Hack for LA
You can change LA for the better!
Can you design, write, or code? Are you an activist with an idea? You can help Los Angeles live up to its potential at Hack for LA. Everyone is welcome!
Current Projects
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Active
Public Tree Map
Public Tree Map helps connect people to Santa Monica's urban forest. The map includes information about each of the 35,000 trees (and vacant tree sites) in Santa Monica's publicly-owned urban forest (compiled from open datasets, digitized city records, and federal ecosystem services values), as well as tools for users to share favorite trees. To reflect tree plantings and removals, the map updates every day.
Partner: City of Santa MonicaLooking for:Front-end web development (JavaScript, Leaflet)
,Data processing (GeoPandas, Python)
,QA and UX testing
,Appreciation for trees (anyone interested is welcome!)
Location: Santa Monica -
Active
Engage
Engage is a civic participation platform. Currently in beta, Engage makes it easier for residents of Santa Monica, CA to offer their feedback on policy issues that City Council is considering. Engage aims to increase access for community stakeholders who are unable to attend public meetings or may otherwise feel unheard by their local government.
Partner: City of Santa MonicaLooking for:Product Manager
,Project Manager
,UX designers
,React developers
,NLP engineers
Location: Santa Monica -
Active
Not Today - Self-Defense Against Suicidal Thoughts
Not Today is an app intended to help people wait out periods of suicidal thinking without acting on their thoughts.
Links: GitHubPartner: SeekingLooking for:Flutter
,Mobile Development UI/UX
,Empathy and sensitivity with subject material and end users
Location: Santa Monica -
Active
Shared Housing Project
The shared housing team works on creating an efficient & effective solution for matching multiple individuals who experience homelessness as potential co-tenants, and placing the matched individuals in suitable shared housing units.
Links: GitHubLooking for:Graphics Designer
Location: Downtown LA -
Active
Lucky Parking
A platform looking for nearby street parking with least possibility of getting citation
Partner: TBDLooking for:Frontend Software Engineer
,Backend Software Engineer
,Advanced Data Scientist
,Python Enthusiast
Location: Santa Monica -
Active
HelloGOV
HelloGOV is helping grassroots organizations connect supporters to their state assembly and state senate representatives for call campaigns to advocate on the legislation that matters most to their work. The HelloGOV webapp generates a campaign shortlink that can be used in texts, social posts, and more.
Partner: Digital Defense FundLooking for:Looking for folks to help with implementing end to end testing, user testing and outreach, and a UI redesign. All skill levels, all kinds of contribution welcome.
Location: Santa Monica -
Active
Hackforla.org Website
The hackforla.org website is our organization's way of communicating with new volunteers, stakeholders, and donors. This project is a good place to start for new volunteers looking to polish their git protocol skills (branches, separation of concerns, etc.). We are currently in a redesign phase, using CI/CD in the run up to demoing the new version at Code for America's Summit 2020 in Washington, D.C.
Looking for:UI (wireframes)
,Photoshop
,Junior JavaScript developers
,anyone wanting to learn how to do Git commits in a collaborative work environment
Location: Santa Monica, Downtown and Remote -
Active
311 Data
The 311 Data project seeks to empower local Neighborhood Councils to improve the ideation and analysis of their initiatives using the wealth of publicly available 311 data.
Partner: EmpowerLALooking for:Frontend Developers
,Backend Developers
,Backend Lead
,DevOps
Location: Downtown LA -
Active
Host Home
We're working with community non-profits who have a Host Home initiative to develop a workflow management tool to make the process scaleable (across all providers), reduce institutional bias, and effectively capture data.
Host Home programs are centered around housing young people, 18 - 25 years old. Their approach focuses on low-cost, community-driven intervention by matching a willing host with a guest or group of guests, providing a stable housing environment for youths who are experiencing homelessness and seeking stable housing.Partner: Safe Place for Youth (SPY)Looking for:UI (including wireframes, familiar with Figma)
Location: Downtown LA and remote -
Active
LA TDM Calculator
We’re building a TDM web calculator for LADOT. It scores proposed real estate developments in real-time and aims to discourage exceeding parking requirements to reduce the occurrence of single-occupancy trips to new developments.
Partner: LA Department of Transportation LADOT (https://ladot.lacity.org/)Looking for:UI Designer
Location: Downtown LA -
Active
Record Clearance Project
Record Clearance helps people in California with non-violent criminal records accomplish record clearance, expungement or reduction as a result of Prop 47 & Prop 64. The main features include building trust, educating the public about the program and informing those who are eligible for this program.
