Hawaii Blog

New Apps Unveiled at the City’s First Hackathon

January 24th, 2012 · Government, Technology, The Web

A total of six teams participated in Honolulu’s first civic hackathon this past weekend, each developing anapplication that takes advantage of public data made available online by the city. The top three teams won cash prizes provided by the hackathon’s sponsors, and two of them focused on TheBus and its web services API (or application programming interface).

I was able to drop in to watch most of the final presentations on Sunday afternoon, which were the culmination of at least 24 hours of rapid design, development, and deployment. Each team had to show off a working prototype of their web or mobile app, a harrowing experience even when you’ve had weeks to prepare.

Adding to the pressure, a panel of judges from diverse backgrounds who definitely knew their stuff. They included Gordon Bruce, Chief Information Officer of the City & County of Honolulu, Doug Chin, the city’s Managing Director, Royce Jones, the regional manager of ESRI, Kiman Wong, general manager with hackathon sponsor Oceanic Time Warner Cable, and Yasmin Dar, social media reporter for Honolulu’s ABC affiliate, KITV.

Here are the six teams, and the top three winners.

Hi Park

Inspired by the infamous parking crunch in and around the University of Hawaii at Manoa, teammates George Lee and Gregory Burgess (students at the UH Manoa department of Information and Computer Science) developed “Hi Park,” which they hope will make it easier to find parking lots and sort out parking hours and rules around the city.

They actually surveyed parking signs on streets surrounding the campus to enhance their data, and said their app would be able to show on-campus visitor parking rates during the week and on weekends. But the potential was clear, given the city’s own network of municipal parking lots and metered street parking.

Based on location and time and day, users would be able to see their nearest and best parking options. Brainstorming with the judges, the team noted that app might also be able to tap into the high-tech parking meter systems that the city is starting to deploy, in order to show real-time parking availability.

Outdoors Hawaii

Another UH team presented “Outdoors Hawaii.” Team members Marifel Barbasa, Tony Gaskell, Lori Nakamoto, Jordan Takayama and Russell Vea showed off a web app that placed a map front and center, and allowed users to toggle views between islands and see parks, beaches, and major city venues plotted.

The team said it had many more ideas than they were able to deploy, and acknowledged that the had trouble finding a perfect data source, instead manually looking up and entering coordinates for points of interest. The judges were curious about whether users would be able to add or suggest places, and if so, how they would be validated.

Geo Tracker

Local software developers Jason Axelson, Edward Kim and Aaron King presented “Geo Tracker,” an app that would help island motorists avoid road construction and other road closures and detours. Recalling how vital real-time traffic and road conditions were during the recent APEC meetings, the team envisioned a service that would not only show problem areas on a map, but also work with a user’s regular routes and provide warnings in advance.

The biggest challenge was a lack of normalized or easily parseable data. They showed a real-world example in the city’s “Road Work Weekly Report,” a sporadically published, manually formatted document that’s simply too inconsistent to be translated into map coordinates. The team proposed a standard language and strongly suggested an XML format to make the information more useful.

AllB.us – Third Place

Earning third place from the judging panel was “Allb.us,” a fully functional iOS and mobile web app for riders of TheBus. The app was developed by Ryan Kanno, who recently moved to New York, and was presented by Ian Kitajima from Honolulu-based R&D firm Oceanit, who even made his own AllB.us T-shirt. (AllB.us got some great design help from Valentino Valdez.)

AllB.us provides bus stop locations and real-time arrival data for TheBus, keeping riders from feeling like they’re “a slave to the bus schedule,” Kitajima said. While Kanno was focused on the benefits to daily riders, Kitajima said he was personally intrigued by the potential the app had for visitors.

While a number of new features and enhancements were presented at the hackathon, the app had actually been in the works for some time. Kanno had actually called into Bytemarks Cafe last July when we featured the city’s open data initiatives, asking about the API for TheBus and ultimately kicking off some of the first substantive conversations between the city and the developer community.

