Introduction

The Philadelphia Social Justice Hackathon is a 36-hour event to bring students, programmers, and other “civic-minded hackers” together – to work in collaboration with justice advocates, public servants, community legal providers, and members of the community.

Together, attendees will develop technology solutions that respond to the specific justice needs of residents and neighborhoods most impacted by social, economic, and environmental injustices in Philadelphia.

The event is free to attend and open to all participants, regardless of coding experience or affiliation with an organization or university.

Mentors

For any technical questions, seek out the mentors listed below! (Mentors will have blue or purple name tags)

Michael Chow - Posit Data Science Tools 

Travis Southard - CLS and Code for Philly 

Andrew Viren - City of Philadelphia, Open Data Philly 

Akshay Malik - City of Philadelphia

Kate Dugan - CLS

Aaron Vontell - Regression Games 

Project Tracks 

Project #1: Eviction Chatbot

Description: Over 21,000 tenants in Philadelphia last year faced the prospect of being evicted from their rental unit. In order to get help to avoid eviction, they had to call legal assistance hotlines that are understaffed due to lack of funding. Many callers could only get through to an operator after waiting on hold for a long time. Ideally, the City would provide more funding for assistance to tenants. However, that is unlikely to happen. Has AI technology improved to the point where a chatbot (perhaps a voice chatbot) could provide meaningful assistance to tenants facing eviction? Perhaps not, but we will not know unless we try to create one, and that is the goal of this project.

Team Lead: Johnathon Pyle 

GitHub: evictionchatbot

Project #2: Abortion Access

Description: Build a website that has information for minors who need an abortion in Philadelphia. 

Team Lead: Shayna Roble

GitHub: abortion-access

Project #3: Bad Actors Tracker

Description: Low-income tenants who come to the Renters United Philadelphia Clinic are often concerned about a host of issues - habitability concerns, eviction concerns, repair and maintenance issues etc. Having a resource that identifies who the slumlords in the city are can help inform renters' apartment/housing search decisions. Organizers who partner with Penn Housing Rights Project (PHRP) know some notorious slumlords in the city and are always looking for ways to fight for tenant rights. 

Team Lead: Joy Darty and Kevin DeLiban

GitHub: bad-actors-tracker

Project #4: Community Land Preservation

Description: To analyze data from the Land Bank (and other sources) to generate a list of which parcels are side/rear lots and determine which of those are being stewarded by community members. The goal is to help prevent these lands from being seized and developed without consent, and to help build community wealth.

Team Lead: Lydia Hurtado 

GitHub: community-land-preservation

 

Project #5: Safe City Solutions

Description: Assist Philadelphia teens by creating a dashboard that helps them to design and conduct surveys, and refer back to research to gauge how Philadelphia can arrive at a future without violence. 

Team Lead: Philly Truce

GitHub: safe-city-solutions

 

Project #6: Rowhome Vibration Monitoring

Description: Rowhomes in Philadelphia are falling apart due to nearby construction activity, and the limited options for addressing the issue are expensive or time-consuming. Inexpensive accelerometers can be attached to the walls of these rowhomes which can be used to send notifications out when construction causes excessive vibrations. By providing a low-cost tool to help monitor for and report on problems, we can help negatively impacted residents build a stronger foundation for legal remedies to prevent further damage to their homes.

Team Lead: Julian Plotnick

GitHub: rowhome-vibration-monitoring

 

Project #7: Judge Data Analysis

Description: Track and showcase data about Pennsylvania judges to analyze any biases or bad practices performed.

Team Lead: Joy Payton

GitHub: judge-data-tracker

 

Project #8: Life Blueprint Resource Matcher

Description: Create a matching platform that connects the community with resources to create life blueprints.

Team Lead: Lamarr Kendrick

GitHub: life-blueprint-resource-matcher

 

Project #9: Philly Open Data 

Description: Create a guide for people who are new to accessing and using data in Philadelphia. The guide will aim people at the various sources of open source legal data in Philly, and will also inform people on where to find data and how to know when to trust data.

Team Lead: Insiyah Jamal

GitHub: philly-open-data

Tools and Technologies

Docassemble

  1. Overview https://docassemble.org/docs.html 

  2. https://suffolklitlab.org/docassemble-AssemblyLine-documentation/docs/

  3. Video: How to use docassemble https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcQChDCgv30 

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Neota Logic

  1. https://www.neotalogic.com 

  2. Examples of wireframes

  3. Examples of solutions developed using this platform

  4. Will have an on-site representative and mentor.

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Vizlib

https://home.vizlib.com 

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Inspiration

For inspiration, check out project galleries of past hackathons:

Contact Us & Support Channels

Judging Criteria 

Your Projects will be judged on the following criteria:

- How close is it to the ideal solution

- Does it solve the problem at hand?

- Practicality and scalability - share your plan!

- Is it sustainable for the community partner to be able to move forward with and maintain it?

- How technically complex is the project?

 

The judges may meet you ahead of the presentation session to learn more about your selected challenge and proposed solution