About Burt

Digital Ronin

Re-launch 2017

Back in 2014 we launched Civic.Celerator to build apps and visualizations based campaign spending data. It was an exciting time to have a stakeholder committed to working with the community.

Fast forward to 2017 and new stakeholders have emerged in City and State government. There are lots of opportunities to work with government, for example through legislation (HB1329), the Hawaii Annual Code Challenge and the City Council to name a few.

Therefore I am re-launching Civic.Celerator to encourage more civic engagement and collaboration with government to leverage #opendata, #civictech and #civicdesign to build an interface to government that is open, simple, useful and elegant. Join me and let’s make government better.

Get involved

New URL for “Funding a State Legislature Race” app

The “Funding a State Legislature Race” app developed by Ben Trevino and his team, has a new URL:  commoncausehawaii.github.io/leg_campaigns/ 

The app’s information and features remain the same. Be sure to update your bookmarks/favorites on your web browser. Please contact us if you have any questions: ctanida@commoncause.org

Mahalo for your support!

Special mahalo to developer Jason Axelson for his technical expertise!

Civic*Celerator’s Impact

Testimonial from Civic*Celerator participant and coder Joseph Heaukulani:

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Civic*Celerator participant and coder Joseph Heaukulani at right discussing an app.

“Thanks to Civic*Celerator, we learned a great deal more about the influence of money in politics than we would have otherwise. With the collaboration of coders, students, volunteers, and random citizens like me, we were able to explore different parts of the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission data by breaking off into different groups, and trying to answer different questions that we had. For many of us, this was our first look at campaign spending data and we really didn’t know what we’d find.

In contrast with a normal weekend hackathon, Civic*Celerator gave us the ability to play with the data over an extended period of time which was extremely helpful. The meetups allowed us to compare notes and check in on each other’s progress. Finally, months of effort culminated in the Civic*Celerator Demo Day, in front of wider audience, with all the groups taking turns sharing what they were able to learn from the data and the app they built to interact with it.

Through this collaborative, citizen-driven, slow-simmered process, we were able to turn columns and rows of text and numbers from the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission into interactive, visual applications, allowing us to drill down into different areas of the data in a user friendly fashion and easily see how money flows through our political system.”

Civic*Celerator Apps: A useful tool during Legislative Session

Civic*Celerator apps are not just for the election, it can also be a useful tool during the legislative session (Opening Day at the Hawaii State Legislature is January 21, 2015).  Check out Common Cause Hawaii’s website to learn more about how to use these apps to help track money’s influence on politics.

CCHI website track money flowScreen shot of Common Cause Hawaii’s website

 

Mahalo!

Civic*Celerator organizers would like to thank the following people and organizations for making this unprecedented project possible.

Demo Day Judges
Daryl Huff, Hawaii News Now
Gordon Pang, Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Kathy Higa, 2020 Fusion
Kristin Izumi-Nitao, Campaign Spending Commission
Lisa Maruyama, Hawaii Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations
Nick Grube, Civil Beat

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Photo: Civic*Celerator Judges listen to a presentation

Civic*Celerator Demo Day Teams

1. Mark Egesdal, Alika Reppun and Will Reppun
2. Rich Halverson, Davis Kurihara-Nakasu, UH Shidler’s ITM 352 class and the ITMA Club
3. Ben Trevino, David Wang, Britney Taamu-Miyashiro, Ivan Lui
4. Jason Sewell, Russel Cheng, Dev League Team
5. Kyle Oba, H. Doug Matsuoka, Jordan Ohama
6. Jason Axelson

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Photo: Civic*Celerator coders and developers

Additional Civic*Celerator participants:
Nicole Hori, Jon Lott and Sam Suen
Alex Bergo, Alan Solidum and Michael Winter

Demo Day Presenters
Jared Kuroiwa
Royce Jones

Team mentors
Jared Kuroiwa
Royce Jones
Tony Baldomero, Campaign Spending Commission

Venues
Iolani School, Sullivan Center
Rechung Fujihira and The Box Jelly Coworking

Catering
Kokorotei
Iolani School

Event filming
H. Doug Matsuoka
Joe Heaukulani
Jerome Koehler

Event Team
Adrienne Brantley, Common Cause Hawaii
Leissan Sadykova, Common Cause Hawaii

Power Ballot Research Volunteers
Joe Heaukulani
Jeanne Ohta
Dustin Schoedel
Christine Trecker
Connie Clinton

Additional Thanks To
Jonathan Lott
Brett Aka, Prudential Advantage Realty
Ryan Ozawa
Natalie Iwasa
And a special mahalo to everyone who helped spread the word about Civic*Celerator!

Event Sponsors
Voqal
Code for America
HTDC

Civic*Celerator is brought to you in partnership by
Common Cause Hawaii
Hawaii Open Data

Power Ballot profile on Civil Beat

Thanks to the hard work of our volunteers, and lead developers Royce Jones and Jason Axelson, the Power Ballot, a feature of the Precinct Maps App, keeps improving.  So much so, it was recently profiled in Civil Beat.  Be sure to check out the profile and try out the enhancements to the Power Ballot for yourself.

Click here for profile in Civil Beat

Click here to use Statewide Power Ballot

Click here to use the Precinct Maps app, which will let you find your polling location and use the Power Ballot specific to you.

Click here to view and use other Civic*Celerator apps. The variety of apps available allow you to search through campaign finance data, see who is funding the campaigns, and how funds are being used.

General Election Power Ballot

Royce Jones has just released the General Election Power Ballot.  This interactive ballot not only allows you to find information on candidates, but also ballot initiatives in one convenient location.  Try it for yourself and help us spread the word about this great resource.

http://civic-celerator.maps.arcgis.com/apps/OnePane/basicviewer/index.html?appid=eabd4dbf3fcb48468cd92587b2d8729c

Screen shot of the state Power Ballot

Screen shot of the state Power Ballot