Kitajima noted that more work was left to be done, including finding a stable server, but the judges were impressed that people could use AllB.us right now. Just point your mobile web browser to:

http://beta.allb.us/

RoadPuka – Second Place

The RoadPuka team — Marcos Nobre, Julie Sakuda and James Wang — was also able to get a skeleton of its mobile app online at RoadPuka.com. The concept is simple: spot a pothole, click “report,” and submit a photo along with automatically collected coordinates to the city. It would essentially be a smartphone-friendly version of the city’s existing Pothole Report form.

Of course, one of the challenges is that some roads are maintained by the city, and some are maintained by the state, which has to be explained (in broad strokes) on the city’s website. The state only offers a “pothole hotline” phone number (808-536-7852). An app like this could only really realize its potential if both the city and state were aboard the open data train, and speaking the same language.

Team AJ – First Place

Taking top honors was Andy Yip and Jane Zeng. Their app also showed bus locations, but was built for the iPhone and emphasized design.

Their first attempt at presenting was derailed by sketchy internet access, requiring them to reset and take the stage a second time late in the afternoon. Nonetheless, their app — which opens with a cute animation of a smiling, blinking city bus — was the one that the judges found most compelling. Team AJ went home with the top cash prize of $1,000.

Judging criteria included working prototype, user interface, depth of concept, and impact of application. And while none of the apps presented at the hackathon are feature complete, the pieces are there to grow them into useful tools for the public. Perhaps some day, we’ll find some of these apps included in the city’s app directory.

Kudos to hackathon organizers Forest Frizzell, Burt Lum, and Gordon Bruce for pulling together this groundbreaking event. For more information on the hackathon, see the official announcement on the CityCamp Honolulu blog. You can also see my photos from the event on Flickr.

What’s next? The Code For America fellows will touch down in Honolulu soon, and will bring their considerable talents and expertise to help the city government “work better for everyone with the people and the power of the web.” Meanwhile, I hope we’ll see some solid progress made on the state government side as well. I fully expect to see the local developer community to continue to create great apps and continue to push for more accessible data.

Of course, I’ll be pushing and evangelizing and tracking the local open data scene as always. We’re off to a great start this year.

→ 4 CommentsTags: citycamp·hackathon·opendata

Gov. Abercrombie on Open Data

January 24th, 2012 · Government, Politics, Technology, The Web

Gov. Neil Abercrombie yesterday delivered his second “State of the State” address before the Legislature. And technology was one of the priorities he singled out as key to the state’s long-term future.

He mentioned the Hawaii Broadband Initiative, consolidation of disparate state systems under the Office of Information Management and Technology, and major renewable energy and smart grid projects (including an undersea inter-island power transmission cable).

He even proposed a “one-to-one laptop program” to provide laptop computers for every public school student. But considering the current labor dispute with the teachers union and its effect on the state’s already endangered “Race to the Top” grant, the proposal seems like a distant dream.

In connection with the Hawaii Broadband Initiative, Gov. Abercrombie said he would be requesting $2.9 million for eHawaii.gov, the state’s official web portal managed by Hawaii Information Consortium, LLC. The company has been doing a lot to put government services online, most recently including new civil union applications, a directory of ‘green’ employers, and an Employee Retirement System (ERS) self-service site.

Even with all the progress that’s been made to modernize government services, though, it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Especially considering the massive volume of information the state holds across its countless departments and computer systems. One private company has been able to do quite a bit already. But imagine what could be done with the help of a growing corps of civic-minded programmers and developers?

With the City & County of Honolulu’s recent focus on open data, I was curious what Gov. Abercrombie’s position was on similar initiatives at the state level.

As luck would have it, the governor was this morning’s guest on KITV, and they invited viewers to send in questions for him. They only had time for two, but fortunately, mine made the cut.

My question, summarized by morning anchor Mahealani Richardson, was this: “With your emphasis on technology and education yesterday, what is your level of comfort and support for ‘open data’ policies? Government holds some of the largest stores of information that’s technically public. Will you push to put State data online so people can use it, build apps with it, and improve civic awareness and participation?”

