DemocracyLab - The DemocracyLab Blog (Page 2)

What does volunteering as a Software Engineer look like?

Volunteer Software Engineers build, design, and deploy projects through DemocracyLab’s platform

What is a Hackathon?

A hackathon is a short period where skilled individuals of all walks of life and industries come together to work on a specific goal. At DemocracyLab, our Hackathons focus on developing technology that improves the world.

Summer Create-a-thon

White Bird Clinic’s Little Help Book: An Online, Expansive, and Accessible Resource Directory

Created by White Bird Clinic, Little help book is developing an online resource directory of human and social service resources around Eugene and Springfield

Summer Create-a-thon

Strappd Sees Spike in Downloads During Pandemic

Strappd, an app that connects homeless individuals with services, surpasses 100,000 downloads.

Summer Create-a-thon

Conviction Vacation Project Helps People Get a Second Chance

Conviction Vacation Project’s remote team meeting.Do you believe in second chances? Nearly one in four people in Washington State have been involved in the criminal justice system. It

Banana App Decentralizes Food Distribution

Banana App’s food donation service revolutionizes food distribution through civictech and community engagement

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Corporate Hackathons: Bringing Companies and Communities Together, For Good

DemocracyLab’s corporate hackathons, which benefit employers, employees, and the community by bringing a workforce together to affect positive change.

Hack for Your Mother 2020

A/B Street Gamifies Building Better Bus and Bike Lanes in Seattle

Dustin Carlino's A/B Street is a game that seeks to allows players to simulate various balances of car, bus, and bike lanes in Seattle to tackle gridlock

Turin Horse Leverages Volunteer Data Analysts to Optimize Government

Turin Horse’s volunteer data analysts are using machine learning and data science to turn legislative data into clear, actionable information for voters.

Play It Forward Brings Fun Back to Community Volunteering

Flatiron School students’ Play It Forward platform encourages all ages to volunteer in the community by offering points in exchange for community service.

How a seed of climate activism grew into ClimateTree

At DemocracyLab, many socially conscious people come together to create and produce products, apps, and organize to help improve the world with technology. Inspired by the global climate strike student

Using Data Analytics for Good - Civic Tech

Broadband access is a community issue and community leaders are getting organized to improve their broadband landscape. ACT Broadband is an assessment and planning toolkit that that helps local stakeholders come together and create better broadband options.

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

How 8 UX design volunteers helped a local Seattle non-profit

At Democracylab's recent hackathon, Adine's pitch attracted 8 volunteers, consisting of designers and user experience specialists. They focused on improving the presentation of content, optimizing user journeys through the site, and refining the graphics and functions.

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

You Can Help Local Governments Improve Transparency

Founder Jackson Brown says “the mission is to modernize interactions and communications with city council. We have all of this technology, why aren’t we applying it to local government?”

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

OrcaSound’s Machine Learning Web-App Helps Protect Killer Whales

Looking for tech volunteers with machine learning skills for OrcaSound’s new web-app to help protect Seattle’s killer whales.

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

Banana App - Using Technology to Help Hunger Problems

Banana App is an innovative mobile platform where restaurants and supermarkets can post food donations for food-insecure members.

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

Closing the Digital Divide - A Tool to Help Internet Inequality

In America today, kids all over the country need the internet to do their homework, and adults need it to telecommute or even find a job in the first place.

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

Using Open Data to Model and Solve Car Traffic Jams

Using a project he started in college as a starting point, he created A/B Street, a game for traffic simulation. “Traffic jams in Seattle suck,” says Dustin. “The way to fix it is not by adding more highways - people like to use walkways, buses and bikes.”

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

How We Organized Teams of Experts Volunteering From Home

We were forced to rapidly adapt to changing circumstances and figure out how to mirror the familiar flow of our in-person events in a virtual environment. Our pivot was successful, with 145 people **volunteering from home** over the course of the day.

Child Care Resources Gets Help Navigating Tech Maze

Child Care Resources (CCR) Homeless Child Care Subsidy program is a resource for families experiencing homelessness. By providing access to affordable, accessible learning and childcare, the program allows parents to

ClimateTree Fosters Learning to Combat Climate Change

The project is complicated, but the problem it seeks to solve is simple: how can we optimize climate activism using the wealth of data available? ClimateTree, inspired by the global

Council Data Project Demystifies City Governments

Local governments affect people’s lives more than any other, yet most people know very little about the beliefs and actions of those who represent them in City Hall. City

Infoncast Bridges Last Mile Connectivity Gap in Africa

For many nations in sub-Saharan Africa, the national languages are English and French. However, most of their citizens are not fluent in these languages; instead, they speak one of hundreds

Community Engagement

PeaceTrees Vietnam Works to Heal the Wounds of War

Founded in 1995, PeaceTrees Vietnam seeks to heal landscape and culture scars incurred during the Vietnam War. With over 10,000 people (20% of them children) killed or maimed by

RHours Seeks to Create Software-Defined Ownership Economy

For project leader Glen, RHours represents the intersection of two areas of interest; a fascination for software development that began in childhood, and a passion for social equity and wealth