A4MC News: Crime Hack Salon, and Round 2 Winners of Apps 4 Metro Chicago Coming on October 17th

The results of public voting will be announced at an A4MC Awards Ceremony on Monday October 17th at 3:00 pm at the Hyatt Innovation Center 71 S. Wacker (6th floor). Prizes will be given out to the top ten winning apps of A4MC’s Community Round. The announcement will be preceded by a Crime Data Hack Salon featuring expert speakers discussing the implications of the City of Chicago’s unprecedented release of ten years of city crime data! Public voting on the ten finalists for the Community Round was kicked off last week on Friday October 7th. The ten finalist apps address a variety of community issues, from healthcare costs to locations of city services to park use in south Lawndale. MCIC will award money prizes ranging from $5,000 to $300. Alaina Harkness of the MacArthur Foundation will present the awards. David Carvalho of the Illinois Department of Public Health will present a separate State Award to an app for best use of state data, and Stephen Newell of IBM will present a placemaking award offered by the Metropolitan Planning Council. The Crime Hack Salon held prior to the awards announcement will center on the city’s recent release of ten years of crime data, an unprecedented open government initiative. Speakers for the Hack Salon include Wes Skogan, a professor at Northwestern and expert on crime and policing, Roseanna Ander, the Executive Director of the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab, Brett Goldstein, the City of Chicago’s Chief Data Officer, John Tolva, the City of Chicago’s Chief Technology Officer, Virginia Carlson, president of MCIC, and Michael Rodriguez, Executive Director of Enlace, a New Communities Program lead organization in Little Village. These experts will offer insight on community crime concerns, keys to understanding and using the data, and possible technology solution. Guests will then have the opportunity to discuss the data, brainstorm, and begin to create apps utilizing the data. The Apps for Metro Chicago Competition facilitated by the Metro Chicago Information Center (MCIC) was launched in June of 2011 in order to inspire the development applications using 250+ data sets released by the City of Chicago, Cook County Government, State of Illinois, and Chicago Metro Agency for Planning. The Community Round has focused on using this data in innovative ways to address community issues and bridge the tech divide by creating relationships between software developers and Chicago community organizations. Support for the competition is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Chicago Community Trust, Illinois Science and Technology Coalition, and Motorola Mobility Foundation.