Gov. Abercrombie responded:

“We have to be able to collect the data in the first place. We have a Chief Information Officer for the first time. And I’ve made a proposal to the legislature that we make a capital investment, not just an operating cost investment, in the most modern capacity for technology transfer of every kind, hardware and software. But that’s going to take tens of millions of dollars in order to do that because we’re so far behind, because our technology capability is so primitive now in the state. But we’re assembling exactly what it will take in order to accomplish that. And I’m hopeful that the legislature will give us a start this year, and then when we come into the new legislative session and new biennium after the election, we’ll have a full across-the-board proposal for that. The questioner couldn’t be more right, we need to do that, but not just for the public as such, we need to do it internally across the state, so the public can have the best possible information.”

He largely re-emphasized the substantial budget requirements of a state-wide technology upgrade, and noted that the state needs good access to data internally as much as the public does. But I was glad Gov. Abercrombie recognized the value and need for open data practices… and that KITV was willing to put the question to him.

Watch the full interview at KITV.com.

→ 2 CommentsTags: abercrombie·governor·opendata

Bookmarks for January 20th

January 20th, 2012 · Links

When I’m not blogging, I’m browsing. Here are sites and pages that I bookmarked on January 20th:

City’s first ‘Hackathon’ to build new tools: The “Hackathon” is a free event that is open to anyone with an idea or an interest in contributing to tools that can better connect citizens with government information and services.
Unconferenz | A grassroots technology gathering: Save the date! Feb. 25, 2012. Be a catalyst. Create an environment for interaction. Provide support for people and innovation. Start a movement.
NASA’s G-III Returns from Hawaii Volcano Radar Study: The study focused on the Kilauea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, the state’s most active volcano, although science data flight lines were flown over nearby volcanoes including Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea, Hualalai and Kohala.
China, India to jump forward in astronomy with participation in Hawaii telescope project: The University of California system, the California Institute of Technology and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy founded the telescope, which is expected to be finished in 2018.
Hawaii Island Beacon Community Launches North Hawaii Hospital Information Exchange: NHCH has pioneered the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) by North Hawai‘i providers and helped to achieve a nearly 95 percent adoption rate—one of the highest for any community nationwide.
Kona farmers want more coffee labeling details: The Kona Coffee Farmers Association said a bill it has drafted would also identify where the remainder of the blend is grown. An example label would read, “90 percent Panamanian coffee, 10 percent Kona coffee.”
UH research vessel returns home safely after taking on water: The Coast Guard was called after water began gushing on board at a rate of 400 gallons per hour. The vessel was about 60 to 70 miles north of Turtle Bay at a research site called Station Aloha.
Molecular pathway may temper heart attack damage: A new study by UH researchers identifies a molecular pathway that may help reduce the damaging effects of an enlarged heart caused by hypertension or a heart attack.
UH Manoa Debuts High-Tech Hospital Simuation Center: UH Manoa debuted a brand new nursing simulation center that is the most modern facility in the nation. It looks and feels like a hospital, but it’s actually on the campus of U.H. Manoa.
First Four Exoplanets of 2012 Discovered: This most recent discovery doesn’t come from NASA’s Kepler space telescope team or any other space telescope, it comes from a ground-based telescope system maintained by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The Tallest Mountains in the Solar System: Earth just squeaks into this top ten list with this active volcano on the island of Hawaii, one of many active and dormant volcanoes created by a hotspot beneath the Pacific Ocean plate.
Astronomers reach new frontiers of dark matter: The team’s result has been suspected for a long time from studies based on computer simulations, but was difficult to verify owing to the invisible nature of dark matter. This is the first direct glimpse at dark matter on large scales showing the cosmic web in all directions.
Another outbreak of coral disease hits the reefs of Kaneohe Bay: In March 2010 an outbreak of a disease called acute Montipora White Syndrome (MWS) was discovered affecting coral reefs in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu. Follow-up surveys found that the disease left trails of rubble in its wake.

Check out all my bookmarks on Delicious.

