all that they accomplished. I enjoyed seeing the progress being made, it was like a seed was planted and we all watched everything beginning to bloom.
