City and County of Honolulu News Releases

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'CITYCAMP HONOLULU' AIMS FOR INNOVATION, TRANSPARENCY  (Wed., Oct. 19, 2011)—Local educators, entrepreneurs, designers and developers will come together in December for "CityCamp Honolulu," a first-of-its-kind "unconference" to foster direct collaboration between the community and city government. CityCamp Honolulu is part of an international series of events focused on advancing innovation and increasing transparency in municipal governments. As part of a broader "Gov 2.0" movement, CityCamp aims to make cities more "user-friendly" by tapping the diverse talents of their tech communities. CityCamp Honolulu will be held on Saturday, December 3, 2011 at the University of Hawaii‑Manoa Campus Center Ballroom. Breakout brainstorming sessions will be key to the success of CityCamp Honolulu, which will also feature panel discussions on topics surrounding open data. Participants will propose and explore possible applications relevant to Oahu residents regarding subject such as road repair, transportation, water use and city parks. The breakout session topics will be crowdsourced, which means anyone can propose an idea and the community will vote on which will ultimately be tackled as part of the unconference. A broad cross section of city departments and programs will be represented at CityCamp, and organizers are inviting participation by coders, designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, journalists other media makers—anyone interested in sharing ideas on how technology can be used to boost civic engagement. There are also plans for a "civic hackathon" in December, where the first lines of code will be written in support of the applications proposed at CityCamp. The event will be capped off with time allotted for presentation, a panel of judges, and prizes for the top 3 ideas. Together, these events will lay the groundwork for Honolulu's participation in Code for America 2012. Code For America is a national nonprofit organization that directs the talent of the web industry toward public service. Honolulu was selected in August as one of 2012 Code For America cities, which means that the City and County of Honolulu will receive a year of intensive technical assistance from the Code for America Fellows to solve core problems facing our community. Registration for CityCamp Honolulu costs $25, plus a $2.37 ticket fee, and includes lunch and a T-shirt. To ensure a productive event, participation will be limited to about 125 people. For more information on CityCamp Honolulu, visit citycamphnl.govfresh.com -30-  Media Contact: Forest Frizzell, Deputy Director, Department of Information Technology, 768-7806.