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On to the Hackathon, Maps at the Ready

January 5th, 2012 · Events, Government, Hawaii, Technology, The Web

This year is looking to be a big year in open data, e-democracy, and Gov 2.0. More information is coming online, and more people are thinking of ways to use it. And mapping and location-based applications will be one of the most interesting areas to watch.

As a wannabe journalist and longtime evangelist for citizen journalism, I’ve been obsessed with transparency and the availability of public information. And the geek in me, in recent years, is very excited by the possibilities in mining “big data.”

But while governments are custodians of some of the largest and most valuable datasets out there, there are countless challenges involved in making them available to the public or the geeks that want to play with them. I’ve documented my own adventures in trying to gain access to public data, which inspired a vestigal attempt at a Hawaii Open Data wiki.

But to its credit, the City & County of Honolulu has been making big plans and taking real steps toward surfacing the data it holds. From the “Can-Do” city transparency portal, to co-sponsoring and actively participating in the first Honolulu CityCamp last month, it seems like people both within and outside government walls want to connect.

And this year brings Honolulu’s engagement with the national Code For America project, which is an ambitious effort to transform government by developing and implementing best practices across the country.

And in two weeks, big ideas are going to be hammered into actual code.

On Jan. 20 & 21, the CityCamp Hackathon will be held at McCoy Pavilion in Ala Moana Beach Park. The plan is to take some of the ideas for online tools, web apps and mobile apps dreamed up in December and build working prototypes that could potentially become important parts of Honolulu civic life. Though something could come up and be built from scratch on the spot, people are already forming teams (there’s a meetup taking place tomorrow) and fleshing out their ideas.

Yes, there is still a lot of data that people want that’s not yet available. And even the city admits that it doesn’t have a comprehensive directory of the data that’s already out there. But maps are one of the most compelling components of websites and apps, and in recent weeks, the city has been putting more of its GIS map data online, just in time for the Hackathon.

Today brought the publication of a four-part “GIS Guide for Honolulu Hackers.” The guide was prepared and announced by Royce Jones on the CityCamp mailing list. Jones previously served as Senior GIS Analyst with GDSI Hawaii and is the head of the Honolulu office for ESRI (one of the world’s leading Geographic Information System firms). The guide was posted in PDF format on the GDSI site:

“Big Mahalo to Royce Jones from ESRI for putting these GIS guides together,” wrote Forest Frizzell, deputy director of the city’s IT department. “This is really great stuff and its one of the first data offerings from the City.”

The guide offers a great walk-through with several screenshots, and links to documentation and live services. I thought it was an interesting read, even though I’m nowhere near technically skilled enough to make use of it. It mostly reveals the potential and possibilities of this kind of data and the things that can be done with it.

If you like daydreaming or brainstorming about that sort of stuff, consider participating in the Hackathon. You don’t have to be a programmer or software developer or even really a geek. A team needs all kinds of people, and if you’re interested in e-democracy, you definitely have something to contribute.

→ 2 CommentsTags: citycamp·codeforamerica·coders·developers·maps·opendata·programmers

Bookmarks for December 28th

December 28th, 2011 · Links

When I’m not blogging, I’m browsing. Here are sites and pages that I bookmarked on December 28th:

U.S. DOE places Hawaii’s Race to the Top grant on high-risk status [PDF]: The State has not demonstrated adequate progress implementing its approved plans in the first year of the grant as evidenced by the Department’s on-site program review in June 2011.
Supernova’s companion star spied by UH astronomers: Institute for Astronomy researchers had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study a newly discovered nearby supernova in 2011. The catch: they had had just 10 minutes observing time to gather information on the supernova and little advance notice.
Hawaii, California removing barrier limiting rooftop solar projects: Prompted by pressure from clean energy advocates, Hawaii and California are quietly working to remove a regulatory obstacle that is slowing a boom in rooftop solar systems in the nation's leading solar states.
Loss of inspectors aids influx of coqui on Oahu: There have been just as many reports of coqui on Oahu in 2011 as the seven prior years combined. This year, coqui-eradication teams have gone hunting twice a week, versus twice a month.
Navy hopes to gain two Hawaiian superferries: The Navy is working with the U.S. Maritime Administration to permit the transfer of the two high-speed vessels, formerly Hawaii superferries, into the naval service of the United States.
2012 Japan Tsunami Debris Voyage: The trip’s second leg will travel due east from Japan to Hawaii through the gyre, a vast vortex of ocean currents where plastic debris accumulates, to cross the “Japan Tsunami Debris Field.”
Earth Must Have Another Moon, Say Astronomers: 2006 RH120 was the first reliably documented example of a temporary moon. But there should be many more examples, say Mikael Granvik and buddies at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.
ILOA Demonstrates Lunar-Based Observation from Summit of Mauna Kea: Google Lunar X PRIZE contender, Moon Express, has designed and is building the International Lunar Observatory precursor (ILO-X) as the first astronomical telescope that will operate on the Moon, looking out at the Galaxy and heavens beyond and back at the Earth.

