CityCamp Raleigh Competes for Civic Innovation

The unconference at CityCamp Raleigh on June 2 was amazing. The ideas. The passion. The people. For those of you unfamiliar with the unconference format, we gathered at 9:00 am  on Saturday. The coffee was a little late, so we didn’t start until 9:15 am. We explained the process for the day…which went something like this:

Attendees were allowed to give 1-minute pitches for ideas, workshops, or projects. There were over 30 pitches Then attendees voted on their favorite ideas. We had five rooms with sessions starting every hour from 10am-4pm. One room was dedicated to TranspoCamp. (Okay, so we started a little late and the first two sessions were at 10:30 and 11:30, but we made up time during lunch.) The group gathered back at 12:55pm to go over the contest rules and address any questions. Then afternoon sessions started and teams started forming.

By the 4:00pm deadline, we had ten teams submit their project ideas. The concepts range from neighborhood story telling to open standards, a greenway application to developing a community health score, a mobile gaming idea for discovering more about Raleigh to searching various Raleigh resources in one place. And of course,

QR codes. By the way, we have two teams with elected official on them. Maybe a first for any CityCamp worldwide.

Elected officials enhance CityCamp Raleigh 2012 experience

During Friday’s session, we had eight elected officials attend. Seven from Raleigh: Mayor Nancy McFarlane and City Council members Bonner Gaylord, Thomas Crowder, Randall Stagner, Mary Ann Baldwin, Russ Stephenson,  and Eugene Weeks; One from Cary, Town Council member Lori Bush who was on the government perspective panel and offered some great insights from just over the Raleigh border.

On Saturday, several elected officials returned and were very active during today’s sessions. Mayor Nancy McFarlane and City Council members Bonner Gaylord, Thomas Crowder, Mary Ann Baldwin, and Russ Stephenson. Stephenson even pitched an idea about community health scoring that attracted 20 people to a morning session. Attendees were excited that our representatives were so engaged during the unconference and stayed for most of the day.

We tried to document as many sessions on TriangleWiki as we could. If you attended, please add your notes to the appropriate wiki page.

June 3 Agenda

Below is the agenda for Sunday, June 3, the final day of CityCamp Raleigh 2012. This is our civicathon/collaboration day. The $5,000 prize will be awarded to the best idea. And the best idea will be judged on the following criteria:

1. Feasibility: The ease with which the City would be able to implement the team’s idea.
2. Creativity: The novelty of the idea and presentation.  Presentations that plagiarize the work of others will be disqualified.
3. Execution: The level at which the team has been able to develop the technological application or solution during CityCamp Raleigh.  Submissions of products that were already in development prior to CityCamp Raleigh will be disqualified.

We’re back at the AIA building (address below). Doors will open at 9:00 am. Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee will be served for breakfast. We’ll provide space for teams to collaborate. Team presentations will start at 3:00pm. Each team will be given five minutes with one minute for questions and answers. We encourage anyone interested to come watch the presentations.

Agenda

• 8:30 am Registration opens, breakfast is served
• 9:00 am Teams get to work, Triangle Wiki community gathering
• 12:00 pm Lunch (Keep working, yo!)
• 3:00 pm Presentations to the group and judging panel
• ~3:45 pm Judging panel thinks hard…
• ~4:00 pm Winner announced
• Celebrate, high fives, pictures, next steps