The broad digital civic innovation ecosystem in “Evaluating Digital Civic Innovation In Cities“, a paper prepared by Nikhil Gahlawat and Kristina Redgrave in fulfillment of Master Degree in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School. Snip:
Chicago is comprised of three main players: Chicago city government, the community of tech-savvy community activists (“hacktivists”), and the Smart Chicago Collaborative. The city government opens up data sets and provides support and legitimacy within government. The citizen hacktivists use the data to create civic apps many of which grow out of independently organized open gov hack nights. The Smart Chicago Collaborative – a civic organization committed to leveraging technology to improve the lives of Chicago residents – provides the physical space for the hack nights and hosts the civic apps developed as a result on their servers. While not all digital civic innovation occurs within this described model, these groups represent three of the primary actors in the larger digital civic innovation ecosystem.