Check out all my bookmarks on Delicious.

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The Explosive History of Kilauea

December 16th, 2011 · Environment, Hawaii, Science

My family and I love the Big Island. We visit as often as we can, particularly over the New Year’s holiday. That’s not happening this year, unfortunately, making me especially wistful for Hawaii County. But while we won’t be able to vacation in the cool, lush rainforests of Volcano Village, a story in the news has made our regular pilgrimage seem a little less alluring.

Last week, USGS scientist Don Swanson was speaking at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. And his talk focused on a lesser known aspect of Kilauea.

Kilauea volcano has been continuously erupting since 1983, and it has been relatively peaceful through most of recorded history. But that’s a very brief period in geologic time. And after carbon-dating charred plant life dating back over 2,000 years, it looks like Kilauea has been much more volatile, and for longer periods than previously thought.

BBC News declared, “Two-faced Kilauea volcano exposed.” Discovery News wrote of “Kilauea’s killer mood swings.” We covered the story on “Bytemarks Cafe” on Wednesday.

I was interested enough in Swanson’s comments to transcribe the audio of his interview with the BBC. His comments are certainly a good reminder that the good graces of Mother Nature (or Madame Pele) is never something you can take for granted.

“Kilauea is certainly one of the most famous volcanoes in the world. The lava flows, the fountains, the beauty, and it’s not realized that Kilauea is quite a dangerous volcano, too.

Kilauea is a volcano people flock to when it’s erupting lava flows, but people haven’t experienced the very dangerous explosive eruptions from Kilauea that we know it’s had so frequently in the past. When that kind of activity happens, people won’t be coming to the volcano, they’ll be fleeing from the volcano.

Once Kilauea gets into an explosive period, this period can last for several centuries. They’re not just blips on the screen that goes away in a few days or a few weeks. So once we get into that period, then our feeling about Kilauea will be vastly changed from the public’s feeling about Kilauea now.

We think what’s driving the explosive eruptions is generally the interaction with groundwater. Groundwater or surface water is heated up to steam. This is pressurized if rocks are falling in to the conduit and trapping the steam from escaping. Pressure has to build up, then eventually the pressure breaks through and throws rocks onto the surroundings.

There is one exception to this, though. We think about 1200 years ago there was a carbon dioxide driven explosion. It’s largest one that we know of. We’re not sure if that requires any interaction with groundwater, if it’s CO2 driven. These are dangerous explosive events. The evidence for that are the several hundred people that were killed by an explosive eruption in 1790.

Today, 5,000 people visit that area, and probably not one knows of these fatalities that took place 200 years ago, and it could happen again if people are not aware of what’s happening. They should be aware, though — there should be enough forewarning. The caledra will drop to the water table where groundwater can interact, and we’ll know that, and be able to tell people, ‘Don’t come into the area.’ There’d be no reason for people to lose their lives if they’re prudent.

This would be a profound change. The communities at the summit of the volcano would have to be evacuated and remain so. They would simply be abandoned for potentially a few hundred years, and that would have a dramatic impact on the island. Furthermore, so many people come to Kilauea, tourist money is important to the island economy. When people can’t come to the summit, the national park would probably be closed, and that would impact the economy.

