The DemocracyLab Blog

Corporate Hackathons: Bringing Companies and Communities Together, For Good

DemocracyLab’s corporate hackathons, which benefit employers, employees, and the community by bringing a workforce together to affect positive change.

Hack for Your Mother 2020

A/B Street Gamifies Building Better Bus and Bike Lanes in Seattle

Dustin Carlino's A/B Street is a game that seeks to allows players to simulate various balances of car, bus, and bike lanes in Seattle to tackle gridlock

Turin Horse Leverages Volunteer Data Analysts to Optimize Government

Turin Horse’s volunteer data analysts are using machine learning and data science to turn legislative data into clear, actionable information for voters.

Play It Forward Brings Fun Back to Community Volunteering

Flatiron School students’ Play It Forward platform encourages all ages to volunteer in the community by offering points in exchange for community service.

How a seed of climate activism grew into ClimateTree

At DemocracyLab, many socially conscious people come together to create and produce products, apps, and organize to help improve the world with technology.Inspired by the global climate strike student movement, ClimateTree positioned

Using Data Analytics for Good - Civic Tech

Broadband access is a community issue and community leaders are getting organized to improve their broadband landscape. ACT Broadband is an assessment and planning toolkit that that helps local stakeholders come together and create better broadband options.

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

How 8 UX design volunteers helped a local Seattle non-profit

At Democracylab's recent hackathon, Adine's pitch attracted 8 volunteers, consisting of designers and user experience specialists. They focused on improving the presentation of content, optimizing user journeys through the site, and refining the graphics and functions.

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

You Can Help Local Governments Improve Transparency

Founder Jackson Brown says “the mission is to modernize interactions and communications with city council. We have all of this technology, why aren’t we applying it to local government?”

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

OrcaSound’s Machine Learning Web-App Helps Protect Killer Whales

Looking for tech volunteers with machine learning skills for OrcaSound’s new web-app to help protect Seattle’s killer whales.

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

Banana App - Using Technology to Help Hunger Problems

Banana App is an innovative mobile platform where restaurants and supermarkets can post food donations for food-insecure members.

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

Closing the Digital Divide - A Tool to Help Internet Inequality

In America today, kids all over the country need the internet to do their homework, and adults need it to telecommute or even find a job in the first place.

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

Using Open Data to Model and Solve Car Traffic Jams

Using a project he started in college as a starting point, he created A/B Street, a game for traffic simulation. “Traffic jams in Seattle suck,” says Dustin. “The way to fix it is not by adding more highways - people like to use walkways, buses and bikes.”

St Hack Trick's Day 2020

How We Organized Teams of Experts Volunteering From Home

We were forced to rapidly adapt to changing circumstances and figure out how to mirror the familiar flow of our in-person events in a virtual environment. Our pivot was successful, with 145 people **volunteering from home** over the course of the day.