As part of its efforts to help local government managers understand what questions to ask about data and information and how they can best take advantage of the efficiencies new technology affords their efforts to deliver high quality service to residents, ICMA together with its long-time strategic partner, Esri, and a new start-up, MindMixer, co-sponsored the first local government hackathon, Hackstock for #LocalGov, on Sunday, September 22. The event was held in conjunction with the ICMA 99th Annual Conference in Boston. Leading up to the event, through an educational campaign sponsored by the Esri-ICMA #LocalGov Technology Alliance, ICMA focused considerable attention on exploring the world of big data, open data, apps and dashboards, and what it means for local governments.  

The Hackstock for #LocalGov brought together computer programmers and software developers from the greater Boston area with local government managers to develop ideas for applications and other technology tools to make government more open and transparent to its citizens and assist local government officials in serving their residents.

Challenge entries were judged based on the following criteria:

• Thoughtfulness of Utilizing Civic Data (10 pts.)
• Quality of Concept (5 pts.)
• Analysis of Community Need (10 pts.)
• Collaboration with Local Leaders (20 pts.)
• Incorporation of Diverse Skill Sets (5 pts.)
• User Experience (15 pts.)
• Quality of Design (10 pts.)
• Ultimate Utility of the Product (10 pts.)
• Repeatability of the Product (15 pts.)

The 2013 Hackstock for #LocalGov Winners were:

Grand Prize ($2,000) – Guido Stein, proposed a means for internal or external queries of public information ranging from physical assets (sign posts) to capital improvement projects to determine how much money is being spent based on geography.  Through this app, a local government manager could demonstrate how funds are being used in a particular neighborhood or district.

First Prize ($1,500) – Stephen Cook, proposed an  application for delivering voter precinct turn-out information based on the location of the polling place.  This app would help elections commissions, political parties, and the general public determine appropriate locations to maximize voter turn-out.

Second Prize ($750) – Calvin Metcalf, proposed a back-end tool to help move data sets out to mobile work crews for disconnected field work.  Personnel could use this application to download the most recent and appropriate data sets and use with their mobile devices, regardless of the mobile platform.

We thank Esri and MindMixer for their sponsorship of this year’s hackathon.

About Esri™

Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, Esri software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at www.Esri.com/news.

About MindMixer

MindMixer believes that good, informed ideas are out there, but that many don’t make it to the surface or are drowned out by the volume of usual voices. MindMixer’s online community engagement and social media intelligence tools connect organizations with community members who might not otherwise get involved. With the country’s largest suite of best-in-class engagement technology, MindMixer makes it easier for community leadership and members to have more productive, collaborative discussions than they would using traditional approaches like offline town hall meetings and message boards.