→ 2 CommentsTags: eruptions·kilauea·volcanoes

Bookmarks for December 13th

December 14th, 2011 · Links

When I’m not blogging, I’m browsing. Here are sites and pages that I bookmarked on December 13th:

Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano poses explosive peril: Kilauea, the sleepy Hawaiian volcano famed for its quiet lava flows, could awaken into violent explosive eruptions at any time, geologists on the Big Island warn.
Researchers Assess Radioactivity Released to the Ocean from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Facility: Researchers and technicians spent two weeks aboard the University of Hawaii research vessel R/V Kaimikai-O-Kanaloa.
New buoy to keep an eye on the waves: Soon big-wave surfers and spectators will be able to get more accurate information about incoming swells, with a buoy deployed by the University of Hawaii off the famous Peahi surf spot “Jaws.”
Mitsubishi Hands Over Keys to First 2012 Mitsubishi i-MiEV Retail Customer: Representatives from Mitsubishi Motors North America, Inc. made the very first customer retail delivery of the 100% electric-powered 2012 Mitsubishi i featuringMiEV technology.
Maui College leads electric vehicle alliance: The University of Hawaiʻi Maui College is spearheading a cooperative effort on Maui that aims to make the island a green energy model for electric vehicles and smart grids.
Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander programs get grants: Two recent grants to the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo will help support student programs for Native Hawaiians and Asian and Pacific Islanders pursuing degrees at UH Hilo and other UH campuses statewide.
SAIC Awarded $66 Million Contract Amendment by Hawaii PUC: Company Continues to Administer the Hawaii Energy Efficiency Program to Help Decrease the State’s Dependence on Foreign Oil and Improve Energy Security
DRFortress Selects Nirvanix to Deploy Hawaii’s First Enterprise Cloud Storage Service: Nirvanix today announced that DRFortress, Hawaii’s premier managed colocation services provider, will deploy a Nirvanix Hybrid Cloud Storage solution and offer consumption-based data backup and archival services across the Pacific Rim.
Powerful NIST detectors on Hawaiian telescope to probe origins of stars: The world’s largest submillimeter camera is now ready to scan the universe, including faint and faraway parts never seen before.
India’s contribution to telescope planned for top of Mauna Kea could be worth about $150M: Canada, Japan and China have also signed on as partners in the $1.2 billion Big Island telescope, which will be among the world’s largest telescopes.
Most massive black holes ever discovered: Now research suggests black holes in two nearby galaxies are even bigger. The scientists used the Gemini and Keck observatories in Hawaii to monitor the velocities of stars orbiting around the centers of a pair of galaxies.
Hawaii Wildlife Center celebrates grand opening: The Hawaii Wildlife Center is officially open for business, although the bird rescue facility in Kapaau still needs equipment and supplies before it will be fully operational.
Pregnancy is a drag for bottlenose dolphins: Joining a pod of dolphins at Dolphin Quest, Hawaii, just before two of the females gave birth, Noren analysed the impact of pregnancy on the animals’ streamlined shape and mobility.
Astronomers find 18 new planets: This new bounty marks a 50 percent increase in the number of known planets orbiting massive stars and provides an invaluable population of planetary systems for understanding how planets form.
Hawaii Island to Receive more than $1.2 Million to Install Solar Water Heaters: The Hawaii Economic Opportunity Council will receive $1,218,791 to help install 100 solar water heaters and provide energy conservation education to low income families on Hawaii Island
Keck, Magellan & Hubble Telescopes Find Galactic Recyclers: The secret of longevity is recycling, at least for galaxies, say astronomers who have used a trio of the world’s best telescopes to study the uncharted space around vibrant star-birthing galaxies.
Big Island Carbon names Baker as Chief Operating Officer: “Dr. Baker comes to us with a wealth of knowledge and experience that will be put to good use as we complete the testing phase and ramp up manufacturing of premium granular activated carbon at our plant.”
IBA Green to Develop a Proposal for Honolulu: “We believe that our technology can address several issues facing Honolulu, not the least of which is the immediate reduction of toxic Incinerator Bottom Ash from being deposited in the landfill.”