Partner: NDICALooking for:Research/UX-UI
Location: West Los Angeles -
Active
Equity Language
Equity is a priority in the City of Los Angeles and we want to improve the language used in websites to be more inclusive (of all communities) while also educating the public about exclusionary language.
Looking for:Gender researcher
,Communications writer
,Videographer
,UX developer
,JavaScript programmer
,QA coder
,DevOps engineer
Location: Downtown LA -
Active
Civic Tech Index
Our goal of the project is to create a comprehensive, searchable index of all civic tech open source software projects around the world. We have created the framework. Now our next step is to create a website and other marketing tools that will demonstrate the power of the index and will provide instructions for how to tag and share your github repository in 2 min or less.
Partner: Code for America, Yale OpenLab and many more.Looking for:Fullstack Developer with Node/React knowledge
,Experienced Data Scientist
,UX specialist for testing and conducting interviews with stakeholders
Location: DTLA -
Active
New Schools Today
We’re building a platform for students across LA County to create more accessible school-related apps and web apps. Our desired impact is to make students feel more welcomed and included in their community through an online academic environment created by peers, for peers
Partner: SeekingLooking for:Mobile Development
,Serverless PaaS Expertise
,UX knowledge
,React Web Development
,Marketing/Research
,any high school student or technical mentor interested
Location: Santa Monica, CA -
Rebooting
Food Oasis
The website is focused on individuals seeking food in Los Angeles who need an up-to-date resource about food pantries and meals. Our mission is to update the existing website, foodoasis.la with a simplified UI and verified data. Future development goals include creating functionality for referral services that will allow the end user to annotate and update listings through a peer verification system.
Partner: seekingLooking for:Project Management
,Junior Python developers (2)
,documentarian (UX) - specifically someone to help with the wiki for onboarding and communicating to stake holders what the project is about
Location: Downtown LA -
Completed
Work for LA
Applying for work should be simple—but the application process for the City of LA is confusing and cumbersome. We’re going to make it easier to find the job of your dreams.
Links: SitePartner: Department of PersonnelLooking for:UX
,Writers
,Designers
Location: Downtown LA -
Completed
Railstats LA
Trailstats LA tracks LA Metro trains and generates punctuality reports. Our website enables both Metro officials and the public to easily review up-to-date statistics for LA's 6 train lines.
Partner: LA Metro (https://www.metro.net/)Location: Downtown LA -
On Hold
Jobs for Hope
We compiled job listings from 60+ different non-profit organization websites for the LA County Homeless Initiative and consolidated them into a single database so that it is easier for job-seekers to search and filter for jobs.
Partner: LA County Homeless Initiative; http://homeless.lacounty.govLocation: Downtown LA -
On Hold
Spare
A fun new project project that connects people in need of clothing and other essentials with people in the community who have things to spare. It's kind of like one on one Goodwill. The main objective is to foster interactions between the housed and unhoused. The donation is the mechanism for building these connections throughout our community.
Partner: Hope of the Valley and hopefully others in the near future.Looking for:Front-end development
,Back-end development
,Product Management
,Marketing
Location: Santa Monica -
On Hold
Heart
Heart is a project working directly with the LA City Attorney’s Homeless Engagement and Response Team. The HEART program helps individuals experiencing homelessness resolve eligible traffic and pedestrian infractions and related warrants and fines by engaging with relevant services. Hack for LA is helping them build a database and case management system to streamline their workflow and enable them to scale their program.
Partner: LA City Attorney’s Homeless Engagement and Response TeamLooking for:experienced full-stack developer
,node.js
,react
Have an idea? Submit your pitch
Hack for LA is a great example of how we can harness technology and our city's creativity to solve everyday problems. As Mayor, I will closely partner with our tech industry to create jobs and bring innovation to City Hall so government works faster and more efficiently.
Mayor Eric Garcetti
Press
Want to know more about Hack for LA?
We bring together civic-minded volunteers to build digital products, programs and services with community partners and local government to address issues in our LA region. Hack for LA is a project of Code for America and is it's official Los Angeles chapter.
Contact Us
Are you press and want to get in touch? Are you interested in becoming a sponsor? Want to just check us out on Slack? Looking to volunteer?
