Back in August, a slew of local hackers, developers and other professionals flocked to District Hall for the inaugural HubHacks to propose ways in which the city might solve current permitting pain points. And that civic hackathon resulted in the launch of a new tool, the Permit Finder. Today, Mayor Marty Walsh announced that there will be an opportunity for the community to help improve Boston even further at the second HubHacks event March 14.
“Across Boston, government, private companies, and civic organizations are generating enormous amounts of data on what is happening in the city,” Mayor Walsh said in a news release. “I want to tap Boston’s creative talent to create workable tools that help guide City policy and operation toward a thriving, healthy and innovative city.”
Participants—who will include technologists, policy thinkers and community members merely interested in making things better—will form teams to develop tools that will help monitor progress toward the City's goals. Chief Information Officer Jascha Franklin-Hodge noted that teams will be given data sets that they’ve never been able to access before, like historical parking information, emergency data and entertainment permits.
“Data visualization is a powerful tool to tell our shared story, and this event will help tap the talent and perspective of many parts of our community,” he added in the news release.
The winner of the HubHacks challenge, which will conclude April 4, will have their tool incorporated directly into the Mayor's data dashboard, as well as featured throughout City Hall and online.