Check out all my bookmarks on Delicious.

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CityCamp Honolulu Advances Open Government Vision

December 5th, 2011 · Government, Technology, The Web

Nearly 150 people — including both city and state government officials and employees, as well as local programmers, designers, artists, and activists — were drawn to CityCamp Honolulu on Saturday. Even though it was the weekend, and even though there was a UH home game on the calendar, it was heartening to see so many people willing to spend the day at a pretty geeky gathering. The objective was to explore ways the government and the community and pool their talents to improve government services and transparency, and grow civic awareness and engagement.

The event adds Honolulu to a growing international roster of 20 other cities around the world. CityCamp is an “unconference,” where all attendees are encouraged and expected to participate and contribute. While there were a few speeches and panels, the heart and soul of the gathering were the breakout sessions, the networking, the early prototypes, and ambitious planning for the future.

The agenda was set collectively, with topics suggested and voted up online, with the final slate chosen on site. Sessions included tracking TheBus, publicizing bike paths, improving bulky item pickup by incorporating “freecycling,” and creating a unified system for city alerts, reminders, and renewals.

Underlying many of these conversations, a need to catalog all the data sets available throughout the city, and the need for support at the policy level. And citing DataSF and San Francisco’s open data law, local entrepreneurs Dave Kozuki and Peter Kay were strong advocates of passing an ordinance that would require that all city data be made available via APIs.

Notable participants included Alissa Black (Code for America), Jason Hibbets (OpenSource.com), Steve Bretches (IBM), Sanjeev “Sonny” Bhagowalia (Hawaii State CIO), Gordon Bruce (City IT Director), Douglas Chin (City Managing Director), and even mayor Peter Carlisle put in an appearance.

The energy, creativity, and commitment was impressive. There was a lot of great conversation, and there were countless great ideas shared — an almost overwhelming amount to process. Fortunately, volunteer students from the UH School of Communications were deployed at every session to take notes, and organizer Burt Lum vows that all information coming out of CityCamp Honolulu will be made available on the official site.

There’s also a Facebook page and a Twitter account to provide updates.

This was just the first CityCamp Honolulu, and it serves as a prelude to next year’s Code For America engagement, and the next event will be a “hackathon” in January to further develop the ideas explored on Saturday. Meanwhile, city deputy director of IT Forest Frizzell has committed to monthly meetups that will keep the momentum going and to introduce individual city departments to the community.

I’ve posted a video documenting the day on YouTube, and a gallery of photos on Flickr:

See Also:

Restoring trust in government (Jason Hibbets, OpenSource.com)
Hawaii joins the “city camp” initiative (KHON)
Social Wire: CityCamp Honolulu (KITV)

→ 1 CommentTags: city·citycamp·citycamphnl

Bookmarks for November 22nd

November 23rd, 2011 · Links

When I’m not blogging, I’m browsing. Here are sites and pages that I bookmarked on November 22nd:

Wave Gliders Begin Historic Swim Across Pacific: Yesterday, four Wave Gliders (self propelled robots, each about the size of a dolphin) left San Francisco for a 60,000 kilometer journey. Built by Liquid Robotics, the robots will travel together to Hawaii, then split into pairs, one pair heading to Japan, the other to Australia.
OTEC International chosen for NELHA demonstration: OTEC International LLC (OTI) was selected to build a one-megawatt demonstration plant by the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) to test the full power cycle of ocean thermal energy conversion for electricity.
Army’s Super Secret Hypersonic Weapon Undergoes Testing: The US Army conducted its first flight test of its new Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW), launching the high-tech bomb from the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai on Thursday.
3D Innovations Assists with Design of Electronic Shark Defense System Device: Wilson Vinano Jr., a longtime Honolulu surfer and owner of Z to A Innovations, LLC has envisioned the Electronic Shark Defense System (ESDS), which omits electric pulses that interfere with the gel in a shark’s nose and keeps them away.
New research could bring changes to seafood industry: Ostrowski says these shrimps have basically been bred to near perfection. In just 21 weeks, they've grown to the size of 20 to a pound. And they can grow in high density so ponds can be much smaller.
Google seeks approval to fund benefit risks through Hawaii captive: Google Inc. has asked the Labor Department for approval to fund benefits risks through its Hawaii captive insurance company, Imi Assurance Inc.

