When Chattanooga decides to throw a civic hackathon, it does things a little differently. Over the weekend of May 31 and June 1, dozens of developers, designers, and community-minded people gathered in the Church on Main to hack for their city – and, oh yeah, for some yoga, team trivia, and that Southern staple, biscuits.
The second annual Hackanooga event coincided with the National Day of Civic Hacking, but there was another reason to celebrate in Chattanooga. The event kicked off with Mayor Andy Berke enacting Chattanooga’s Open Data Policy, committing the city to publishing its data online to make it useful for citizens.
We also had a soft-launch of Chattanooga’s Open Data Portal. Representatives from Socrata, Code for America, and the Library were all on hand to help people who wanted to develop on top of this new data.
Several dozen people broke off into teams and the hacking began. Participants included staff from Chattanooga Public Library, teachers from the Hamilton County Department of Education, non-profit leaders, and students from the University of Tennessee Chattanooga. Ideas turned into sketches which took on form over the next few hours.
We’re excited to see the growing civic technology ecosystem taking hold in Chattanooga. See you at the next hack night!
This blog was originally posted by our awesome Chattanooga Fellows on their site, chitchatt.org.
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