Hey, Hackers!

Thank you for all you did in 2023 to help make your communities more equitable, more just, more loving, more peaceful and, basically, "better". We are honored to be in conversation with you, and to support you in the ways that we can.
 
As we launch into our program year (November 1 to October 31) having grown the Network by ~25% (from 548 email contacts last year to 686 currently), we are looking forward to continuing to host our monthly virtual meetups to foster connection and collaboration. This will continue to be an important area where we can serve the community by providing spaces and opportunities for people working on tech-forward or data intensive initiates to stay out of silos and make the most impact with limited resources.

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March 23-31, Civic Hacker Network partnered with the Data Science Initiative (DSI) at CSU Chico to host a free event called the "Health Equity Datathon". This event was a combination of awareness-building and creative work. It took place on the CSU Chico campus, where over 40% of the students come from CA counties with fully-vaccinated rates below 65%. To raise awareness about the importance of vaccines and educate students about the evidence supporting continued use of COVID safety practices, we kicked off the event with a presentation from Butte County Public Health, describing their work with COVID-19 case and vaccination data. Students used their creativity and analytical skills to develop data-driven public health “communication pieces” in the form of data visualizations, slides, and print material designs. The students recruited their networks to vote for their project online. Through the outreach and voting process, we distributed materials from the toolkit (“Know Your Rights” document, snapchat app, booster promotion) provided to students’ families, friends, and peers by including them on the datathon voting site. Anyone who submitted a comment online was automatically routed to myturn.ca.gov.

Our goal was to have students from counties with lower vaccine rates increase their awareness about COVID-19 safety and vaccinations, create a message using public health data, and help spread information to their networks. We were successful in getting some participants from under-vaccinated counties. Materials distributed and a presentation from Butte County Public Health served to bring the importance of continued safety and vaccine promotion to the student’s attention. The students did a wonderful job creating results to share, and our goal of spreading vaccine/safety information was also achieved through the outreach participants conducted to get “votes” for their projects. On 3/31, we held a wrap-up luncheon to recognize the students for their work and debrief the experience.

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🗺️ HOW DEEP IS YOUR MAP?
You're likely familiar with maps as a powerful tool to show data in the context of "where". Use cases range from journalism to activism, and everything in between. But have you ever heard of "deep mapping"???

"Deep maps are finely detailed, multimedia depictions of a place and the people, buildings, objects, flora, and fauna that exist within it and which are inseparable from the activities of everyday life... A deep map is a way to engage evidence within its spatio-temporal context and to provide a platform for a spatially-embedded argument."
Yuan, May, et al. Deep Maps and Spatial Narratives. Indiana University Press, 2015. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/book/49063.

Does this have you thinking, "This sounds like what I'm trying to do..."? Have you been looking at mapping data for a specific issue or theme over time? Have you been planning to tackle using geographic information systems (GIS) for your cause?

A little over a year ago, we launched a case study project called "History and Housing". The first objective we're tackling is creating an ArcGIS StoryMap that contextualizes information about the creation and dismantling of a Black neighborhood in Redding, CA (our HQ), spanning over ~75 years. The initial phase of this work has connected us with other inspiring projects, both grassroots and academic, and shown us how our project fits very well into the deep map/digital humanities field.
This case study will provide a public service by making a complete narrative of this important local history accessible for the first time, while also teaching participants (to include both students and professionals) an effective model for using data to understand displacement and housing inequity.
 
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⏱️☮️ 60 MINUTES OF PEACE TO HONOR THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE HISTORIC MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR JOBS AND FREEDOM

In partnership with The Center for the Study of Civil and Human Rights Laws in Rochester, NY, we  launched a special collective action campaign to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. most famously gave the "I Have a Dream Speech". In addition to the impact of one of the most important speeches ever delivered in the English language.

In honor of this occasion, we invited community organizations to join us in the "60 Minutes of Peace" campaign on August 28, 2023 at 3:00 PM EST (this is the time that Dr. King began delivering his speech). We asked that people commit to spending sixty minutes - JUST ONE HOUR! - doing something for others in their community that is peaceful, positive, and productive. Ultimately, the goal is to see NO violence occur in that timeframe in participating communities across the U.S., especially those ranked "most violent".... That means NO assaults, NO homicides, etc., for sixty minutes.

Our award-winning show, The Civic Hacker Podcast, continued to grow its reach this 2023. Our Spotify stats show a 38% increase in listeners, spanning 6 countries. We also had a 91% increase in followers, and 31% increase in streams.  Thank you to the incredible change makers who lent their expertise and voice, and to the listeners! 

Podcast episodes released in 2023 include:

✅ Using AI to Meet the Global Goals 

✅ Using Wikidata to Connect Constituents With Their Government 

✅ Improving the Social Sector Using Data and Tech
✅ Putting Data to Work for Impact in Rural Communities 

✅ Reclaiming the Power of Money for the New Generation of Communities

✅ Mission-Driven Multi-Tasking: Paying the Bills and Mobilizing Communities to Power Queer and Trans Movements

✅ Listen Up! Building an Ethical, Transparent Social Understanding Platform 

✅ Today I Learned About the National Historical GIS from IPUMS 

✅ Helping Local Governments Fund Community Priorities 

✅ Creating Equity in Academia Through Open Scholarship 

✅ Co-Creating Innovative Wealth-Building Ecosystems in HUD Communities

✅ Making a Difference Through Peace Work

✅ Peace Building In the Digital Age

 

We are excited to launch Season 4 of the podcast in 2024, which will include some new voices and bonus material in addition to bringing you episodes featuring the 2023 summit speakers.

We are still beaming with pride over the Civic Hacker Summit we produced on November 2-3! We presented insights from experts and change makers across several countries and focus areas.

Special shout out to the volunteers from We Make Change who were instrumental in helping with strategy, marketing, business development and project management for the Summit. They are the Global Civic Hacker Action Team, and they are awesome. Many thanks to Alidia, Anastasia, Charlene, Hiba, Hildegard, and Wiktoria!

It would not be possible to accomplish all of this without the video and audio editing, and writing assignments completed by paid apprentices that I worked with through Choose Apprentice, and the thoughtful, strategic communications consistently put out on social media by contractor Eric Johnson. The funds that members, donors, and I invest into Civic Hacker Network cover these expenses and provided much needed (and appreciated!) help. 

Top of the list in this section is that our capacity for fundraising could not keep up with the regular monthly expense of retaining the paid apprentices. Sadly, we had to let go of that source of help on November 1st. 
Speaking of capacity... volunteer editors and project managers are needed! The bottle neck that we have in the area of getting content edited and approved is a hindrance to effectively getting the word out about the work that the hackers we feature are doing. Bringing on editors and project managers will be essential to having a persistent and consistent voice speaking out and inviting emergent changemakers into the network.