Check out all my bookmarks on Delicious.

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Ready for APEC, But Just Barely

November 7th, 2011 · Events, Government, Politics

After nearly two years of planning and preparations, APEC is finally landing in Honolulu. This week’s events brings government leaders from around the world (including Punahou grad and U.S. President Barack Obama) to the Aloha State. That definitely means heightened security (which will disrupt traffic and other aspects of everyday life), and supposedly means escalated protest activity.

I used to work for PBEC, which interacted with, and sometimes held events in conjunction with, APEC. So I was somewhat familiar with most of the preparations for these “Leaders’ Week” gatherings. They’re not exactly the Olympic Games, but they are a big deal for the selected host country. This year, thanks to Pres. Obama, Honolulu gets to shine on behalf of the United States.

But this is the first time I’ve seen things from the perspective of a local in the host city, and I have to say, it’s been… interesting.

Hawaii has known that APEC was coming since November 2009. While it made a few headlines at the time, things had been pretty quiet for nearly a year. While there were certainly things happening behind the scenes all along the way, it was only last October that a vendor was selected to build the official APEC 2011 Hawaii website. This year, we got the Hawaii Business Innovation Showcase awards, a high school essay contest, and… not too much else.

What has been visible, though, has been an incredible amount of seemingly last-minute effort on the part of the city and state to gussy up the place.

On my daily commute to work, I drive up and down Nimitz Highway, the main corridor between the Honolulu International Airport and downtown Honolulu (and Waikiki). It is a notoriously unattractive stretch of the city, with industrial lots and warehouses built right up against the road, and a half-hearted median with mostly overgrown brush. I think it’s something everyone mentions when they talk about the poor first impression we make on tourists, who are the primary drivers of our economy.

It was only in September that we saw an explosion of activity on this stretch of road. Ratty shrubs and weeds were suddenly gone, replaced with lush green grass and palm trees. The $1.3 million beautification project, after being talked about for years, was finished in about 45 days.

And it looks great… though I wonder how long it’ll be before the weeds return, or before the first tall tree falls and blocks every lane of the highway.

Meanwhile, a coworker who lives in Waikiki noted today how the sprinklers along the Ala Wai Canal, which have been broken for years, were suddenly repaired last week and were now spraying life-giving water throughout the night.

And then there’s the Honolulu International Airport. Its facilities have been so neglected that the dated and run-down condition is charitably described as part of its “old Hawaii charm.” There are parts of the airport that I’ve never seen operating in my lifetime, and you’re more likely to see a bucket catching dripping water than a flower pot. Sure, there was an ambitious “Airport Modernization Plan” announced in 2006, but then the economy and airline industry went south (including the failure of major island carriers Aloha Airlines and ATA).

But last week? Four separate improvement projects at the airport totaling $7 million were completed. Gov. Neil Abercrombie says they weren’t initiated because of APEC, although APEC motivated them to get things done faster. While the international areas of HNL look better, there are still a lot of cracked walls, peeling paint, and leaking roofs elsewhere.

While residents are bracing themselves for the various disruption this week’s events will bring (including the shutdown of the entire length of the H-1 freeway on Sunday), it’s clear Honolulu is putting its best face forward. The city and state government spent millions to set the stage for a successful event. Signs are everywhere, welcoming the more than 20,000 people that the APEC gatherings are expected to bring, along with the $74 million they’re expected to spend while here.

But taking a step back to look at how much we got done in relatively little time also reveals something else. It turns out that this city always had the ability to invest what it needed to in order to achieve the appearance of a modern city and a welcoming visitor destination. We just weren’t properly motivated until now.

What will we see in terms of infrastructure and beautification projects after APEC is over? And will we have even half the conviction of these past few weeks to get to work on things that go more than skin deep?

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